Each of us, no matter how reasonable a person, gets angry sometimes. To feel anger is a natural and even healthy response, but to learn to express anger appropriately can be difficult. Anger is a strong emotion, and when we are in the grips of it, it's sometimes very hard to control our response in the moment. However, by giving the subject some forethought, one can develop some useful techniques to suppress a primarily emotional reaction, which allows the necessary period to calm down and approach difficult subjects or situations in a reasoned way.
Think of anger as pure energy, which is neither created nor destroyed, but can be transformed. The real trick is to recognize your feeling, accept it, and then ground it. By grounding, I mean that you do not 'take on' the anger, but allow it to pass through you. So, you feel your anger, but you don't hold onto it. Consider this: people, per se, don't make you angry. While circumstances and situations may participate in stimulating your angry reaction, you are ultimately responsible for your own emotions.
The first, best, and simplest way to learn to control your automatic response to anger is to decide that it's very important to do so.
Having made your decision, you then approach your life with self-awareness. A very wise person once observed, "It's easy to be easy when everything is easy." A big part of anger management is recognizing the signs that indicate that your temper is being strained. Learn to recognize your own warning signs. These may include a lessening of patience, fatigue, a tightening in the chest or other area of the body, facial tics or other bodily indications. We usually know when we are starting to fall down the slippery slope of loss of temper. Because you are self-aware and have determined that you will control this behavior, once you recognize the warning signs, you are then able to remove yourself and ground the energy.
Something important to remember is that when in the grips of anger, one is not able to reason very well. Consequently, it's very important to think things through and make advance decisions about how one will respond to negative stimulus. It has been observed that people who were abused as children will often turn around and become abusive parents themselves. At first this seems counter-intuitive; presumably someone who has suffered abuse knows how debilitating it is. When further considered, the reason becomes obvious - when we are highly stressed, we return to our "old scripts" - behaviors that we've learned by watching other people important in our lives. If you come from a family that tends to be violent or over-emotional when handling difficulty, even if you despise the behavior, you may find yourself reverting to it in times of high stress IF you haven't given some specific attention to installing "new scripts." By this,
I mean making advance decisions, when one is not angry, about specific responses to future situations.
The first tool of anger management is the "time out." Here's how it works. When you start to feel the gradual loss of control that comes with your anger response, the most immediate way to control yourself is to distance yourself from the situation or circumstance. In most cases, the best way is to simply excuse yourself and walk away. Physically remove yourself, and take some deep breaths. Try counting down from 100 slowly. Shift your focus and attention to the counting, and allow your breath to become deeper. Each time you exhale, let a little of the energy of your anger dissolve or release. If necessary, take a full breath for each number that you count. You may find that when you start counting and breathing, your breath will be shallow and the counts will come fast. Use the countdown to slow your breath down, which will help slow your heart rate and calm your blood pressure. School yourself in advance to take the time to do this in the moment. Always reward yourself later for successfully following your own advance plan.
Each time you are able to control your reaction, and let it mellow into a reasoned response, you are winning a small victory over yourself. Conquering yourself is no small thing; it's one of the hardest tasks we face as human beings. Like any other practice, continued application makes for skill. Consider keeping a diary or journal where you describe each incident and how you respond to it. You will learn as much from your failures as your successes. Each small success adds up to a larger victory. Self control is like any other learned behavior; trust in yourself and give it time. You will be well rewarded for your labor, as reasonable people are valued wherever they go.
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