Make Destructive Anger Good Anger

Save and Build Friendship Flipping The Focus Switch

Jared Odle
May 03, 2023

Dear Friend,

Mid-sentence I stopped ranting and raving like a lunatic and took a walk. Have you ever had to do the same thing?

Anger is the emotional equivalent of physical pain: both tell us something is not right. Smash your finger with a hammer and it will physically hurt. Smash your well-intentioned compliment into an icy wall of rejection and it will emotionally hurt.

Anger is our personal response to a situation that hurts emotionally. At times, it can be our friend not saying, doing, or behaving properly. At other times our anger can be misplaced because we don’t understand our friend’s motives or our own past makes up a meaning that was never intended.

Anger will come because we are alive and interact with other humans. How will you manage anger in that instant moment when your brain begins to narrow its focus, emotions begin to boil, and your heart wants to leap out of your chest?

More importantly for us, how will you deal with anger with your friends?

Choice 1: Stamp It Down

Stuffers & avoiders.

You know the type. All emotions, especially negative ones, are pushed down into the gut and mind. Personality and upbringing create stuffers. Pushing down and avoiding conversation around anything uncomfortable.

Problems with stamping down emotions:

Real issues between friends are not addressed
Emotions come out later in an unhealthy way
Negative emotions about a person or situation carry over to other relationships
Physically unhealthy

Choice 2: Blast it Like an Over Hot Furnace

Yellers, screamers, throwers, road ragers, and temper tantrums.

You know the people who cannot control themselves. Certainly, there are issues of immaturity, upbringing, and personality, but the results are the same.

Problems with Venting and Blasting:

Not thinking clearly
Damaging a relationship
Stop listening to good reason
Poor judgment results in many bad actions

Choice 3: Fight the Anger, Keep the Friend

I went out for a walk when I could tell I was losing my mind in the rush of anger. Why? Because looking at the faces in the room, I knew they were important to me and I needed to cool off to keep good relationships.

You may be not-so-perfect like me and have lost your temper, in an anger-fit too.

Here’s a way to flip the focus switch:

Look at your friend and remember they are important and you love them
Choose to feel like you are wrong, misunderstood, mistreated, maligned, and every other kind of injustice. Now, take it for your friend whom you love.
Figure out what to do with the amount of anger that you have. Can you slow down and talk? Do you need to take a few seconds to think? Do you need to walk away and process with the promise of coming back and talking?