Title:

Overcoming Emotions that Destroy

Author:

Chip Ingram, Becca Johnson

Summary:

Christian perspective on anger with concrete tips on managing your anger well.

My rating:

4.5 stars

Review:

I have long sought constructive ways to manage angry feelings – somehow, no one in my family appreciates angry explosions, and I don’t blame them! However, Christian perspectives on anger seem to be insufficient: namely, that anger is some kind of sin. I have long ascribed to the fact that anger is a feeling, and what you do with it can be sin … or something productive! 

These authors take this same general approach, defining “anger as a charged, morally neutral, emotional response of protective preservation.” This books is broken into two major divisions, described below. Each chapter discusses the topic, and then summarizes with a short “bottom line” statement. Chapters conclude with questions to consider, making this an excellent book to study in a small group format.

1. Anger: how they define this unruly emotion, types of anger responses, and why we struggle with anger
2. Management: How to train ourselves to respond to anger better, including proactive and reactive steps.

The authors group angry responses into three types of people:

1. Spewers, who aggressively and loudly express their anger
2. Stuffers, who “bottle their anger up inside,” and
3. Leakers, who neither express nor repress, but rather passively act out their anger through sarcasm or “forgetting” to do nice things.

Once they establish these groupings, they go on to say that anger is often (or always) a secondary emotion, basically the tip of the iceberg, and our goal is to find out what is really going on below the anger, such as unmet needs or expectations, or our own hidden insecurities. Once we have identified those feelings, we can address them directly… and find that the anger has “melted away,” so to speak.

At this point in the book, I admit to thinking, “Yeah, yeah, yeah – tell me something I don’t know,” because I had already gotten about this far in my personal efforts. Luckily, they proceeded to do just that (tell me something I didn’t know) as they moved into the second half of the book containing practical methods for coping with anger. I’ve listed below some of the points that were particularly valuable to me, but there are many more in the book, so check it out yourself!

Expressing anger

I felt their approach here was realistic, discussing ways to express anger both directly and indirectly, along with ways to simply discharge your anger (exercise, journalling, deep breaths, etc.) when direct expression is neither safe nor practical.

Stop Emotional Cycle

Ingram and Johnson describe a cycle of response:
EVENT → EVALUATION → EMOTIONAL RESPONSE → BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE
They point out that anger can be headed off at the pass if we slow down our evaluation of the event. For example, if a friend breaks a date, I can evaluate that my friend is irresponsible or that I’m unlikable, either of which would lead to anger. However, I can also evaluate it by realizing they are probably just busy, and (by the way) so am I, so I am free to do other things now.

Minimize Stress + Maximize God

These simple ideas have almost become annoying cliches, but the concrete steps they give for each either great reminders or helpful new ideas: eliminate hurry, downsize expectations, admit your mistakes, laugh more, accept who God has made you to be, trust Him, and more!

Be Angry

In my efforts to work with anger, I’ve often been haunted by the Biblical adage “in your anger do not sin.” They point out here that this verse starts with the words, “Be angry…” It is okay to be angry, and sometimes even expected – God does not expect us to be placid at all times, he just expects us to resolve our anger so that we don’t give room to the devil. This was a profound insight for me.