The hyper-contagious Delta variant has officially launched the newest phase of pandemic life. This reality, with infections soaring and vaccinated people unexpectedly masking up again, was expertly illustrated on Twitter this week. A viral meme invited people to temporarily turn their shock into laughter by pairing two contrasting images: the future you’d imagined once America reopened and what actually happened when Delta began burning through the country.
Underpinning all of this, for many, is fury. They’re angry at the lost hope, the suddenly heightened risk, and the determined resistance displayed by millions of Americans who’ve refused the vaccine. The unvaccinated may feel frustrated by the Delta surge for different reasons. They may have been working through hesitancy related to a history of medical racism or trying to line up childcare in case they experienced severe side effects. Now they’ve run out of time.
As I wrote earlier this week, anger is a signal that something is wrong. It surfaces when we feel less safe, our boundaries have been violated, someone we love is in danger, or our values are at stake. Anger presents a difficult challenge for most. We must honor the message it’s sending without letting the emotion blindly drive our decisions and behavior. While the answer to Delta-related rage lies in pressuring — even compelling — the unvaccinated to take meaningful responsibility for our collective safety and well-being, anger that festers on its own becomes a painful distraction.
For guidance on how to tackle this stubborn, unpleasant emotion, I called Dan Harris, co-founder of the Ten Percent Happier meditation app and host of its eponymous podcast. (Full disclosure: I’m a paying subscriber of the app.) Harris has spent the past 18 months interviewing experts in human behavior, mindfulness, and meditation, helping podcast listeners process a litany of complex emotions connected to the pandemic. He’s also personally struggled with anger. Like most of us, he knows the satisfying rush of lashing out, and the regret and embarrassment that typically follows.
“I am very prone to anger,” says Harris. “When I act on it, it might feel good for a nanosecond, but if I’m really aware of what’s happening it feels toxic in my veins.”
Harris insists that he’s far from enlightenment. Instead, his approach to anger management is about making fewer mistakes and finding more happiness from moment to moment.
Harris offered a few strategies for learning how to recognize and release anger:
Develop self-awareness
Irritation has the uncanny tendency to sneak up on us. A leisurely drive can end in profanity when we’re cut off in traffic. A conversation with a loved one can turn hostile at the mere mention of politics. A slight that’s reminiscent of previously experienced discrimination can leave us seething.
Dealing with anger means learning to recognize its classic signs, including a surge of adrenaline and increased blood pressure and heart rate. Harris says the emotion shows up for him as irritated thoughts, a “buzzing” in his chest, “restless energy,” and the impulse to say something “sharp.” His meditation practice is what helps Harris observe anger come and go without being “owned” by it.
Harris also finds that basic mindfulness meditation, which involves sitting with and calmly observing thoughts for a period of time, provides helpful counter-programming to more contentious or stressful thought patterns.
After COVID-19, we’re going to need more than therapy
Listen to what anger is telling you
Harris recommends examining what’s beneath anger. It may be fear, betrayal, injustice, or exhaustion. These experiences demand our attention and compassion. They can’t be wished away or ignored, and shouldn’t be. One tactic Harris uses is to listen to what’s prompting the anger in a specific, nonjudgmental, and friendly way.
“There’s a ferocity that comes from that, when applied correctly, that might really help you address the situation in the most effective way possible, with motivations to be of use rather than seeking vengeance or a pound of flesh,” says Harris.
This approach can yield actionable information and lead to important choices, like setting new boundaries with a friend who won’t mask or get vaccinated; advocating for safer return-to-work policies; or taking a break from heated conversations on social media. Such decisions won’t make rage magically dissolve, but they can restore a sense of agency, which is critical for coping with the unpredictability of the latest COVID-19 surge.
Practice self-compassion and loving-kindness
Though Harris is committed to meditation, he’s famously skeptical of what he describes as its “gooey” concepts, including self-compassion and loving-kindness. Yet he’s convinced by research showing that both techniques increase happiness, and he uses them to help “reprogram” his inner dialogue.
“The notion that love cancels fear has shown up in many religious traditions over time, and philosophical traditions.”
Self-compassion is the practice of treating yourself the way you would a friend. While there’s space to hold yourself accountable after a mistake born of anger, self-compassion recognizes that shaming and blaming won’t change what’s happened or lead to a better outcome in the future. The Ten Percent Happier website offers 10 self-compassion practices for COVID-19, co-authored by experts on the subject, Dr. Chris Germer, Ph.D., and Dr. Kristin Neff, Ph.D.
Loving-kindness is the practice of empathy, often expressed through specific phrases, toward yourself or others. Directing loving-kindness toward someone, particularly if they’ve triggered our anger, doesn’t dismiss or condone their actions. Rather, it’s a reminder of our shared humanity and meant to help lift from our shoulders fury’s heavy burden.
“The notion that love cancels fear has shown up in many religious traditions over time, and philosophical traditions,” says Harris. “And it appears from the studies that have been done around this kind of practice that it is a great way to counteract the fear and anger in your mind, and replace it with something friendlier, or the ennobling desire to be of assistance to other people who are in worse situations [than] you.”
Take care of yourself
Harris says he’s less able to manage anger when something is physically or emotionally out of balance. That’s why he sticks to a list of basic self-care strategies: mindfulness and meditation, restful sleep, exercise, moderately healthy eating, therapy, and spending time in nature. Conversations with dozens of human psychology experts over the last year have convinced him that the most important variable affecting our happiness is our relationships with others. For Harris, this insight means taking seriously the quality of his connections and being intentional in his relationships.
“What’s become clear in the course of this is…we are not wired to handle uncertainty,” says Harris. “And yet uncertainty is the non-negotiable law of the universe.”
Harris says that by taking care of his basic needs, he can relax as much as possible into a situation in which he has minimal control. That sense of ease can provide a valuable buffer against debilitating anger.
“[M]y real advice is I want you to be as happy moment to moment as possible,” says Harris. “I feel like you probably won’t be if you’re marinating in nonstop anger, if you’re on an IV drip of rage.”
