So often we’re told that anger is a wrong emotion; one which should not be felt. However, anger can actually be a very powerful and energetic emotion. One which brings energy and colour into our actions. If we allow it to, and if we can do this intelligently.
Rather than judging this emotion as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ it may be very helpful to relieve ourselves of the need to judge it at all and save our mental energy to work with it instead of against it when it arises within us.

Being abused by another person, especially if they have been a trusted partner or loved spouse is bewilderingly disempowering and easy to succumb to. If we can summon anger to assist us in this time of vulnerability, it can sharpen our senses and bring our power back, serving as a wake-up call that this abuse is not okay, and that I need to, and will stand up for what is right for me and my children or just me and myself.

The energy of anger can feel empowering. It can drive us to act with strength and vigour on behalf of ourselves or others.

Being assertive using anger to fuel our behaviour can indeed be very appropriate and can definitely be not ‘wrong’. However, we absolutely have to be mindful of the seductive effect that this new power can have on us, and not be carried away with adrenaline and more anger. It has to be measured, observed with wide eyes, used for good.

Being in control of your anger is further empowering: knowing that you can turn the volume up and down as you see fit with wisdom as your rudder.
Conversely, allowing this new emotion to take us away on an adrenaline-fuelled high of destruction and violence would just be succumbing to another abusive partner.

Anger can allow us to feel justified, especially if we have been’ wronged’. It can help us to regain our sense of self.
Again, using mindfulness, feeling the anger, giving it a name, and looking at it straight between the eyes, raises our awareness of what exactly we are feeling.
It also defuses the power that anger could have over us. The aim is for us to have power over our anger, not the other way around.
Getting caught up in it and being taken down a rabbit hole of who did this to us, how bad they are, how right I am etc etc could sap our strength just as it’s being regained.

It’s easy to get caught up in our story of who did who wrong. It can be the story we hide behind so that others will understand what happened to us and how bad the other party in the war is. But it’s not necessary if we are trying to simply harness the power of our anger in order to achieve what is just.

Lack of mindfulness, allowing mindless anger and rage to take us over, is rarely useful. It can make original issues so much worse. It can lead to our own lowered self esteem as we judge ourselves as ‘also wrong’. It can be divisive and hateful.
Righteous rage blinds us and can be our worst enemy if a peaceful and just outcome was our aim in the first place.

Using mindfulness and remaining acutely aware of our anger, being present with it, tight chest, nausea, palpitations and all, prevents us from ‘becoming anger’ and seeking its adrenaline-soaked refuge.

“It may simmer within as silent suspicion and resentment, or it may explode into violent rage and devastation.” Bhikkhu Bodhi
Practising mindfulness when angry gives us a choice in this.

Repressing our anger isn’t helpful either. Shutting it in a box and closing the lid simply doesn’t work. It comes back to take up our headspace often at a really unhelpful time e.g. when we’re trying to sleep.
Of course, sitting with our seething anger is uncomfortable physically and emotionally. Staying there, in that uncomfortable place, also provides us with the opportunity to reflect on our loneliness, our fear, our vulnerability, so that we can heal our wounds and emerge not just victorious but healthy and able to move on from the injustice of being abused.

When confronted with a scenario that causes an initial surge of anger, we first must understand how to not act reflexively.
Pause, reflect and then act.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom” Viktor. E. Frankl.

When the urge arises in the mind
to feelings of wrathful hate,
do not act! Be silent, do not speak!
And like a log you should remain.

When the mind is wild with mockery
and filled with pride and haughty arrogance,
and when you want to show the hidden faults of others,
to bring up old dissensions or to act deceitfully…
It is then that like a log you should remain.

Buddhist monk Shantideva