By Aleida Lopez Gimenez

Getting angry is a natural response and one of the most basic human emotions. It is an intense experience that gives you a big energy boost to change whatever is agitating you. However, if you let anger take control, it can lead to inappropriate or harmful reactions that can damage you and those around you.

Knowing how to transform anger into positive energy, in other words, passion, is a healthy and effective way to use that boost to make the best out of it. 

What Is Anger?

Anger is a natural human emotion, a reaction to a specific trigger that is usually linked to a deeper cause. As with any other emotion, being angry is not good or bad per se; it's just part of the human experience. Theorists agree that anger also serves different functions that help you adapt to different situations. For starters, it regulates physiological and psychological processes related to self-defense and mastery, and social and interpersonal behaviors.

This adaptative quality to anger also helps you overcome obstacles to achieve goals. It can help you feel motivated to take action to fix the problem that’s agitating you. It can make you feel determined and focused and even strong and confident. Anger can then be a positive force and boost your energy and motivation to work passionately for your goal.

However, anger doesn't always bring positive things to your table. On the contrary, when unmanaged, it can turn into violent outbursts and jeopardize your social relations or turn into an unhealthy suppression of your feelings. Ultimately, losing control of your emotions can damage your relationship with your children, partner, coworkers, et cetera, as well as your mental health. That is why the regulation and appropriate expression of anger are crucial steps towards reaching your social, career, and self-development goals.

Transforming Anger

We all have different approaches when it comes to dealing with anger. Usually, they are categorized into two types: fight or flight. Fight refers to the confrontational approach that, when unmanaged, can become a violent response. Flight means erasing oneself from the situation and, thus, repressing the emotion.

Both of these responses let anger take control. Managing anger effectively means that it is transformed into something positive. Known as "emotion regulation," anger management is a process that involves changing how you experience, express, and modify anger. Managing the intense experience of anger can lead to proactivity, taking actions to change the issue that's triggering the emotion, and acting instead of reacting.

Even if anger and passion can seem like rather opposite feelings, if you can manage the adverse effects of anger, you can channel it to boost your motivation and focus on making a change in a constructive manner. In other words, anger can be transformed into a passion.

Managing Anger

Knowing how to manage your anger is empowering and will put you on track to transform this intense energy into a passion boost. You can use several approaches and techniques to regulate your emotions; you need to try them and find out which ones work best for you. Remember, feelings are personal, and only you can discover how to manage yours successfully.

Here are some approaches that can help you manage your anger:

• Identify the trigger and the cause: Sometimes, anger can be a tricky emotion to identify. First, try to think about where this feeling comes from and pin down the trigger. After that, understand why the trigger is causing the anger so you can work on that. For instance, you can get angry because someone you had to meet with is late (trigger), making you feel that they don't respect your time (cause).

• Be aware of your needs and express them: If you know lack of punctuality makes you angry, let the other person know calmly and explain how it makes you feel.

• Try to understand the other party: Anger tends to come from a self-centered place. Understanding the other person’s point of view or their needs can help us put our feelings into perspective.

• Think long-term: Anger usually comes from an immediate reaction to becoming triggered. However, if you think long-term, you will also gain perspective, and you might realize in the moment that an outburst wouldn't be the right response.

Of course, it's not easy to always rationalize everything, and some triggers or causes are more significant than others. For instance, parenting can be frustrating because your infant or child is not mature enough to understand or respect your needs.

To channel these situations into proactive and passionate energy, you can try some of these techniques:

• Focus on your breath.  Breathing deeply into your abdomen will help to calm your nervous system.

• Change your narrative, choosing positive thoughts and calming phrases instead of the negative ones that pop into your head.

• Take a time out and retrieve yourself from the situation for a little while.

• Decide in advance how you will react in the situations that make you angry; it will help you gain control over them.

• Meditate! Although it’s not always possible to meditate in the moment, forming a regular meditation habit will help you to better regulate your emotions and choose the correct response.

Conclusion

Anger is a powerful emotion that, when managed effectively, can be transformed into motivation and proactivity and helps you achieve goals and better yourself. Finding the right approach for you and practicing emotion-regulation techniques will help you control it and successfully channel it into a passion.