realize that anger is not helpful.”
Neuropsychiatrist Daniel Siegel explains that when we get very angry,
we can “flip our lid,” so to speak, losing the benefit of our critical-
thinking cortex. As a result, the prefrontal cortex, which is important for
emotion regulation and moral judgment, loses its ability to control our
emotional limbic system. The Dalai Lama’s driver had flipped his lid,
and as a result he acted in a rather silly way, causing himself even more
pain. This scene is comical because it is so common. We’ve all been
there. So what is the alternative to “losing it”?
The Dalai Lama then made the subtle and profound connection
between fear and anger, explaining how fear underlies anger. Typically
frustration and anger come from being hurt. The driver hitting his head
was an obvious example. In addition to physical pain, we can also
experience emotional pain, which may be even more common. We want
something that we did not get, like respect or kindness, or we get
something that we did not want, like disrespect or criticism. Underlying
this anger, the Dalai Lama was saying, is a fear that we will not get what
we need, that we are not loved, that we are not respected, that we will not
be included.
One way out of anger, then, is to ask, What is the hurt that has caused
our anger, what is the fear that we have? Psychologists often call anger a
secondary emotion, because it comes as a defense to feeling threatened.
When we can acknowledge and express the fear—how we are feeling
threatened—then we are often able to soothe the anger.
But we need to be willing to admit our vulnerability. We are often
ashamed of these fears and hurts, thinking that if we were invulnerable,
we would never experience pain, but this, as the Archbishop said, is not
the nature of being human. If we can have compassion for ourselves, and
acknowledge how we feel afraid, hurt, or threatened, we can have
compassion for others—possibly even for those who have evoked our
anger.
• • •