Behind Anger Is Always Hurt
Now right on the board right behind me in my office is the words behind anger is always hurt. Now the reason I wrote this up is that I was talking to one of my clients about this. They were talking about how a couple of their staff members seemed to always be angry. They seemed to always be really upset. And then when they’re in the boardroom having conversations, they seem to get more and more agitated. Now they also happened to say that this happens to them at home with their spouse.
Now what I talked to them about is hey look, behind anger is always hurt. Right? You don’t get angry unless something is hurting you. Unless you’re upset. Unless something has offended you in some way, shape or form and when we unpacked this, what they figured out was the way that they were communicating was actually offending the people that they were working with but also they were taking that offensive behavior home with them. And they saw people getting angry and they just got more angry at them and their actual mechanism was to leave. They actually vanished even from their own business as well as their house. They would just storm out the door and then they had more anger.
But what they didn’t realize is that they were matching anger with anger and the reason they were doing it is they were hurt. They were hurt because the people they were working with, the people they were close to were getting angry at what they were saying. And this person, this client of mine, couldn’t actually articulate it what was going on and so they would get hurt. They would get hurt that the people that they were working with and this happened to be his employees at a high level, these were executives in his company were actually getting angry with him and it hurt his feelings. But at the time he couldn’t register that. He just met anger with anger and he stormed out.
Now fast forward, he would go home. The same thing would happen. He would have this energy, this negative energy, he’d bring it home and he would tell his wife to do things and she would get upset. She didn’t want to be spoken to in that tone and that way and then she would get upset which would then cause anger. And she was hurt because of the way that he was treating her. He was treating her like an employee, like a staff member. He wasn’t leaving work in the office where he works, he was taking it home with him. Then she would get hurt, then she would get angry and then he would get hurt and he’d storm out.
It’s important to remember these kinds of things. And I’m sure we’ve all been in that situation where we get angry because someone says something because someone does something or maybe they don’t do something. Now this happens a lot in intimate relationships. It happens a lot to the people we’re closest with. They’re the ones that can hurt us. People you don’t know, they don’t tend to hurt you, they say something, a lot of times it can just rub off your shoulders or go down your back, no big deal. The people that are closest to us whether if you’re a business owner as I am, it could be your staff. They’re like an extension of my family but a family can also bring this up. That’s what people talk about the holidays, that can happen often. But also in your romantic relationships of course and with your kids.
Just remember that when you’re getting angry, behind anger’s always hurt. Hurt of some kind. If you find yourself getting angry, ask yourself the question, and I encourage you to journal this, ask yourself the question is, why am I hurting? What hurt my feelings? I believe it’s actually more manly and it’s a conversation since I coach mostly men, that comes up often, is doing this deep dive, this exploration of work inside yourself takes a lot of courage. Takes a lot of strength. It does for women as well. I think that courage is what really comes forth. It takes a strong person to do this kind of work.
Easy to listen to this. Easy for you guys just to listen to this and for me too and not do anything about it. But doing the work is where you get the results. And so what I want you to also do is consider the next time someone gets angry with you, just look at them like a five-year-old child that’s hurting. This works for me. It allows me to calm myself down and lower my testosterone a little bit so I don’t rise up and meet them in a competitive way. That’s what I used to do. Which is kind of the house I grew up in, brothers and playing sports, being competitive, you rise up against the challenge.
So now what I do is if somebody gets angry I just picture them as a five-year-old and then I’m going geez, inside I’m kind of the dialogue of wow they’re hurting. I give them a moment and I just breathe and I give them, I usually count to 10 and then I ask them, “Hey what’s really going on?” Almost every single time, all their anger dissipates ’cause they’re feeling hurt. They’re feeling represented, they’re feeling heard and they can express what’s really going on and were able to move past it. We actually get closer. Almost every time this happens. You get closer to that person because you’re relating to them.
That’s my tip for you today. I encourage you to journal it ’cause you’re going to find so much more information by journaling this rather than just thinking it and journaling it down when it happens to you especially. For right now if this is new to you, this train of thought of behind anger is always hurt and doing this kind of work then journal it when you’re doing it but also when you see other people doing and it becomes automatic. And this allows you again to author your own story because now you’re in control. You’re in control of the ship. Yeah, you’re still going to get angry, you’re still going to get triggered, things are still going to happen in your life and that’s okay, that’s totally cool. That’s part of being human, right? But now you can catch it quickly.
And that’s the difference that I’ve experienced and what I teach my clients. In a business that can be the difference between getting a deal and not getting a deal. And keeping employees and staff and not. Staff leaves, that a huge expense, training them, and besides just the emotional commodity. I guess emotion’s not a commodity but the emotional aspect of having people leave your team. You want to keep great people around you. And then at home of course and the loved ones.
This is a skill. I hope it works for you. I’d love to hear how it works for you. Please let me know and leave a comment below wherever you’re getting this. And of course, if you’re listening to this right now on iTunes or on a podcast, obviously you can’t comment but reach out to me. I want to know how this is working for you in your business and also in your home life. And as always, please go over to authorofyourownstory.com if you haven’t already, get on the newsletter because we do release extra special tips, tricks and techniques on there to help you up level. And that’s the key. Just keep reinforcing this information and just like an old song that pops up in your head, these will pop up in your head as well and it allows you to just have more control, more balanced and really more fun and enjoy life and be the author of your own story.