When Self-Value Is High, There Is No Rage

Self-value is often conflated with self-esteem. The latter is how you feel about yourself. Self-value is how you treat yourself. If you value a da Vinci painting, you appreciate its beauty and design, which are not diminished by the aged cracks in the canvas. Above all, you treat it well, making sure that it’s maintained in ideal conditions of temperature and humidity. Similarly, people with high self-value appreciate their better qualities— while trying to improve their lesser ones—and take care of their physical and psychological health, growth, development, and well-being.

Signs that self-value is high include interest in growth, supporting and nurturing family, honoring humane values, and contributing to a better world.

Signs that self-value is too low include entitlement (as compensation), resentment, anger, anxiety, obsessions, depression, inability to value others or see their perspectives, and rage.

Rage is an extreme form of anger, with intense aggressive impulses. It’s caused by a perceived violation of rights, status, or personal boundaries, and humiliation. Ordinary anger rarely turns into rage in the absence of underlying chronic resentment.

Raging people feel like victims of an unfair world. Any ego offense, real or imagined, great or petty, can trigger their rage.

Expressed rage looks out of control, scary, and often dangerous. It can also look foolish. Suppressed rage looks like the body was dipped in thin plaster: rigid muscles, taut facial expressions, distended veins in the neck.

The decades-long trend of increasing narcissism is now veering toward psychopathy. More people long for and celebrate the assault and murder of those with whom they disagree. Still others view brutal terrorism as justified “resistance.”

Rage Versus Passionate Conviction

All my rage-prone clients worry at the beginning of treatment that eliminating their rage would detract from their commitment to fairness and justice. They learn that passionate conviction is the best path to correcting individual and societal wrongs. The evolutionary motivation of rage—to punish, dominate, or destroy—harms us as well as the object of our rage. Rage rises from what we hate; passionate conviction rises from what we love. Rage destroys; passionate conviction builds.

Seeds of Rage

Every rage-prone person I've met (professionally and personally) carried wounds of negative labels or pejorative name-calling. Unsurprisingly, the increased volume of rage in the world correlates with the burgeoning use of negative labels on the Internet and in politics.

In pre-rage states, negative labels determine attitudes more than reflect them. Irritation at the way our partners mow the lawn deteriorates into contempt once we call them "lazy."

Negative labels often become a self-fulfilling prophecy; those we label lazy won't be motivated to mow the lawn. Then, once you're labeled "lazy," it's unclear how many tasks you have to do not to be lazy anymore.

Embedded with bias and prejudice, negative labels create polarization, hostility, and aggression, while suppressing compassion and trust. They signal tribalism and inflame culture wars.

A sure way to get stuck in devalued and negative emotional states is to use negative labels as descriptions of self and others.

The Way Out

Once we stop using negative labels in favor of thoughtful analysis, based on reason and compassion, we feel more intellectually honest and emotionally alive. And we transcend rage.

The most efficient way to increase self-value is to respect and value others. It helps to realize that a little bit of all of us is in each of us. Of course, it isn’t always easy to value and respect others. But the harder it is to recognize the basic humanity of another person, the greater the reward in doing so.

Anger Essential Reads

Why Anger Masks Fear

The Hidden Reason We're So Angry

Look for the Light

Scores of my clients afflicted with episodes of rage describe the onset as a swelling “darkness.”

We grow in light, not dark. We must shine light where there are shadows. When there is no light, we must create it.