Healing Space | How to exit the rage cycle

Illustration by Suneesh K.

It’s a never-ending cycle of outrage. It is exhausting. It is also inescapable. Even if you’re only logging on to track stock prices, it’s unlikely you can miss the calamities kept in circulation through a pop up, a social media update or a news feed. These external stimulants keep us in a loop of anger.

Anger is our response to external threat, violation or injustice. It is a version of the flight or fight response in which the sympathetic nervous system gets activated. As a result, it generates neurochemical responses, like heightened heart rate, blood pressure, which sets off bodily responses like clenching of jaw, shoulders, self-protective thoughts. If you meet trigger after trigger, each adds up to interrupt functions like sleep to enable you to handle the perceived threat. This is an emotional response cycle. How do we break the cycle?

We each perceive threat according to our conditioning. For instance, people with a prior experience of feeling unsafe are likely to be more disturbed by news of a rape than others. The stated stimulant, i.e., the news, triggers emotional responses as dictated by the experience. A disaffected onlooker may only feed sad to hear it, but someone who identifies with the age, relationship, neighbourhood, or some other characteristic in the news, personalises it and thus perceives threat more significantly.

Typically, we express anger passively, aggressively, passive-aggressively, or appropriately. Passive is when we push it into our bodies and minds, sometimes resulting in somatic responses like headaches. We can passive-aggressively displace it. We may read the news item, not react to it, but become irritable to those we meet through the day. It is the internalising of a trigger. Others may become aggressive, trolling others.

How can we avoid internalising the anger when the environment is primed to instigate us? Here are some steps:

1. Acknowledge that you do not control the environment: Outrage tends to set in when you believe the world should be fair and just. It isn’t always, that’s the reality. There are always things, natural or man-made, that are out of control, so it’s important to know that reaction doesn’t alter the facts. Instead look at what you are able to control. You cannot control the floods, but you can contribute to a donation drive.

2. Accept your vulnerability: Most of us do feel violated by what we read. It’s important not to pretend to be unaffected. Note that you do have feelings of fear, for yourself and your family or friends. You put in safeguards but some things that you cannot guard against beyond a point leave you vulnerable. Talk it over with a friend or family member, voice concerns, ask for safeguards, a contingency plan that helps alleviate some anxiety.

3. Watch the blame: Blame is a quest for a culprit who can become an object of our anger. It gives us somewhere to put the anger. Typically these end up being government officials, a partner, or a stereotyped group. Typically most events do not have one causal factor but multiple influences built up over years; a culture of neglect, apathy, that one person cannot shoulder.

The cycle of cause-condition-effect means that what is sown is what is reaped. If you sow anger, hatred, rage, it escalates the cycle. Anger doesn’t beget any real justice, it breeds vengeance and a quick fix. Typically, someone has been put under pressure to show action has been taken quickly and the first available culprit is found, suspended, and life goes on. When we remove blame and use empathy, we are able to inquire into the real flaws of the situation.

4. Look to long-term solutions, not quick fixes: Long-lasting change requires us to move from an eagerness to blame to ask what influences contributed to the problem. Finger pointing within organisations, homes, or governments, rarely achieves this. When you take on anger, you stand up to the threat. But now you are the threat. So the only response possible is further anger. This goes on until someone decides to de-escalate.

De-escalation can only come from the person who decides not to use anger as a reaction but interrupts the cycle with compassion as a response.