How to Deal with Anger When You’re Hurt

We all get a little bent out of shape if things don’t go our way, and it’s not uncommon for us to feel anger at someone who causes us harm. As religious people, we can set up a hierarchy of transgressions, in which getting drunk is a huge no-no, but we permit anger because we feel justified in it. We can cloak our anger as righteous, virtuous, and merited, all the while yielding to what may truly be a vice.

Augustine said, “Is it any merit to abstain from wine if one is intoxicated with anger?” (Augustine) These are words worth remembering. And C. S. Lewis is right in suggesting that we are more than willing to excuse ourselves for our bad behavior when he writes, “It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.” (Lewis)

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. – Proverbs 16:32, ES

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Being betrayed, taken advantage of, taken for granted, or being overlooked hurts. And the anger that results from such pain is an understandable and normal reaction. After all, God has created us as beings who experience and interact with the world in various ways, including through our feelings. But what we do with that anger matters.

Paul, in a letter to Christians in the city of Ephesus, reminds them, “In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” (Ephesians 4:26-27, NIV) Anger isn’t necessarily sinful, but it can certainly provide our enemy with a foothold to lead us astray.

How should we respond to anger when we’ve been hurt?

Acknowledge your feelings

It does us no good to try to hide our own feelings from ourselves. Rather than pretending you don’t feel the way you do, recognize your anger for what it is. Of course, anger often has a physiological effect on us, and we can usually tell when we’re feeling angry.

Anger triggers your body’s fight or flight response in the same way as emotions such as fear, excitement, and anxiety. The adrenal glands flood the body with stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. At the same time, your brain diverts blood away from your gut and toward the muscles in preparation for physical effort.

Your mind is sharpened and focused while your heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration increase. These tell-tale signs will usually indicate that you’re feeling angry, but it matters to admit to yourself how you’re feeling, and to identify the source.

Identifying what’s making you angry is important because of the possibility of displaced anger. You can get angry at your son for leaving his toys out again, but maybe what you’re really mad about is how your boss embarrassed you in your meeting that morning. Your child is, perhaps, an easier target to express your anger toward.

Where is this anger coming from?

If you’re feeling angry because someone has hurt you in some way, it’s easy enough to point to how you’ve been hurt as the source of your pain, and to leave it at that. Is it possible to go a little deeper, though?

When we get angry about something, it’s usually a good cue that that’s something we care about deeply. We don’t usually get angry about things that have nothing to do with us and that don’t have any value to us. But not everything that we attach ourselves to is good for us. Even things that are good for us can become a problem if we handle them improperly.

When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an “idol,” something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore, if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, “What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?” It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger. – Tim Kelle

It’s worthwhile asking if we’re getting angry because an idol of ours is being threatened. That idol can be anything, from a relationship to how we perceive ourselves or something we do.

None of this is to say that the pain we experience when these things are threatened or violated is illegitimate. It is a call to do the deeper soul work and look at our relationship with these things. This allows us to ascertain if it is entirely appropriate, particularly if we’re struggling to forgive the person who hurt us.

Recognize what unbridled anger will do to you and your relationships

Anger can have a profoundly negative impact on us and our relationships if we don’t handle it well. Unrestrained anger can have an impact on your health. The colorful words of Frederick Buechner help us to consider how our anger can consume us in terrible ways.

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past…to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back – in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you. – Frederick Buechne

Research has shown that anger, especially if you hold onto it over a long time, is linked to health issues such as high blood pressure, heart problems, headaches, skin disorders, and digestive problems. Unexpressed and unresolved anger isn’t good for you. You need to let it go.

Not only does our anger have an impact on our bodies, but it also affects our relationships with other people and with the Lord. The 19th-century Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, “Do not say, ‘I cannot help having a bad temper.’ Friend, you must help it. Pray to God to help you overcome it at once, for either you must kill it, or it will kill you. You cannot carry a bad temper into heaven.”

If our anger settles into a disposition toward the person who hurt us and others, it can mar our relationship with the Lord.

Our anger can make people into enemies. While we may not be able to prevent other people from being our enemies, we can prevent ourselves from being enemies toward others. Letting go of anger can help this process.

Express your anger well

Having identified how you’re feeling and having determined where it’s coming from, you should express your anger well. There are a few pearls of wisdom that we can make use of in this regard. John Chrysostom, a 4th-century Christian, once wrote that, “No matter how just your words may be, you ruin everything when you speak with anger.” (Chrysostom)

Our anger is meant to be expressed, but in healthy ways. One sign that you aren’t expressing your anger well is if you resort to violence (verbal or physical) to express or emphasize your point. Explosive anger that erupts and does damage to others is uncontrolled. The flipside of that is that repressing and internalizing your anger is also not a great way to handle your anger.

Consider forgiveness

If you express your anger well, you can consider taking another step, perhaps one that’s much harder than controlling your anger: forgiving the offending party.

• Exercise empathy because you, too, fall short. One way we can take steps toward forgiving others is to see our own shortcomings.
• Forgive as you’ve been forgiven. We can forgive other people who have hurt us because we, too, have been forgiven by God. Being forgiven is a powerful resource from which to draw the strength to forgive others.
• Forgiveness will set you free from bitterness and constant anger. We wouldn’t be able to live well if we held onto the pain and anger elicited by every offense.

Help Dealing with Anger

Anger is a powerful emotion. When someone hurts us, our anger alerts us to that pain, but we should be careful how we respond. It’s possible for our anger to be rooted in idolatry, and for it to lead us into sin, with dire consequences for all involved.

If you find that your anger is controlling you, or you’re struggling to forgive someone who has hurt you, you can consider seeing a therapist. They can help you process your experiences and emotions, providing you with a safe space to express and explore what you’ve been through.

To learn more about the support available, reach out to our reception team to schedule an appointment.