Most people grow up hearing the same thing about anger:
Control it. Calm down. Let it go.
But after listening to clinical psychologist Dr. Mitch Abrams talk about anger on the Munn Avenue Muse, I kept thinking about how backwards a lot of that advice feels in real life.
Abrams has spent more than two decades as a psychologist working with athletes, high performers, and people in high-conflict environments (like prisons), and his perspective is surprisingly refreshing. He doesn’t treat anger like some emotional glitch that needs to be removed. He treats it like energy.
His book, I’m Not F*cking Angry: Adjust the Flame to Get What You Want from Life, centers around one idea that instantly clicked for me:
Anger isn’t the enemy. Lack of awareness is.
Anger Is Energy
One metaphor he uses really stayed with me. He describes anger as a “nuclear reactor in your belly.” That sounds dramatic at first, but the more you sit with it, the more accurate it feels.
Anger creates momentum. It sharpens attention. It pushes people to act, compete, build, protect, and persist.
The goal isn’t to shut that energy off. It’s learning how to direct it.
That’s where the phrase “adjust the flame” comes in. Too much emotional heat, and people lose perspective. Too little and they lose drive. Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot where emotion becomes fuel instead of friction.
The Difference Between Aggression and Drive
Most people hear the word “aggression” and immediately picture somebody out of control, but Abrams makes a distinction between reactive aggression and instrumental aggression. Reactive aggression is impulsive and emotional. Instrumental aggression is focused. It’s the determination that helps someone finish school, build a business, raise a family, or finish writing a book after wanting to quit ten different times.
That distinction matters.
Because ambition itself requires a certain level of aggression. Every meaningful accomplishment usually involves persistence, competitiveness, urgency, or intensity at some point.
Why Awareness Matters
Another point that stood out was his emphasis on early awareness.
Abrams said many people don’t realize they’re angry until they’re already fully activated. By then, the body has already taken over the conversation. The real skill is noticing the signs earlier: the tighter jaw, the faster speech, the tension in your chest, the shift in your breathing.
That small moment of awareness changes everything. It creates enough space to respond intentionally instead of emotionally.
What Writers Can Learn From This
As a writer, I also found his approach to communication incredibly valuable.
He writes exactly the way he speaks. Direct. Conversational. Honest. No clinical performance. No overexplaining. And because of that, people trust him immediately.
A lot of nonfiction writing loses readers because it sounds polished instead of real. Abrams avoids that completely. He understands that readers connect to specificity, personality, and lived experience more than perfectly structured advice.
One thing he said really stuck with me: ideas are the skeleton, but stories are the flesh on the bone.
That’s probably why his message resonates with people. You can feel the honesty in the way he writes.
He also touched on something that feels especially relevant right now: how much modern communication strips away emotional nuance. Texts, DMs, emojis, and AI-generated responses all flatten tone and remove context. Human conversation has texture. Timing. Energy. Presence. You can feel sincerity in someone’s voice in a way you never can through a reaction emoji.
That part honestly felt less like a criticism of technology and more like a reminder that real connection still matters.
The biggest takeaway from the conversation was simple:
Anger is part of being human.
When people understand it, recognize it early, and channel it with intention, it becomes one of the most powerful sources of motivation we have.
And sometimes the thought that gets people through the hardest moments is still the simplest one:
“Watch me.”
🎧 Listen to the full episode of The Munn Avenue Muse featuring Mitch Abrams on your favorite podcast platform.
📘 I’m Not F*cking Angry! is available now at:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Bookshop.org
🌐 Connect with Mitch through his official website
✍️ If you are working through your own story, whether it is personal, professional, or somewhere in between, Munn Avenue Press can help you shape it into something lasting. If you are ready to publish your book or audiobook, or are just beginning to explore the idea, visit MunnAvenuePress.com to learn more.
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Happy Writing,
Charlie Levin
Publisher & Founder
