How to make anger your ally

Looking for some support? If now is the time to consider coaching (or a CEO peer circle), reach out here.

A Challenging Session

I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. While I knew there was no physical threat present, my body was dangerously close to dropping into fight or flight. Not only was there no physical danger, but I was sitting in a room alone. The only other person present was on the screen in front of me—a long-time client whom I knew extremely well.

He was angry.

"They are fucking us over! They told us they would bridge us if needed, and now I have to choose between their shitty terms or losing the whole company. I can’t believe they are doing this. I can’t believe I let this happen."

He vented for nearly twenty minutes. To hold the space and remain present with him as he shared his rage, I found myself needing to focus on my breath. I placed my hand on my chest. In our training as coaches, we are taught to manage our own nervous systems and minds while helping our clients explore theirs. In this session, I needed every element of that training. But I was determined to stay with my client—to help him explore how we might leverage this anger for his benefit and that of his company.

Anger: A Complicated Emotion

Anger is a complicated emotion for many of us.

Much of this complexity comes from how anger was modeled in our childhoods. In my home growing up, anger was often a catch-all expression for emotions or needs that had gone unspoken or unaddressed for long periods. And anger felt dangerous. It would erupt in altercations with my father, and as a child, I experienced his inner turmoil and rage spilling over onto us, threatening to engulf the family.

Many of us experienced some variation of this exposure to anger as young children.

And what is the lesson? That anger is dangerous. Scary. To be avoided.

Of course, there is no way to navigate life while avoiding anger. So what do we do? We suppress it until it builds up and overflows (into rage). Or we turn it inward and aim it at ourselves (as depression). Often both.

But what if there’s another way to understand and manage, or even benefit from, our anger?

Reframing Anger: Anger as an Ally

Let’s explore a different framing of anger. Rather than something to be avoided, what if we viewed anger as an ally?

One of the most powerful questions I’ve learned to ask clients when they are angry is:

What is feeling at risk?

This question has a way of stopping us in our tracks and inviting curiosity about what our anger is protecting.

Anger is always protecting something—something we value, something we sense is under threat.

Each of us has a protector part. The part that shows up when we sense a threat: to our well-being, our sense of belonging, our power, or something else that matters deeply to us.

When anger surfaces, it presents an opportunity to gain greater clarity on:

• What matters to us and why
• What risks feel present
• What we might do to protect that which matters

However, the work does not stop there. To leverage anger as an ally, we need to learn how to hold it and tend to it—so that it doesn’t run the show and, as it often did in my childhood, threaten to burn down the whole village.

Tending to our anger

Next time you feel anger rising, try this:

1. Notice the anger
2. Write down: What is feeling at risk?
3. Identify the needs or requests you need to make known
4. Tend to your own well-being first
5. Partner with those around you to fulfill those needs

Let's break down each step.

Step 1: Notice the Anger

The first step is noticing. Children deal with anger by simply reacting. Many adults never mature beyond this pattern:

Stimulus → Anger → Response

But we want to move beyond this by introducing conscious awareness:

Stimulus → Anger → Noticing → Choice → Response

Meditation can be beneficial here. Meditation trains us to notice what is happening without immediately responding. Another powerful tool is writing.

Step 2: Write Down What Is Feeling at Risk

When anger arises, take a moment to write down: What is feeling at risk?

You can note this mentally, but I’ve found it more powerful to physically write the threat on paper. The act itself, and the physical artifact, help create the separation and awareness we’re looking for.

Step 3: Identify the Needs or Requests You Need to Make Known

Next, ask yourself: 

What needs or requests do I need to make known to protect what is important to me?

For my client above, it became clear that his and his team’s motivation were feeling at risk because of the potential reduction in their ownership of the company. This awareness allowed us to thoughtfully craft a plan for negotiating their funding round to protect the team and ensure the company’s continued path forward.

When we use our anger to reveal the conversations that need to happen, anger becomes a pathway to greater connection and alignment instead of separation, disruption, and chaos.

Step 4: Tend to Your Own Well-Being First

This is the real Jedi move. We often tell ourselves that we need others to take action for our anger to resolve. But that’s not the case.

When we come to others with unprocessed anger, we get in the way of the connection and change we most desire.

The critical self-work here is to tend to our emotional well-being before bringing our needs and requests to others. This is something my father often failed to do—something I also sometimes fail to do—but something I am learning to do more often. And you can too.

It’s fine, even helpful, to bring anger to others. But we want to do it in a way where we are holding our own experience. It’s very different to sit with someone and calmly express, "I am feeling really angry. When you did [X], I felt [Y]. I need [Z]." That is very different from rage or emotional dumping.

To prepare for a conversation like this, we must first sit with and accept our emotions. Writing, walking, working out—anything that helps us tend to ourselves.

Step 5: Partner with Others in Fulfilling Those Needs

Finally, we can leverage anger for connection and change. Having used anger as our barometer—having identified what feels at risk, tended to our well-being, and observed our needs and requests—we can now bring those needs to those we work with, live with, and do life with. Anger thus becomes a fuel for growth and connection.

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If you, like me, grew up with anger that felt dangerous and overwhelming, the idea of befriending it might feel foreign or even scary. You might even find yourself showing up in ways you once hated. Be gentle with yourself. Change is incremental, and that’s okay. You are not alone.

Invitation for Support

If something important to you feels under threat today, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Please reach out if I can be of assistance in any way.

Looking for some support? If now is the time to consider coaching (or a CEO peer circle), reach out here.

Sending a big hug your way from my desk in Los Angeles.

-Matt