Anger As A Cover-up for Shame
Frequent explosive anger can cause a great deal of havoc in relationships, both personal and professional. Angry people find themselves increasingly isolated. Other people do not want to be near someone who is likely to become hostile or filled with rage.
Families and friends eventually get sick and tired of walking on eggshells with you to avoid getting hurt. The tension and hostility causes frustration and resentment in the very people who you want to support and love you.
You may find yourself the labeled as a ‘bad-tempered person’. And you may also somehow have the sickening feeling that this ‘character flaw’ of yours is going to be stuck with you forever. But the truth is this is not who you really are.
Explosive anger actually comes from a deep sense of powerlessness, inadequacy, and despair, which is another description for shame. The anger outbursts are just a cover-up to avoid feeling shame.
Shame is often initially created when you were hurt and wounded by people who were important to you in some way. As a child, you could have been humiliated and treated disrespectfully in some way. Shame builds up across time and leads to the global belief of “I am unworthy. I am unlovable. I am bad. I am not good enough.”
Such beliefs create enormous tension and the accompanying anxiety that you will be ridiculed when found out. When you are imprisoned by shame, the perceived flaws within yourself are so humiliating that you will go to extreme lengths to hide them. Like flaring up at another person to get them to back off!
It is essential to understand that you were not responsible for the shaming that happened to you as a child, since children naturally believe all that their parents, grandparents, and teachers tell them. However you do have responsibility as an adult now to change those untruths you have unconsciously believed in for so long.
Your anger affects not only your life, but the lives of others as well, especially that of your children. If you are unhappy with the isolation that was brought on by your explosive streak, you can heal those relationships by first healing yourself of those shame-based memories. Once your memories are healed, you will begin to treat yourself and those around you with more compassion. What used to trigger rage in you will no longer affect you the same way.