Anger is often a secondary emotion.
A secondary emotion is a response to a more primary emotion. Hurt is often the primary emotion that triggers anger. Someone who matters to you wrongs you in some way. You are hurt. But the feelings of hurt aren’t very comfortable, so it is much easier to get angry at the other person instead of dealing with the hurt you feel inside. Eventually, however, the feelings of anger aren’t any more comfortable than the hurt, and anger can lead you to respond to the other in a way that doesn’t express your values and can harm the relationship with the person who has offended you.
The key to moving beyond both the anger and the hurt is the practice of forgiveness. In their book, ACT on Life Not on Anger: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Guide to Problem Anger, Georg H. Eifert, Matthew McKay, and John P Forsyth state that when “people fail you in some way, the natural tendency is to feel hurt, used, robbed, or wronged—like they owe you. This is what you get when you don’t forgive—an ever-present debt to be repaid, with you stuck as the victim. This is why forgiveness is vital. ‘Forgiveness’ mean ‘for giving,’ the release of an imagined debt; softening up to the pain and hurt you experience, giving it loving compassion and acceptance, and then letting it go. When you choose forgiveness, you cut out anger at its root and allow peace to settle in” (Kindle Edition, 135).
It is a common assumption that forgiveness is a good thing to do. Most major religious and spiritual traditions teach that forgiveness is important, but often they do not offer instructions about how to do it. Forgiveness is more than a virtue to which you aspire; it is more than a feeling. Forgiveness is a practice and a process. Of course, forgiveness is not easy; in fact, it much easier to choose to be angry than to choose forgiveness. And forgiveness is a personal practice and process; the only person you need to experience the wonder of forgiveness is yourself. You may or may not experience reconciliation with the person who has hurt you; that is a process that takes both parties. But you can experience forgiveness all by yourself.
Eifert, McKay, and Forsyth describe four steps to forgiveness.
1. Awareness: Waking up to your hurt and pain as it is, without judgment or denial.
When you feel the pain of anger and hurt, it is easy to move quickly to judgment. Your attention focuses on the actions of the other person, and you can come to lots of conclusions about their character. It is also easy to move quickly to denial; you act like the offense doesn’t bother you. But when you resort to judgment and denial, you are no longer feeling the pain of the hurt and the anger. This doesn’t mean you get caught up in it; from a place of mindful acceptance, you let it be there and are aware of its presence. This is an important first step because the only way you can know true forgiveness is to experience fully the hurt that has happened.
2. Separation: Softening to your experience using your wise mind while inviting healing and change.
The mindful acceptance described in step 1 puts you in touch with your wise mind. This wise mind is different from the thinking mind which frames everything as a problem and tries to analyze, evaluate, and figure out. Your thinking mind is not a bad thing; it just doesn’t work with internal thoughts and feelings like anger and hurt. From a place of mindful acceptance, you allow all of the judging, blaming, and resentment of the thinking mind just to be there long enough to get some distance and space so you can choose a different response.
3. Bring compassionate witness to your hurt.
Compassion is the different response that you can make from the place of the wise mind. This is a challenging step, because compassion invites you to connect with the humanity of the person who has hurt you. You take the perspective of a compassionate witness. You try to see what life might be like through the other persons eyes. You try to connect with their losses, their faults, their failures, their sadness, their vulnerabilities.
This compassionate stance is not about condoning the other person’s actions. Instead, it gives those actions a different context. With the space that comes from compassion, you are able to sense how you have experienced similar thoughts and feelings. Yes, they are still a person who has hurt you, they are still a person you are angry at…but they are also a person who shares a common humanity with you.
4. Letting go and moving on: Releasing the grudges, resentment, and pain, and then moving forward in your life in directions you want to go.
The first three steps create some emotional space and flexibility in the presence of your anger and hurt. Now, you can use that space to be aware of why you want to be free of this anger and what your life will be like if you finally let go of the hurt. You might find it helpful to focus your attention on your breath. You breathe in, and then, as you breathe out, you can imagine all of the thoughts and feelings and urges connected to the anger and hurt leaving you.
Again, taking these steps toward forgiveness are not easy; they take a lot of courage. You may have to go through this process slowly or more than once. But doing so releases you from the control of anger and hurt. My anxiety specialty page gives you more information about how to deal with anxious thought and feelings like anger.