“Anger is a tragic distortion of an unmet need.”
–Marshall Rosenberg,
Nonviolent Communication
Detail, daily drawing, oil pastels and pen on paper.
I've been listening to recordings of Marshall Rosenberg describing the process of Nonviolent Communication, which he calls a language of life. Rosenberg suggests that when I get angry at someone—judging them to be bad or wrong, blaming them for how I feel, punishing them—what I’m actually saying is that their actions aren’t in harmony with my needs. Anger distorts the underlying message. Rosenberg cautions that given the way most people respond to anger, if I were to express myself more directly, I’d be far more likely to get my needs met.
The idea that anger is a tragic distortion of an unmet need asks me to reevaluate my relationship to anger. To see anger as a wake-up call, a sign that I am disconnected from my needs or that someone else is operating out of unmet needs.
In this light, anger is a reminder to shift my awareness, to not stay focused on the anger itself or the intense reactivity it causes. Whether I direct the anger at myself, which leads to depression and self-criticism, or at another, which leads to blaming and judgment; whether the anger comes at me from another person, which I tend to take too personally: in any of these situations, can I notice the emotion and instead of deepening the judgment against the person who is angry, build an empathic connection? Can I sense the emotion and instead of getting hooked, look beneath it for the unmet need? The need for warmth, love, security, safety, respect, healthy food, clean water, purpose, livelihood, honesty, connection, joy.
In that moment, if I listen for the unmet need underneath the anger, I shift attention away from the emotional energy and the reactions it triggers. I don’t deny it’s there but I cease giving it power to direct my behavior. Instead, I acknowledge what is at the root of the anger.
Behind the scene, in my own way and in my own time, I take care of the emotion and the part of me feeling it, releasing it so it doesn’t linger or build up. Drawing, drumming, singing, dancing, yoga, hiking, biking, stomping along on a dry dusty road, I find ways to safely move the energy through my body and mind. It’s not mine to keep or carry.
To be honest, I’m not particularly comfortable with anger. I’m slowly undoing a long habit of internalizing it in unhealthy ways. And, having grown up with an unpredictably violent father, I prefer to avoid conflict in my relationships. Nonetheless, this discomfort is worth facing because ignoring anger leads to more suffering. Anger builds walls, sometimes for good reason, but those walls push people away. Protecting myself from anger builds another kind of wall. Pretending otherwise keeps me cut off from the important information that anger gives. There are a lot of unmet needs in the world and people get angry. The prevalence of this emotion is a sign that there’s more work to be done, socially, personally, on every level.
Learning to deal with anger consciously is an important skill. To know when it’s useful and not. To know when it indicates an imbalance in power and privilege. To know when it masks pain and vulnerability, longing and grief. Being able to trace anger back to its source reveals the underlying conditions that need attention.
Protecting myself from anger is a poor excuse for ignorance, because I can’t change what I don’t see.
If I can look at myself and others in the face of anger, mine or theirs, and focus on our mutual well-being, then I can be with the anger with less defensiveness and more awareness. Once on the other side of anger, needs can be seen, understood, and negotiated. Communication is possible. Connection is sustained.