I heard, “It’s easier to be angry than it is to be sad,” from little Adam in The Adam Project movie, and I thought about it. It seems to be accurate, but why? I had to delve into that topic to understand it better, so here we go.

Look back throughout your life and see if you can think of a time when you got so angry, but after you calmed down, you realized that the core feeling was sadness. It often happens when someone dies. As the kid said in the movie, we tend to go to anger because it is easier to deal with it. When we’re angry, we blame someone else. Usually, God, a higher power, or a person takes the fall a lot for the loss of someone we love.  But when we feel sad, we can’t blame anyone else. We have to accept the feeling and deal with it. And that’s hard to do.

People who are angry a lot are sad a lot. Their life seems to bring challenges they aren’t equipped to face, whether because of a poor upbringing where emotions were frowned upon, or they weren’t taught how to process feelings appropriately.

I wrote a suspense novel (not published yet) with a child character showing anger. He can’t control it because he doesn’t know any better. He was never taught how to process his feelings. Most of us weren’t either. I know I wasn’t. The core of the character’s anger is that he’s sad. He doesn’t get good attention and gets hurt by his parents and their living situation.

Without the knowledge and tools, human beings cannot process emotions correctly. Anger generally wins out over others because it’s easier. No one needs to teach us how to be angry. We learn that from watching parents, siblings, friends, etc. It’s a go-to emotion to protect ourselves. However, what we’re really doing is putting ourselves in denial, and eventually, reality bites us, and we have no choice but to face it. Stomach issues, headaches, anxiety, and tension can all develop from feeling anger.

Before that happens, let’s figure out how to live a calmer life where we can deal with life and be okay.

Children get angry quicker than adults when something wrong happens. They have temper tantrums if they don’t get their way. A tantrum is an outpour of anger. They can’t process their feelings yet and go to anger to get attention and results. Most of us learn how to quell our anger as we mature, but if you’re like me, that anger becomes quiet but festers. When we neglect our anger, it turns into depression. Sure, we could function like this for a while, and no one knows there’s a heated anger simmering. It may seem dormant until a kid at a store doesn’t say the right thing, and bam! They get your wrath!

It happened to me years ago at the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble. A young woman working the counter didn’t listen to me after I told her three times that I wanted a tall decaf coffee with room for cream. I yelled, “Do I speak Portuguese?” The poor young woman looked terrified. I didn’t have to go to that extreme, but I did because I didn’t know how to deal with my anger. I felt sad afterward and have since worked to control and deal with my anger.

What I’ve found dealing with the anger is that underneath all that resentment was a sadness I didn’t want to face. When I faced it, the floodgates opened, and I cried every day for months. I didn’t worry that I was depressed because I still felt hopeful and did things beneficial to me, like writing about it, talking about it, and acknowledging the sadness for what it was. I wasn’t afraid anymore to go there and figure out what was causing it.

We probably all have sadness inside, but it has varying degrees. It could be a sadness from not getting the desired job, or that your child is getting older and doesn’t want to hang out with you anymore, or maybe it’s a sadness that a store you liked closed. What makes a difference is how we process it. And that’s the key.

To overcome any sadness, we need to deal with it. I can tell you that it does go away when our minds feel joy and gratitude. When the neighborhood grocery store closed, I was sad, but I had to be thankful there were other stores nearby, too. I loved their store-made Italian bread, which was one big thing I missed. It forced me to learn how to make Italian bread, and I’m grateful for that because now I can have it anytime. When I bake bread, I slice it and freeze it. And then I have a slice here or there when I want it. I try not to overindulge in the bread, but it’s so good, especially warm out of the oven!

If you feel your anger is like a firecracker hoping a match doesn’t find it, you have to find your sadness. Once you do that and figure out how to change your life to overcome it, the anger goes away. It’s just that simple. But I know there’s nothing simple about dealing with pain. Time, patience, and love help to get over anything. Our minds can heal, and our minds control our emotions.

You deserve the best life possible, so take the time to discover where your anger comes from. Once you adjust your feelings and deal with the underlying sadness, you’ll release the pain and begin to heal.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope I’ve given some food for thought.

To adjusting our feelings,

Francesca