Archive for the 'Anger Management' Category

To really watch something, such as how anger affects you, you have to plant yourself firmly in the present moment.

The past and the future, where our thoughts so often dwell, must be abandoned in favor of the here and now.

This is the place you are anyway, and where your life is lived out.

How to stay in the present moment?

You do this by following the ways listed below.

By deciding to do it:

You decide you want to understand the heart of the struggle, to fully experience everything that happens when you get angry. You can make this choice any time and commit to it.  

Listen to your body:

The second way to stay in the present is by listening to your body. This is achieved by noticing your breathing, your beating heart, your posture, and your areas of tension.

You observe any significant sensations in your body: areas that hurt or feel hot, heavy, or shaky.

This is not an easy skill to learn, which is why you will be given exercises throughout this book for you to practice everyday, so that you can apply these skills when anger arises.

Acceptance and patience are very much related because both are about allowing what is to be there without judging or responding to it.

If you experience anger and you accept it, you are patient with it.

Patience is the most effective antidote to anger. Look at it this way: If anger is like poison from a venomous snake, patience is the anti-venom that can heal you and keep you alive.

Let’s say that someone pushed your buttons and criticized you. You feel the anger rising; your mind and body are quickly getting ready to defend, justify, blame, and attack. What would be patient look like in this situation?

Patience has a quality of enormous honesty in it, but it also has a quality of not escalating things, allowing a lot of space for the other person to say what they want to say while you listen. You don’t react to what you’re feeling, even though inside you are reacting.

You let the words go and just be there. When you practice patience, you’re not repressing anger; you’re just sitting there with it - going cold turkey with the aggression.

If your life has been plagued by anger, rage, unresolved hurt, and pain, this may be hard for you to face head on.

You may still believe that managing and controlling anger is a way out.

Yet you’ve been down that path, and it hasn’t solved your anger problem.

Each so-called solution; each attempt to stop or slow down the pain, to manage and control it; has gotten you to this place. And you are still angry.

It seems as if the most sensible solution to an anger problem is to control the anger. At least that is what the voice in your head tells you. This voice comes from the belief that anger is dangerous; that it’s impossible to feel anger and still live a good life.

Well…the voice is lying to you. Controlling anger doesn’t work in the same way that control works in other areas of life. In this article, you will learn why. You’ll also learn how to begin letting go of the anger control agenda and get on with your life.

Two Areas Where Control Doesn’t Work

Trying to control areas of your life where you don’t have much control is a surefire guarantee of disappointment and anger.

Some of the common beliefs and misconceptions about anger are:

• Have you sometimes felt that the feeling of anger is unavoidable and that you’d better find a way to let off steam before the anger turns into aggression?
• Have you ever had a therapist tell you to stop holding in your anger?
• Have you ever gotten really mad and had a friend tell you that it’s good to get it all out?
• Have you ever found yourself in situations thinking such things as “If I hadn’t gotten angry and fought back, this guy would have continued to walk all over me” or “If they had treated me with respect, I wouldn’t have yelled at them”?

Even some mental health professionals accept them. Yet, none of them are true. Each is based on a myth. They are harmful because they keep you stuck in self-destructive patterns.

The five basic myths of anger are:

Myth 1: Anger and aggression are natural for humans.

Myth 2: Frustration certainly leads to aggression.

Myth 3: Venting your anger is healthy.

Myth 4: Anger is always beneficial.

Myth 5: A person’s anger is caused by others.

Let us find out how our actions refer to anything we do with your hands, feet, and mouth; how we respond to the thoughts, memories, physical sensations, and feelings dished out by our body and mind.

Let’s say you feel hurt. Then you act on it; perhaps you lash out with blame and accusations, or you shut down by withdrawing. These are both actions.

Alternatively, you might do nothing about the hurt and simply notice it for what it is (not for what your mind says it is).

You focus on doing things in your life that matter to you, even if that means taking the hurt along for the ride. Either way, you’re doing something.

But your choice of actions, in a very real sense, helps define who you are and what your life will be about.

When control works?

Control works very well when you apply it to your actions.

• For example, if you want to clean up your yard, you can go and get a rake and get started.
• If you want to perform an act of kindness, you can do something nice for someone.

Sure, everybody gets angry once in a while, but most people know how to deal with their anger.

Their anger tells them something is wrong. Then they figure out what is bothering them.

They do something to change the bad situation. They check to find out how well their action worked.

If what they did or said didn’t work, they think about it some more and try something else.

If the action worked, they let go of their anger so they can get on with their life. Two types of angers trigger your anger. One is normal anger and the other is problem anger (Anger Triggers).

Here’s how the normal anger chain works. Normal anger tells a person:

• That they have a problem,
• That they need to think about,
• And then say or do something,
• And then check out the results,
• And then change what they do (if the first thing failed),
• Or let go of their anger (if it worked).

The angry person sees things much differently. Problem anger tells a person:

• That everything is a problem,
• That they constantly think about,

All you need to do here is imagine that you are a puppeteer.

Exercise: The Human Puppeteer

• Take a minute to think of the characters involved in a recent anger episode where you were trying to get others to do as you wanted.
• Then, go to your imaginary puppet box and pull out the marionettes, one for each character in the show.
• From your perch high above the stage, you begin to play out the anger scene below you.
• Try to play it out as you would have wanted it to go. As you do, notice how easy it is to get all the characters to do as you wish.
• You can make them bend over, gesture, and do whatever you want them to do. If you think “That person is making a stupid request,” you can simply replace what that person says with whatever you wish them to say in that moment.
• You can get them to think and say what you’d like to hear, and to show emotions that you think are appropriate in the situation. You and only you have control over the puppets.

Many people feel trapped by their anger, unable to retreat or withdraw once their anger feelings are triggered.

It’s like being launched on autopilot into a tight space where there doesn’t seem to be any room for other choices or other ways of responding.

Although recognition is an important start, it is not sufficient enough to get you out of the anger trap.

You will also need to learn a new way of responding to your anger; approaching it and the feelings underlying it, with acceptance and compassion.

Practicing acceptance is an act of kindness toward yourself that allows you to heal and move on with your life.

The Four Steps of Acceptance

By using acceptance, you’re going to meet the fire that fuels anger with active compassion and kindness.

To get there involves a commitment to learning four interrelated steps: acknowledging your anger; accepting the situation as it is; identifying the hurt, fear, and judgment; and responding with forgiveness and compassion.

Step 1: Acknowledge Your Anger

First you need to learn to acknowledge that you are angry when you’re feeling angry. If you don’t recognize or acknowledge anger, you’ll never find out what is fueling it.