And why you need to be aware of your anger so it doesn’t become your boss.

When I am angry I wonder what on earth I can do to not be angry. My anger disappoints me – I should be able to control, contain myself. I’ve learned it’s not possible to not be angry.

Suppressing, repressing, diverting, or ignoring anger sets up a trap for yourself.

When I get angry, I don’t go drinking, do drugs or resort to anything that might assist in escaping from my anger. I acknowledge I’m angry. I process my emotions. I write about it.

Any distraction from your anger is temporary.

Your anger is right there, waiting for you when you get back, and typically manages to get stronger and deadlier while you are away.

Suppressing anger hurts you and those you love. You just don’t know it yet.

A few weeks ago, a dear friend’s suppressed anger got so suffocating that she couldn’t even breathe.

When all employees in her department got promotion, she didn’t.

She was livid.

Instead of talking about her anger with her husband or her friends or even asking HR for the reason, she suppressed her anger. For weeks. One late afternoon, she doubled over in pain. I am not referring to a sudden onslaught of pain. I am talking about physical pain, a pressure that went from her chest to her back and up her neck.

Her husband thought “she’s having a heart attack”. He took her to the emergency room driving like a mad man.

My friend is okay now.

If you’re like me, sometimes you feel so much anger, you don’t know what to do with it.

But suppressing anger sets up a trap for yourself.

Prior to her collapse, my friend had the same ongoing physical symptoms: pain in her chest, suffocating pressure, and an inability to take deep breaths for weeks. She didn’t talk about her disappointment, her frustration with her husband.

Or with anyone.

She thought she could smile and pretend she is not angry. She thought her suppressed anger will stop burning her heart. She thought the fire will die on its own.

Except…

Suppressed anger is a ticking time bomb.

It will explode. The question is when.

When I am angry, my whole body burns. Trying to yank my body into not feeling what it’s feeling is the equivalent of not listening to myself.

I deserve my full attention. I deserve to listen to myself.

So I mope. I sulk. I cry. (Crying feels both horrible and amazing.) I lie on my bed sitting with what I feel (which, I won’t lie to you, is uncomfortable as hell.) I go on a walk so I can just breathe and move, breathe and move.

It takes me a while. But when I get out on the other side I feel healthier than when all I have been trying to do is evade myself.

Suppressing, repressing, diverting, or ignoring anger leads to passive-aggressive behavior.

Imagine that I am angry at my colleague for commenting on my dark face. When he talks about work, I am in a huff. I grumble. I grunt.

Him: What’s the matter?
Me: Nothing.

This is an example of passive-aggressive behavior.

It’s a slanted, indirect expression of anger or dissatisfaction. This reaction assumes my colleague is an uncanny mind reader. It expects he will know exactly why I am angry.

Except… if I am not stating anything concrete, my colleague cannot know why I’m acting like the worst kind of person to be around with.

If you do not state why you are angry, you create unnecessary confusion and accumulate resentment instead of the ability to layout an issue so it can be resolved and you can move on.

It’s hard to fix an issue you have not clearly identified, outlined or articulated.

Passive aggressiveness implies you pout and act miffed, indefinitely dragging along what you’re angry about, instead of spending your energy in a way that opens and closes the issue, resolving it forever.

It means you start reacting to things that makes you suffer more than you need to.

It means you get stuck in even small transgressions, prolonging suffering and discomfort.

Anger, when unprocessed, is dangerous.

If you do not process anger, it will bottle up inside of you and turn into frustration, irritation – one day perhaps erupting with aggression.

When we are angry, we assume we have broken down, losing our center.

Maybe we have.

But that’s when we need ourselves the most – when a pragmatic solution is neither feasible, nor relevant; when we need the only thing that is appropriate to give – and, ironically, the most difficult to give – our unwavering, unjudging, and fiercely loving presence.

If we allow ourselves to sit with our anger, we will find stable ground, perhaps even higher ground, on the other side.

Anger, whether from racial discrimination or someone cutting you in traffic, is an entirely natural and human emotion.

Conversely, anger, when unprocessed, stagnates and festers. It acidifies, becoming corrosive.

Anger, when unprocessed, becomes harmful, dangerous.

Suppressing anger takes a toll on our mental health.

According to a medical journal, The Lancet, women are more likely to deal with mental illness as a direct result of gender-based discrimination. The World Health Organization confirms depression is twice as prevalent in women than it is in men. Women are also more likely to fall victim to chronic stress, which can lead to insomnia and eating disorders.

You deserve your full attention. You deserve to listen to yourself.

Anger cannot be distinguished at will. It is trying to tell you something. What you can do is be aware of your anger so it doesn’t become your boss. A lot of women I know are angry. We’re talking about it. We’re posting about it. We’re writing about it.

We process our anger. And our anger motivates us to take action.

Action on calling out injustice.

When I say anger motivates us to take action, the anger I’m talking about isn’t the shouting, screaming, throwing hands kind. The anger I’m referring to is the type that lights a fire of righteous rage in the belly. The type that unifies and forces change.

What I mean by processing your anger, I don’t mean punishing someone for violating your sense of right and wrong. I don’t mean aggressive behavior, like taunting and bullying someone, or attacking them. I don’t mean coming up with more lethal slingshots to hurl at someone who made you livid.

Processing your anger is about not being blind to your anger.

It’s about acknowledging your anger. It’s about being self-aware. It’s about doing everything in your power not to suppress, repress, divert and ignore your anger. It’s about sitting with what you’re feeling, even though it is uncomfortable.