If You’re Happy and You Know It Go Get Mad: How Anger Leads to Lasting Happiness

Happiness is The Goal, these days more than ever. Joy, Gratitude, Peace, Happiness… the buzzwords are everywhere. There are funny blogs about them, hilariously crass meditation parodies (warning: not for the easily offended), tongue-in-cheek memes.

But it’s not just buzz and parody… there’s actually something to it.

We’re wired to feel. Feelings are at the foundation of our life-force. They are our coloring box. The Feels are what pull us in to connect in a much deeper way to others and ourselves. Feelings give us direction about our wants, needs, desires and passions.

But full-tilt happiness can’t happen unless we paint with all the colors.

When we understand what we are feeling and why, we can make empowered choices on how to deal with situations.

Note: part of the increased buzz around gratitude, happiness and joy is an effort to create peace during more difficult global, political, personal shifts – it’s an invitation to upgrade our internal operating systems so to speak.

The simple act of tuning in will align you with what you want and need, make connections deeper, life richer. “Negative” feelings are a cue to implement positive change. And great news: on the other side of that tune-in is real happiness – the kind that is such a commodity today.

So let’s upgrade!

Red – it’s the first color of the rainbow and associated with one of the most taboo of emotions, Anger.

Getting MAD is a direct path to getting HAPPY. Nonsense? Think again.

Lots of us get stuck when it comes to anger.

Why? It can be ugly, leave a bad taste in your mouth and depending how it’s handled can lead to feelings of shame afterward. Or, anger, can be of our most powerful tools for creating change in our lives.

Anger feels passionately about making sure things are fair – it cheers for things being done Right. Anger itself is neither bad nor good. It’s the behavior that follows the feeling that can be destructive. Just depends on how you respond to the invitation.

5 Outcomes for Healthy Anger:

Anger can be a motivating force. You sometimes hear people talking about using anger as a motivating force by ‘turning anger into positive energy’. Research has shown that anger can make us push on toward our goals in the face of problems and barriers. It can be used to strengthen our commitment. In the simplest sense, anger may be one of the reasons why we no longer have segregated water fountains, why someone chooses to end a deadening career or why a person leaves an unhealthy relationship.
Angry people tend to be more optimistic and self-confident. It may sound like an odd thing to say, but angry people have something in common with happy folks. Both tend to be more optimistic because they use their passionate life force of anger for Change! They feel more in control and self-confident.
Anger can benefit relationships and lead to enhanced intimacy. Anger is a natural reaction to being wronged by someone else and it’s a way of communicating that sense of injustice or hurt. Problem is, when you hide your anger your partner in life or business doesn’t know they’ve done something wrong. So they keep doing it, and that doesn’t do your relationship any good. The expression of anger, if justifiable and aimed at finding a solution rather than just venting, can actually benefit and strengthen relationships by building trust. So vent!
Healthy tantrums can provide self-insight. Anger can provide insight into ourselves if we allow it. It shines light on our own shortcomings/limitations. If we can notice when we get angry and why, then we can learn what to do to improve our lives. Anger can motivate self-change and give clarity about what is not working in your life. From there you can make empowered choices to change what you are dissatisfied with – it’s the enough is enough mindset!
Managing your anger can be an antidote to anxiety and depression and help prevent illness. When you learn to operate from your healthy anger you feel more in control and self-confident. Anger turned inward leads to depression and fatigue. When you are not using your energy holding on to anger you actually have more energy, which means you are not constantly producing cortisol, the stress hormone. Blowing off steam literally strengthens your immune system.

How do you vent productively? Leave me a comment below – I love hearing from you!

Join me here again soon. Next time I’ll explain why feeling Blue leads to your happiness (yep, diving deeper into the coloring box!).

Want to explore how I can help you get to your Happy Place, sign up for a free Get Traction Now appointment – it’s one of my favorite things to help people see how they can take the driver’s seat to Happy.