Anger And Hatred Are Self-defeating Emotions

A child was always in a bad mood, felt anger and hatred within him and fought with his schoolmates.One day his father proposed to drive a nail into the door of his room every time he argued with a classmate . The boy drove a lot of nails into the door, but because it took a lot of effort, he stopped arguing with his classmates.

The father proposed to drive out a nail for each day that he did not get angry and the boy did, but the father showed him the marks left by the nails on the door and told him: never forget it, anger and hatred leave marks in our heart.

Anger and hatred as a problem

A person may feel anger and hatred as a reaction of irritation or anger caused by outrage at feeling their rights violated. We have all been outraged at times because something unfair has happened in our environment (a politician who has acted fraudulently, a woman who has been mistreated) and that outrage at an injustice is worthy of respect.

But the problem arises when anger and hatred are used as a cover for our fear, of something we have done wrong. In these cases, when outrage no longer has the objective of reacting to an injustice, it becomes a simple manifestation of ego, which demonstrates the impossibility of properly controlling and managing our emotions.

Anger and its causes

According to Raymon Novaco, an expert in anger psychology, anger is an emotion that has an important communicative function because it allows us to express our negative emotions, but it is often confused with aggression, which is a behavior. The limit between one and the other is sometimes complicated.

Novaco argues that there are four essential kinds of provocation that can be the cause of our outrage:

• Frustration or the inability to satisfy a need or desire can generate feelings of anger, such as when , for example, when faced with a bad grade on an exam, a person does not show up for their appointment.
• Annoying events such as  a noise upstairs that prevents us from sleeping, a key that we have lost and cannot find can generate anger.
• Verbal or non-verbal provocations, if we take it personally, can make us angry. A sarcastic comment from a friend. A car that passes us at high speed and uses the horn.
• The lack of correction and injustice such as  an inappropriate criticism of someone towards us or an unjust event such as the death of someone in a violent way, can be another cause of anger.

Symptoms and consequences of anger and hatred

Behind anger and hatred we can find low self-esteem, insecurity, emotional immaturity, self-centeredness, impatience, low tolerance or frustration. After the excessive and uncontrolled anger ,  there is always a child (being immature and thoughtless), frustrated and fearful,  according to the psychologist Bernabé Tierno who, to free himself from his own fear, encourage himself and scare the contrary, uses indignation , rage and destructive violence.

It may be a 16-year-old adolescent or a 50 or 70-year-old adult, his fears lead him to behave like a 3-year-old, capricious and fearful, who gets angry because a toy has been taken from him. Anger is the armor with which a person can protect themselves against the helplessness that sometimes their wishes are not fulfilled. 

The anger and hatred that a person develops can have important consequences such as superficial relationships with other people or based on dominance, the need for obedience, guilt and remorse, loneliness, lack of empathy with other people, belief of always being in possession of the truth.

How to act in front of an angry person

When we are the target of another person’s anger and hatred, it is best to distance ourselves, but sometimes it is not possible and you can take some simple measures to not let the anger and hatred of that person get angry with you:

• Don’t let him attack you whenever he wants.
• Don’t waste time contradicting him.
• Remember that you are the strong and the one who shouts is the weak.
• If the situation can get you out of control, jump out of it and come back for joint reflection when it has calmed down.