So guys, lets chat about a topic that I think we as a society need to address. Before we begin let me ask you this. Do you or a loved on become angry easily? Do you find yourself snapping at others, clapping back at strangers on the internet, and feeling enraged in traffic? Do you find yourself feeling great joy when being petty? Are you barking at your kids and spouse more than you’d like? Well if you answered yes to any of these questions this episode is just for you. In today’s episode we are going to discuss anger and meanness. I’m going to discuss the difference between anger and meanness, reasons you may be dealing with them, and how to handle them. And so for this episode I hope to inspire you to be slow to anger.
So you may be wondering what inspired this episode. We unless you’re living in a bubble, it doesn’t take long to see why I think we need to talk about this. Is it just me or do people just seem plain ol’ angry for no reason now. It’s like everyone is walking around with the “I wish” syndrome just waiting for someone to do something so they can go off. I’ve seen it personally. Whether in the grocery store, in traffic, you can even find this at church. Folks just seem mad all the time. And meanness is at an all-time high! It’s like everyone is auditioning for a lead role in Mean Girls now-a-days.
So I have to ask myself…what’s going on? Why is everyone so mad? Well before I break down a few things that may be contributing to these feelings lets first discuss what anger and meanness really mean. So the official definition of anger is “a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.” Guys, anger is a natural emotion. I won’t even say it is a bad thing. Just like everything, there is a time and place for anger. There are times when you should be angry and if you aren’t angered or even enraged by certain things, that may be an issue. People can be provoked to anger. It’s possible, but the question I’m posing is why are we proved to anger so frequently and especially so easily? Now I promise I’m going to get to the whys and the how’s in a minute, but first we have to address another major elephant in the room…meanness. Ya see, I haven’t lumped anger and meanness together for a reason. They are NOT the same. Where anger is generally defined as someone being annoyed or provoked, meanness it a totally different beast. Meanness is defined as unkindness, spitefulness, or unfairness. aggressive character; viciousness. So while anger is something that occurs, meanness is a character flaw. The words used to describe meanness describe a person who has some very unattractive personality characteristics. Now just like anger, the appearance of meanness in a person may be attributed to a few things so now lets just into a few reasons why people may be so angry and even mean.
1. Reason number 1 is trauma and mood disorders. Guys, if the past isn’t dealt with, it will find a way it show up and anger is one of those ways. Sometimes people aren’t angry about the life they’re living now, but moreso the things they’ve experienced in life before. There are times when you see parents being angry toward their kids based off of the trauma they experienced as a child. Sometimes the thoughts running through a person’s head can be so difficult to process that anger is the way they deal with the world. Some of these individuals may have intermittent explosive disorder where they literally blow up on people without much triggering. I often describe a person dealing with this like this: lets say everyone of us is a pot of water on the stove. For most of us, the stove is off and the water sits cold. When triggered, the water slowly heats up and begins to boil thus then we become angry. For individuals dealing with trauma or a mood disorder their pot of water isn’t cold, it is always simmering, slightly bubbling, thus when triggered it doesn’t take but a few seconds for their water to boil over and they become angry. Many people don’t know it but individuals dealing with certain mood disorders such as disruptive mood dysregulation disorder are easily angered and often have outbursts. Now you may be wondering how to you work on this. How to you get your pot of water to stop simmering so you can stop blowing up on everybody so easily. Well, the best way to deal with this is therapy. Often times these issues run deep and it takes work with a professional to get to the root of some of these issues. Therapy is the best place to work through these issues so find a therapist who fits with you and go visit my website www.mclaurinmentalwellness.com for more information on how to work with me.
2. Reason number 2 is stress and frustration with your current life. Guys, you know when it feels like life is going great and there’s not a cloud in the sky you’re less likely to be angry. But when things are tough, money is tight, the job ain’t it, your family is getting on your nerves, anger and even meanness can show up rather quickly. Life stressors effect all of us. Some people become depressed. Some turn to alcohol. Some lean on God. Some feel anxiety about it and worry themselves to death. And some people turn to anger. It’s their outlet. So if this is you let’s talk about a few ways to handle this. Again, therapy is a great help to process your stress and frustration. In addition, meditation and mindfulness also helps. Learning how to breath when become angry. Learning how to be slow to speak when you become angry. These things help you to manage your emotions better. So give that a try. There are many books on mindfulness and meditation. Try using the calm app to help with meditation. Maybe even go to a yoga class, because we have to get this anger under control. Another way to handle this is to employ laughter. Like when’s the last time you had a legit belly laugh or just enjoyed yourself with those you love? Laughter has been known to help relax your entire body, to release endorphins that help you feel good, and it even burns some calories. If you know that traffic is an anger trigger for you, go on a streaming sight like spotify or pandora and listen to some comedy. You’ll be laughing too hard to be concerned about the person who cut you off in traffic. So give those things are try.
3. Now let’s shift gears a little and go from anger to talk about way people may be mean. While number one and two may apply, I’m seeing lately that popularity is a major reason why people are mean. Exhibit one, social media. Just take a look at the comments section on social media and see when post has the most likes…the meanest, nastiest, rudest one. I get it. It’s funny, it looks cool. It’s all good. Until someone is making those comments about you. Unfortunately we are living in a time where people will do and say anything in order to be popular. Even if it’s just for a second. But often time with this meanness people aren’t thinking about how what they are doing effects others. The best way to address this is to have empathy. I believe that too often we walk around mad at the world thinking that we are the only person with issues. But that’s so far from the truth. Everyone is going through something, sometimes we just have to come out of our cloud of stress to realize it, and to especially empathize with others’ situation. That person with the nasty attitude at the store may have just gotten laid off. That person who cut you off in traffic may be a single mom who’s rushing to pick her kids up from practice so they aren’t the last one left. You know ever what others are going through. So try to keep that in mind guys. This world could be a long way if we all had more empathy toward one another.
4. The last reason why people may be angry and especially mean is jealousy. This one requires you to be truly honest with yourself. Are you being mean to that co-worker because you jealous of her? Do you dislike that class-mate because you’re jealous? Are you mean to that neighbor because she think she’s better than everyone when it’s really you who is jealous? Guys there are a lot of green-eyed monsters walking around disguised as confident women. There are so many women we say they are confident, secure, strong women who tell it like it is, but in reality they are just plain mean and jealous. Let’s be real for a minute here. Men can be mean, but ladies, let’s be honest, we really know how to be mean and jealousy is a big reason why. Insecurities rear their heads and instead of addressing our issues, we project them onto others in the form of anger and pettiness. Doing things to hurt people’s feelings. Well, as the saying goes, hurt people, hurt people. So the next time you go to say something mean or nasty to someone or about someone I want you to check yourself. Ask yourself what’s this really about. Are you jealous of this person? Do they have something you wish you had? No wants to admit this, but if you need a little help I want you to go onto youtube and find Gabrielle Union’s speech on being a mean girl and how it was fueled with insecurities and jealousy. After her speech Oprah even went on to have an episode about it on her show Oprah’s Next Chapter where they discussed this mean girl syndrome. So go, have a heart to heart with yourself and your therapist and figure out where these thoughts are coming from that are causing you to act this way. Now one way to adjust this is to do thought reconstruction. Once you figure out what you’re thinking about yourself and others that causes you to act so mean and angry, you then work on changing or reconstructing those thoughts. This may take some time, but it will be the thing that will help transform.
So guys those are just a few reasons why anger and meanness arise in our lives. Again they are trauma and mood disorders, stress, popularity, and jealousy. After this episode go sit with yourself or your tribe and have a real conversation about whether any of these things describe you. None of this has to describe you. It doesn’t have to be permanent. With some therapy, empathy, laughter, meditation, and thought reconstruction you can go from a mean girl to a girl who’s beaming from the inside out.
So I hope you feel inspired to let go of your inner mean girl and work on becoming the woman that you will truly be proud to be. To work on overcoming past and present experiences that are causing you to be quick to anger. And to try and have a little more empathy toward others. Everyone is dealing with something and your empathy may just be the thing that turns their situation around. So until next time stay encouraged and inspire someone else along the way.