Recognizing the anger of oneself

Let us now consider how anger is perceived from within. You do not need to feel anger right now so that you can compare your feelings with the typical feelings of anger revealed by scientists. I can’t expect that a simple look at a photo of fighting Canadians or a photo of Maxine Kenya will make you feel angry. This is an important difference between anger and sorrow. Even a photograph of a complete stranger experiencing grief causes us concern, which cannot be said of a photograph of a person experiencing anger. If you were there, if this anger was directed at you, you would feel fear or anger, but looking at the photo does not cause you such feelings. Similarly, we feel compassion when we see a suffering person, although we don’t even know the cause of his suffering; but when we see anger, we must first know its source, so that we can show sympathy for an angry individual. ^[133] There are two ways you can experience anger: one involves the use of memories, and the other gives the face the right expression. Try to remember the period in your life when you were so angry that you were ready to hit (or even hit) a person. If you didn’t have anything like this, try to recall a situation in which your voice sounded too loud, and you uttered words that you later regretted. Since a person rarely experiences only one anger, it is possible that you feel fear (of another person or the possibility of loss of self-control) or disgust (of another person or yourself for the loss of self-control). You may have experienced a positive feeling, such as a sense of triumph. Now try to concentrate on those moments when you only felt anger, and try to relive this feeling again. You may find it useful to visualize the scene that you remembered. When you begin to feel angry, let it become as strong as possible. After about thirty seconds, relax and analyze what you felt.
It is worth trying to perform the movements described in the following exercise to concentrate on how anger appears on your face. In addition, if the task of remembering does not cause you to feel anger, you can try to call them with the help of the corresponding movements of the facial muscles.

Imitate the movements of the face that occur during anger. (You can use a mirror to check whether you are performing all the necessary muscle contractions.)

• Lower eyebrows down and bring them together, make sure that the inner corners of the eyebrows are shifted in the direction of the nose.
• While keeping your eyebrows in a lowered state, try to open your eyes wide, so that your upper eyelids rise in the direction of the lowered eyebrows, giving a special look to your eyes.
• After you become confident in performing the movements of the eyebrows and eyelids, relax the upper part of the face and concentrate attention on its lower part.
• Squeeze tight lips, avoiding the appearance of folds, just squeeze lips together.
• After making sure that you can perform the right movements correctly with the lower part of your face, lower your eyebrows, bring them together and lift your upper eyelids so that you get a closer look.

In anger, a person feels pressure, tension and heat. Heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure increase, and your face may turn red. If you do not say anything, then you usually clench your teeth tightly and push your chin forward. There is also an impulse that forces you to move forward towards the object of your anger. These are the most typical sensations experienced by most people. Some of them you may experience more than others. And now try again to feel anger (using either a memory, or movements of facial muscles - depending on what works better), not forgetting to note whether you feel warmth, pressure, tension and the desire to compress teeth.