Anger and the cost of not being heard

"Hitting, blaming, shouting, withdrawing, or hurting others - emotionally or physically - are not expressions of anger... They are signs that anger has not yet been fully expressed" - Marshall B. Rosenberg.

If we were truly angry, we would want a far more powerful way to express ourselves than lashing out or shutting down.

Anger is often treated as something dangerous, shameful, or immature. Something to control. Something to suppress. Something that makes us a “bad” person.

So most of us never learn how to express it clearly. Instead, we leak it sideways.

Through sharp tones we didn’t mean to use.
Through resentment that builds quietly.
Through passive aggression.
Through withdrawal.
Through self-criticism.

And over time, it costs us our relationships, our self-respect, and our sense of safety with others.

When you think of anger, what do you usually do with it?

Most people I work with fall into one of two patterns:

• They explode and regret it immediately.
• Or they swallow it and carry it for weeks, months, sometimes years.

Both are exhausting. Neither actually resolves what’s underneath. Anger doesn’t disappear when we ignore it. And it doesn’t become healthier just because we try harder to “manage” it.

What did you learn about anger growing up?

Many of us grew up in environments where:

• anger wasn’t safe to express
• boundaries weren’t respected
• needs were dismissed, minimised, or punished
• keeping the peace mattered more than telling the truth

So we adapted. We learned to stay quiet. To be “easy.” To not rock the boat. And anger became the only emotion that could hold the weight of everything we never said.

In my work, people who struggle most with anger are often people who struggle with boundaries – not because they don’t care, but because they were never taught how to express needs without conflict.

Anger is a defence – not a flaw

From a neurological perspective, anger is part of the fight/flight/freeze response. It developed to protect us.

Long before modern workplaces and relationships, anger helped us survive threats, defend territory, and respond quickly to danger. The problem isn’t that we still have this response. We’re living with a nervous system built for the jungle - in a modern world where the threats are emotional, relational, and psychological.

Anger today often arises when:

• a boundary is crossed
• a need goes unmet
• we feel powerless, unheard, or disrespected

It is a defence mechanism – often an attempt to protect our dignity, our values, or our peace.

Why anger turns destructive

In nonviolent communication (NVC), there’s a critical distinction between stimulus and cause.

What someone does may be the stimulus. But the cause of anger lives in our thinking and in unmet needs. The same situation can produce completely different emotions, depending on what matters to us in that moment.

When anger is driven by blame – “they made me angry” – it co-opts our energy and pushes us toward punishment. And the more blame and judgment people hear, the less they will care about our needs in the future.

That’s why yelling, blaming, or withdrawing so often backfires.

What happens when anger isn’t expressed clearly?

When anger isn’t understood or expressed fully, it doesn’t go away.

It shows up as:

• escalating conflict
• emotional distance
• loss of trust
• fear of speaking up
• shame about who we are when we’re upset

Eventually, people stop trusting their reactions.

They start believing they’re “too much” or “not safe.” And that disconnection (from others and from themselves) is often far more damaging than anger itself.

Anger as an alarm clock

Anger can be one of our most valuable emotions – if we know how to listen to it.

It acts like an alarm clock, waking us up to:

• a need that isn’t being met
• a boundary that’s been crossed

When we learn to translate anger into feelings and needs, it loses its destructive edge.

Clarity replaces reaction.
Responsibility replaces blame.
Self-respect replaces shame.

And suddenly, anger becomes something that serves life instead of damaging it.

If this resonates, it doesn’t mean you’re “bad with anger.” It means you’ve been trying to manage a powerful signal without the language or tools to express it clearly.

Anger isn’t asking to be suppressed. It’s asking to be understood and translated into something that can actually be heard.