Ways in controlling one's anger - By: Mike Justin
Anger is one of those things that is experienced by everyone. Everyone will lose their cool once in a while.It is but natural to happen. What is not natural is when it becomes uncontrollable.That's the time when you could hurt someone that you love. But not only can it be hurtful emotionally, but physically as well. With that in mind here are some anger management tips for you to use.
Controlling your anger is a tough thing to do. That is why my anger management counseling practice gets so many people with anger issues. But there is hope.Even if it seems like it is uncontrollable there are ways to control it.First thing you can do is to admit that you are undergoing stress.Stress can be one cause of anger.By knowing that you are stressed you will know the ways on how to control your anger.
Another way in dealing with anger is to know how to respond without reacting first. It is one of the biggest techniques I teach for my family counselor San Diego practice. What it means is to think about situations rather than instinctively reacting to it.By thinking about the situation and thinking about how you will react will lead to better response. So you won't be just reacting uncontrollably.
Another thing that causes anger is depression.Usually, if a person is depressed it will eventually lead to anger.The reason for this is because depressed people feel that they have no hope in life and that they become angry at everything. I see this all the time doing depression counselor.So to counter this anger one should solve the root of the problem of that person's depression.
Following these few tips would be helpful in your dealing with your anger. Anger is a hard emotion to control.That is the reason why so many people are being affected by anger management issues.But knowing the root of your problems would greatly help you in recovering your old self. That way you can avoid letting your anger not only hurt you but those you love.
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Anger Counseling - By: Michael Logan
Anger counseling is a many splendored beast. Ever heard that old AA phrase or acronym HALT, for example? The acronym means that we are at greater risk for relapse when we are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.
Hunger, loneliness, fatigue, closed head injury, ADD, ADHD, family of origin, addiction and recovery, grief, forgiveness and reconciliation, automatic negative thoughts, stress, our response to facial expressions, all can play a part in the emotional experience of anger.
We are supposed to have anger by the way, it is the energy we use to solve problems. And it is also a secondary emotion, usually following another emotion like hurt or shame.
However, if we use anger to justify violence I think we subvert the purpose of our emotions.
The one thing that no other anger management program that I am aware of talks about is the speed of the Central Nervous System (CNS).
Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi,Ph.D., author to the book FLOW written in 1993, estimates that the CNS processes packets of non-verbal communication consisting of seven bits of data per package every 1/18th second.
That is 2x as fast as I can blink my eyes, which takes 1/10th second.
So you have to have your anger counseling tools in a place where they can be recalled very quickly.
Paul Ekman,Ph.D. who has worked for decades to develop a systematic catalog of human facial expressions says that all humans no matter what culture they are from, respond to a look of contempt in 1/25th second, and what that means is usually first hurt, then anger.
Any of you who are parents can remember how you felt when your children looked at you with a look of contempt. Even the memory of that look can bring back the hurt/anger emotions.
Michael Merzenich,Ph.D. of the Posit Science Brain Fitness Program says that Senior drivers need to prepare for changing road conditions in 1/45th second, which is about 4.5 times as fast as I can blink my eyes.
I also like to help folks in anger counseling understand that their internal chemistry or hormones change with each thought they have, and that we as human beings have on average about 200 thoughts per day which change our chemistry toward irritation and that we need to be prepared to name our feelings, their intensity, and to make some decisions about changing them much more frequently and much faster than perhaps we thought we did.
Sounds like mindfulness, doesn't it?
Mindfulness, or awareness of what I am feeling coupled with deep breathing gives me a powerful tool to calm down if I am getting to hot.
John Gottman,Ph.D. and his wife, Julie Schwartze-Gottman talk about something they call Diffuse Physiological Arousal, or PDA, in their excellent workshop called The Art and Science of Love, which is for couples.
Their antidote for the awareness or mindfulness issue around strong feelings?
Take your pulse, and if it is over 100 beats per minute, take at least 20 minutes, especially for men, to calm down. Repeat that process as often as necessary.
Another tool that I teach for the awareness and mindfulness aspect of anger counseling in a biofeedback tool, called HeartMath, which trains the ability to regulate the time between heart beats.
When you learn Heartmath, you can feel good on demand, on any given heart beat. Your heart beat is actually a little slower than your CNS, but it is a much shorter intervention time than most of us are used to.
Heartmath is based on research in the recently discovered field of neurocardiology, which is the study of the heart's own nervous system. The heart sends a great deal of data to the brain about how we are feeling, much more than the brain sends to the heart, and the heart's brain is an affiliative and cooperative brain, which is good brain to use in dealing stress.
Heartmath works for your golf score and your brain fitness too.
Anger counseling involving Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) will involve recognition of automatic negative thoughts and disputing them in the case of REBT or creating a flow chart of evidence supporting your hot thought and evidence contradicting your hot thought in the case of CBT.
Once again, awareness will be a key piece of the anger counseling puzzle, but this time of thoughts, not just physiology or pulse.
When I do my anger management workshops, I frequently teach the Karpman drama triangle, or victim-rescuer-persecutor tool, and I teach about the grieving process using the Kubler-Ross model of grieving which includes a frequent movement between sadness and anger during the non-linear grieving process.
It is amazing to me that our culture teaches the grief process so poorly.
So many of my clients have a life time of ungrieved losses and perceived abandonments which impact their ability to trust, and if their CNS is overwhelmed by the physiology associated with a memory, their body may be moving before they can think about taking a pulse.
PTSD fits in this category, along with family of origin issues like physical abuse or child abuse or even witnessing violence.
Anger counseling always involves accountability, and to teach that I routinely ask my clients where they see me, and most of them are flummoxed by my question until I explain that they see me in their visual cortex, hear me in Broca's area, feel the chair they are sitting on in the sensory motor cortex, smell in the limbic brain, ect.
In other words, their entire experience of life is inside their head, and their thought about that sensory experience is what brings the feelings, and we know that thought happens really fast.
No one can make me mad, my thought about things is what makes me mad.
Most of my clients have a hot spot when I call them on this over the course of the workshop, because being accountable moves them out of the very powerful victim spot.
Are their any tools that make your brain more effective for this awareness and choice process?
Yes, a very effective tool to use is taking your pulse.
If you find yourself getting excited, stop and take your pulse. If your heart rate is over 100 BPM, then take a time out for 20 minutes, which is very important for the guys.
Or learn to manage your physiology breath by breath by counting your breaths from one to one hundred, focusing only on the in and out of your breathing.
Focusing on the breath will leave you feeling relieved, aware, attentive, and relaxed.
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Anger management-how it makes families better - By: Mike Justin
One thing about everybody is we have emotions. Some people have the tendency to display more of their emtions in public. For some emotions it is good. Some people show emotions like happiness, excitement, or laughter. Others show emotions of sadness or anger. All people have emotions and they usually express it but sometimes they get out of hand. Emotions like anger belong to these category.
As you have learned in this article anger can have devastating effects on a family. In my practice doing anger management counseling I have seen the effects it can have on a family. It could be very uncomfortable if you live with that person. It could make everybody afraid to say the wrong thing. It make a place of safety into something that is negative. That place of safety is called the home.
It may be surprising but anger sometimes stems from an emotional issue like depression. Whatever reason it may be but the case is that this person is depressed. Once they do not see a solution to a problem most of the time it leads to anger. That is why I advice everyone feeling depression to seek a depression counseling. It is best to stop something before it escalates into a bigger problem which is harder to solve. Because sometimes it just does not lead into anger but into something where they eventually hurt themselves.
Whatever the case may be these two emotions should be dealt with seriously. If you let these two emotions eat your personality then it will definitely get worse for you and your family. It can ruin family life. It can destroy relationships. Being a family counselor in San Diego I stress the importance of good relationships in family life. So obviously I stress dealing with all emotional issues immediately. It can be hard to decide to seek help in someone you don't know sometimes. But this would prove to be very helpful in the long run especially for the person affected.
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If you want to cry - By: Lacey Key
People often think that crying is expression of weakness and is considered embarrassing by many people. What if I told you that crying actually can help some people to heal and feel better. Those who never express their emotions have even more difficult time than those who cry.
If you feel bad and you can't distract yourself from positive thoughts then cry. Cry as much as you want until you stop. Crying itself could distract you from your depressive thoughts because crying can be very stressful for your body. By the time you end your crying your head could hurt, your eyes would be wet and all you would want is just sleep and be peaceful. There are two types of crying. One type of crying is repressed when a person feels guilty about crying. The other type of crying is free from any guilt and reminds more of a sincere child crying. Try to learn to release your emotions and let them go. If you always suppress your negative feelings they can't always go away, so experiment some crying and see what kind of effect it has on you. If crying makes you more negative and feel worse then don't cry.
Some people say they enjoy crying because it makes them feel alive and feel strong emotions. Sometimes women pray and cry during prayers and then they tell how much better they feel after that. Crying could be a therapy for those who need it, but if doesn't help you anyhow then don't do it.
All people are not the same. Some people have very sensitive heart and hurt a lot. If you are one of those sensitive people then learn to live and appreciate what you have. Being sensitive is not always bad. Some people even want to be more sensitive like you, so appreciate what you have. Know who you are and love yourself. If you ever cry never feel embarrassed about it. Crying is not embarrassing. Of course there are some situations when better not to cry but if you cry and nobody gets hurt from it then it's ok. If you cry behind closed doors when nobody sees you but only you and your consciousness it could help you to experience your strong emotions, give you some clarity and bring you peace.
Accept yourself the way you are. Don't worry what others will think about you too much, be proud of being a more sensitive person than most people. Women cry a lot more than men do and women are more sensitive in general. If you are an angry person or angry woman you could cry more. Many women cry because of anger than anything else. If you see a woman crying, don't think that she is just sweet or upset, she is most likely angry. Womens' anger shows through her tears. It's better to see a woman crying than doing any other angry stuff like breaking things or doing something even worse.
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What can you do when your temper causes you physical harm? - By: Dr. Jennifer B. Lagrotte, DMFT
Emotions are a normal part of being human and it is often not recommended that people hold them in; however, it is suggested that people keep some control over them. Control of emotions is important as it is necessary in order to co-exist with others without causing any real disruptions in normal, every day life. How those deal with their emotions is also a matter of what is and what is not acceptable in one's society. Those who are happier people who are fairly easy going will often find themselves with more friends and have, somewhat, of an easier time co-existing with their co-workers and family members. Those who are unable to control their negative emotions, such as a really hot temper, can often find themselves in trouble at work and at home.
Everyone has a temper, it is the kind of temper that each individual has that differs. For example, one person may find that little things will not bother them as much, they tend to laugh more and they do not feel the need to be overly upset at most small difficulties. Those how have quite a temper, however, may feel that they are easily brought to anger with the most trivial things. While most are born with the kind of temper they have in their adult years, there are many that can develop tempers, depending on the kind of life they have had. Life is not easy for most and it can lead to much frustration as things continue to go wrong. Those who are stressed, who suffer anxiety and who have many difficulties in their lives, can find themselves quick to anger with things that for anyone else may not seem that big of a deal. In cases like these, a person has bottled up their emotions to the point where they will explode in anger when something triggers them into action.
Those who have high tempers and who feel they are quick to anger and frustration over many things in every day life need to stop, take a moment for themselves and think about the possible affects their anger could be causing to their bodies. Prolonged stress and upset can lead to the same kinds of problems as constant high stress can. Heart disease or other heart problems, chronic headaches, fatigue, depression, frustration, anxiety and even substance abuse can all be possible side-affects. These kinds of consequences need to be thought about early in life so that these side-affects can hopefully be avoided; however, learning how to deal with one's temper is not always easy. Correctly dealing with temper and anger is something that has to be learned, which is why counseling is often suggested.
Seeing an online counselor or an online therapist can go a long way in helping one to learn how to deal with their daily stresses in a healthier way. It can help them to turn down their temper, and even possible help improve their personal and work lives as they become calmer and more approachable. Online counseling can be accessed from the home, so no one ever needs to know that one has decided to get some online therapy for their uncontrollable temper.
If you or anyone that you know would care for more information regarding this post, feel free to visit http://www.completecounselingsolutions.com
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A Rule of Successful Anger Management: Don’t Express Anger Toward Your Family - By: RichardAllen
Abuse within families is among the most common kind. When marital or family feuds occur, both sides usually have genuine grievances and feel justified in taking vengeance. But their vengeance just continues the cycle of abuse. In extreme forms, this abuse can go on for many generations. Closer to home is the reality that we have to be careful not to let the same thing happen within our own families. Husband and wife or parent and child can get so deeply entrenched in a battle of the wills that they don’t know how to break out of it. They keep hurting each other in spite of their love for one another.
When I was young, I knew a couple who was friends of our family. My dad grew up with the father, Chris. Chris’s mother had a very harsh temper, and as he grew up, Chris took on this mean spirit. He got married to Mary in his early twenties. They each had the same hot temper, maybe even a little worse. Evidently they started out just having little squabbles, but the longer they were married, the worse their fights got. They had four kids, none of whom were spared from these rages.
As the years went by the abuse escalated. Finally one day when Chris was at work, Mary broke the arm of one of their children in a fit of rage. She didn’t realize how out of control she’d gotten with her anger; I’m not sure she ever realized how inappropriate her behavior was. She was very sorry about the broken arm, but they did not seek medical attention for their son Teddy because no one outside the family knew about the incident. The shame was so intense that they even denied their child the medical treatment he needed just so that they could cover up for themselves. Many years later, Chris told my dad the story, and that is how I learned what happened.
How did it get that bad? You’ve probably heard the analogy of the frog and the pot of boiling water. If you put a frog in a pot of hot water, it will jump out immediately and save itself. But if you put a frog in a pot of cool water and heat it very gradually, the frog gets used to the temperature little by little and doesn’t detect the danger. It will sit there and boil to death. That is essentially what happened to Chris and his wife. The conflict and violence in their home escalated gradually until Teddy really got hurt. They were at the boiling point and never even saw it coming.
Perhaps you have greatly injured another person by lashing back at them in anger. During the time of your angry outburst, you probably felt justified in your reaction. You might say, “My son was caught smoking pot at school and I told him I wish he’d never been born.” Or I’ve heard men tell me “My wife was screaming and I warned her that she’d better shut up before I slapped her.” Or as children regularly say, “She hit me first!” So what is wrong with hurting another person if that person hurt you first? Much. When you choose to hurt another person, you have to live with the consequences of your behavior, not just the external consequences to your relationship with that person, but the internal consequences of living with what you’ve done.
Each time you hurt another person, you create one more thing that you have to forgive yourself for. And forgiving oneself is the most daunting obstacle that exists on the path to healing. The reason it’s so difficult is that when you hurt another in anger, no matter how justified you may feel at the time, later shame will creep in. Shame is like a little voice that follows you around and whispers in your ear telling you that you don’t deserve a good life. If you’re not very careful, shame will sabotage your healing and keep you
from getting well.
For many years I have seen people try to justify their abusive behavior. This kind of rationalization is a poor substitute for self-forgiveness. It is based on self-deception rather than on acceptance and repentance. Regardless of how hard you try to rationalize your guilt away, you carry with you the knowledge of what you have done. It is like a big pimple on your face: you have to spend a great deal of time and effort constantly covering it up so that it isn’t the first thing you see when you look in the mirror. The worse your offense, the larger the blemish is.
You cannot be truly happy unless you can be honest with yourself. People who have been very abusive to others have trouble doing this because when they start looking inside, they generally encounter self-hatred and shy away. If you will not grapple with the shame and allow yourself to feel the pain and anger (which are the psyche’s natural responses to your own failure), then you cannot feel happy either, at least not naturally.
The more things you do to harm others, the more shame you have to heal from. As surprising as it is, time and time again I have found it to be true that the most important factor in a victim’s recovery from abuse is not what happened to him or her, but rather what he or she did in response to what happened.
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The Benefits of Doing Anger Work - By: Dr. Robert Puff
The benefits of doing Anger Work are beyond measure. Instead of following in the footsteps of dysfunctional family role models you can find the freedom to break out of those behavior patterns and become the “you” that you have always wanted to be. Instead of sabotaging your own happiness by repressing your anger (which undermines your physical and emotional health via stress-related illness, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and/or depression) or exploding in anger (which fractures relationships in your life, and causes you to be hounded by guilt), now you can be proactive about resolving your own anger. You can get mad and get over it, without all the lingering side-effects.
As with anything in life that is truly worthwhile, there is a cost. Now that you have your anger work tools, I encourage you to be brave and think about your past, as much of it as you can, and see what you find. Get out your old photo albums, talk to your old friends and family about your life, or go visit some place in your past and see what feelings arise. Getting these old feelings to surface and then dealing with them via Anger Work is comparable to clearing all the moldy, disgusting leftovers out of your emotional refrigerator. Doing this type of emotional backtracking is a very serious, though fruitful endeavor.
The price of your healing is that you will need to invest your time and energy in this project. Financial success, owning a nice home, having a good reputation in your field of work, and finding your soul mate are all worthy goals. However, it is possible to have all those and still be unhappy because of depression, anxiety, or other symptoms that come from unresolved emotional issues. Your level of emotional health is the filter through which the rest of your life experiences are perceived. I urge you to ask yourself this question: is there anything more worthy of your time and attention than your own emotional well-being?
Take a moment and think of any person who has achieved greatness, not someone who has inherited riches or won the lottery, but someone who has achieved his or her own goals. How was the person able to accomplish so much? Personal commitment, hard work, and perseverance undoubtedly played a great role. Some of you may think that success has more to do with having good luck or good genes. I encourage you to read the biographies of two or three of your favorite successful people. Read about Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Oprah Winfrey, Isaac Newton, Michael Jordan, or Marie Curie and see what the important factors were in their lives. You will learn that people who are great achievers are very motivated and work hard to achieve their goals. They spent lots of time and energy developing and maintaining their skills. Achievement of any kind takes time and work. Make it your highest possible goal to heal from the abuses of your past and become fully you (the “you” you were intended to be, not the one you may have become as a result of being battered by life). To accomplish this you will need to do a lot of soul searching. Most people avoid their feelings because they lack the tools necessary to process painful and traumatic events. That is why so many people who were abused as children turn to addictive behavior. You are no longer in that predicament.
Now you know what you have to do to work out those emotions and heal. You simply have to be committed to your own health and make it happen. This entails taking time weekly, or better yet daily, to focus on your repressed feelings and heal them with Anger Work. Of course, the more you work on eliminating your emotional baggage, the quicker you will lighten your load. You will reap great rewards if you will spend the time.
For many of you, this will mean a lot of changes in you life. Usually, our lives are replete with responsibilities and activities that leave little or no time for self-reflection and Anger Work. In order to carve the time out of your schedule you may have to get good at putting together two letters of the alphabet, “N” and “O.” One of my greatest struggles as a therapist is to get people to say “no” to activities so they have time for Anger Work. If you are serious about your emotional health, then you need time to work on it. Saying “no” may not make you popular with others, but not saying “no” has consequences too. You may deceptively appear to be in good health for a while, but your body systems are slowly deteriorating.
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Anger Work Through Screaming - By: Dr. Robert Puff
Another popular way to do Anger Work is through scream release work. There are two ways to go about this. The first technique is rather simple: just let out a yell. In my own therapy, when I was finally able to scream, I was sure that the world was going to come to an end. I still remember screaming as I was driving in my car. I was so surprised to find that I was fine and felt much better. I had had several years of therapy and lots of Anger Work prior to coming to this point, so you may not get the same intense release of emotion at first. But letting go of your deep inner anger can be very satisfying. Please be a little careful or you may lose your voice as I did the first time I tried screaming.
The second scream technique is to pretend that you are yelling at the person who has hurt you. Gestalt therapy has used this therapeutic technique for years. A Gestalt therapist puts an empty chair in front of his or her patient and has the patient “talk to” the abuser. You may do this or just pretend that the person can hear you. Go ahead and say what you think about what he or she did. Tell the “person” why you are upset and how he or she has hurt you.
Many people are, of course, afraid that other people may hear them and wonder what they will think. This is a valid concern for which I have found several remedies. First, you can find a pillow or two, and scream into them. Add on more if you think that others can hear you. The noise may sound a little loud to you, but you can tape record or ask a close friend to listen to the sound to ensure that it’s not loud enough for anyone to hear.
Secondly, you can scream while driving alone in your car, if you have one. While driving at a normal speed with the windows up no one will hear you. However, you must also concentrate on driving to ensure that you don’t lose control.
Thirdly, you could go to a musical concert or sporting event where screaming is part of the ambiance and have freedom to yell. Everyone else will think you’re just a devoted fan!
A fourth way that I have found effective is to go somewhere in the wilderness where you are alone and let your angry voice ring through the hills. I am an outdoor person, and once in a while I will go backpacking during the winter in the mountains where no one is around. At night I am always totally alone except for the few animals that inhabit the wild. This provides the perfect opportunity for scream release Anger Work, if I need it. Please, however, get training and experience through training and experience before venturing out on your own in the wild.
One of my clients walks and screams along the beach when there is no one around and when the waves are crashing, drowning out the sound of her voice. She “talks to” the abuser in a loud voice, telling him how furious she is at him. Screaming under water is another great way to express anger in solitude. No one will hear you. As you can see, there are many creative and effective ways to do scream release Anger Work.
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Why We Choose Anger (And How To Take Another Road) - By: Geeta Singh
Anger has turned into an epidemic in our world today. It is crucial to take a step back and realize the enormity of the danger we are facing, not only from external expressions of anger, but from the anger we each carry within. The time has come to face the truth about anger, learn what it truly is, where it comes from, why it arises, and how to stop it on the spot.
Anger Is A Choice We Make
Believe it or not, anger is a choice we make. But what are some of the reasons that we would hold onto this poison, and refuse to let it go? For starters, many become addicted to anger. Anger gives a false sense of power and strength. This is a lie it tells. When a person is addicted to anger, they are really becoming addicted to the temporary sense of power, and strength they receive.
When very angry, a person often feels that they are definitely right and everyone else is wrong. A false sense of decisiveness is created. It becomes easier to take action (though the action is almost always off base). However, the rush an individual gets from anger is counterfeit, a substitute for real strength. After the anger passes, and the consequences of the anger set in, the person usually feels weak and depleted. Often there is considerable regret for words spoken or action taken rashly.
When we realize the truth of the situation, it is easier to let go of anger and proceed constructively. For example, we grow to understand that real strength comes from the power to see the entire situation for what it really is and respond with clarity and compassion.
Who Would I Be Without My Anger
Anger not only tells us lies – it often becomes a person’s identity. “Who would I be without my anger?” people say. When one is addicted to anger, it becomes the person’s identity. They feel that without their anger they would become a doormat and out of control. Anyone could do what they wanted to them. Actually, the opposite is true. Without anger we can live from the highest and best of who we are.
The Fuels For Anger
Even when we want to let go of anger, there may be many fuels that keep it going. It is important to become aware of what these fuels are, so we can put them out. A basic fuel of anger is the feeling that we must fight for what we need and want and that we must also fight not to allow others to win or deceive us. This is built upon the basic idea that others are our opponents, (or enemies), that what they want and need conflicts with our needs. We believe that both cannot be winners, one must lose and the other gain, we must struggle for what is our due, there is not enough to go around for all. We divide the world into two camps, those who are with us and those who are not. This idea is a great fuel for anger, because we feel it is fine to attack those who are are not on our side.
We do not stop to realize that those who seem to be our enemies one day, may become our dearest friends the next. Friends turn to enemies and the other way around all the time. When we are ready to let this lie go, it becomes easy to see that the good of one is always the good of all. Our basic well being lies in the ability to give and receive love and support, to share our lives, struggles and joy with others. The more we do this, the more fulfilling and healthy our lives become.
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Steps To Breaking The Addiction To Anger - By: jagdeep580
It is easy to become addicted. Habits provide a sense of certainty, security and stability in our lives. When we depend too much upon a habit for our sense of well being, it is easy for it to develop into an addiction.
Addiction to anger is one of the most common and lethal addictions, and one most seldom recognized. The anger addict becomes hooked by the false sense of power anger brings. As the addiction grows, it consumes more and more of their lives, producing painful consequences.
The best way to undo an addiction is to look it squarely in the face, see what triggers it, how it functions, the false promises it offers and the huge costs we pay. The next step is to undo the lack of awareness and false thoughts the keeps the addiction alive. As we begin to take charge, we regain power back over our lives.
To begin to dissolve the addiction to anger, we must learn more about it. What function does it serve in our lives? What effect does it have?
Functions of Addictions
When we are in the grip of an addiction many troubling aspects of life are blocked out. The addiction numbs us and blocks out painful feelings and experiences that we may not wish to deal with. It prevents us from seeing and dealing with issues, which need to be attended to. At this point the addiction serves as a defense against anxiety or hopelessness.
Effects Of Addiction To Anger
When we are angry we often have a temporary feeling of strength, energy, righteousness, power, authority or control. Much like alcohol, the surge of anger, which takes over, can block out fears, inhibitions and doubts. There is a temporary sense of freedom and empowerment that we normally lack.
The sense of false power which we feel can be a defense against feeling helpless or inadequate. Of course this power is not real power. Once the anger passes individuals feel weaker and more empty than before. All the while an addiction is running, it makes the individual feel safe and secure. The reality, however, is those addictions destroy an individual’s true safety. It blinds them from doing what needs to be done to build a life of true value and stability.
Anger can also block out logical thought processes, making us feel we are absolutely right. Some individuals who have trouble making decisions can make them easily then. hese kinds of decisions rarely provide positive outcomes. Many actions that might seem unacceptable when calm seem perfectly fine when we are angry.
Anger also encourages us to blurt out negative thoughts and feelings we may have been holding in that might have better gone left unsaid. Of course, after the surge of anger passes, it is difficult to take these words back. Even if we apologize the after effects remain. Although it might have felt good to speak out while angry, a little later on when reality dawns, there is often a sense of regret. In one way or another we have to pay for what we have done.
Below are some exercises which help undo the addiction to anger and regain control over our behavior and thoughts.
Dissolving The Addiction To Anger:
1) List the times in which you feel angry or upset automatically. What person, thoughts, memory or situation brings this up? For now, just notice this and write it down. As you go through the day, if another situation strikes you, step back, notice it, and write it down as well. Rather than reacting blindly, you are now taking time to become aware. Once you become fully aware of the way anger operates in your life it will not be able to sneak up from behind.
2) Find a substitute for the automatic reaction. Instead of reacting the same old way the next time the situation arises, stop, breathe and tell yourself, “I will not be a slave to anger anymore.” Stop and listen to the person and say to yourself, “This time I will let them be right. There’s plenty of time to be right later.” Pause and listen to what they say. See how much better you feel getting pulled down into anger again.
3) Find a new way of viewing the situation. Instead of seeing the one who angers you as an enemy, tell yourself that their anger is a cry for help. It comes out of pain and conflict within. Instead of going on the attack, say to the person (either in your mind or out loud), “What can I do to serve you?” Not only will this diffuse the anger, but will open new doors for both of you to walk through.
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Benefits of anger management - By: Mike Justin
In the life we live we get to feel a large range of emotions. Emotions that are wonderful, and emotions that are not so good.
A few of those emotions can have an impact on relationships and families. Sometimes those emotions can affect jobs and other social interactions.
One of emotions that needs to be addressed is the issue of anger. Specifically using anger managment to control it.
One of the horrible consequences of anger is violence.When you are viewing a movie or tv show when the main character uses the anger to motivate them to fight back and win, it's nice, but made to look better than it is.
Anger isn't that glamorous. It is an emotion that needs to be handled through an anger management programs. Because left by itself it can lead to horrible results.
There can be many reasons for the cause of it.Stress in relation to finances.Or it can be relationship problems. It could be from many causes.One thing you can be positive about.Anger has to be managed. You need to find anger management techniques that will work for you.
Anger can cause simple yelling.Or worse yet, if you are in a marriage, it can damage your marriage. Sometimes the anger gets so bad that a breakup would be ideal. But of course there are the times when anger gets so bad it leads to violence. There are too many cases of domestic violence.
That is why it so important when dealing with anger.By locating techniques and methods of treating this emotion, a lot of problems can be avoided.
Not dealing with it could lead to relationship breakups.It can start problems at your work.It can lead to social problems.All of these issues can be missed if you use anger managment to control it.
So if you seem to be having these troubles, go for help.Do not let the emotion of anger get the better of you.Treat it immediately.
Whether you do it professionally with a therapist. Or whether you find some techniques through a book.Treat it.
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Anger Work through Hitting, Shooting, and Throwing Things - By: Dr. Robert Puff
Hitting, shooting, and throwing things are very popular ways people do Anger Work. You can take hold of a bat and start pounding away on a bed, couch, toy, or an object that represents the person with whom you are angry. Some people prefer to use their hands instead of a bat. Either way works just as well, as long as you are not hurting yourself.
Take caution in what objects you are using as you would not want to destroy an object that you or someone else would miss. If it is precious to someone else, it would throw you back into a guilt/shame cycle if you destroy it. If it is precious to you, the loss will detract from the benefits of the Anger Work. The point of this Anger Work is not just to pound on something. It is important to attempt to focus on your feelings about some issue or event in your life which still causes you to feel angry, sad or hurt. It is not necessary to focus on a specific event, you may simply allow your feelings to flow into your actions, and start hitting.
Just as hitting things is a natural means to work out our anger, so is aiming projectiles at an object. Shooting or throwing things can be a very effective Anger Work method. This may include rock throwing, dart throwing, shooting toy guns, or going to a real shooting range. Some people enjoy and greatly benefit from throwing rocks as a form of anger therapy. You can do this in the city or out in nature, using a nearby rock pile or skipping rocks into a body of water. I worked with a boy once who loved to throw rocks at a rock mound near my office. He and I would both throw rocks; he would always feel better afterward. Since then, I have done therapy with other boys, girls, and several adults who enjoy using this technique.
For those of you who want a specific object to focus your Anger Work on, I have a couple of suggestions. First, you can try using a photo or a drawing of your abuser and throw darts or shoot toy guns at it. A second option is to pretend that some toy is a “bad guy” and shoot it with a toy gun. I keep a variety of toy guns at my office. As you might guess, they are very popular with the kids and even with some of my adult clients. If you are an adult who needs a more intense form of Anger Work, you may want to try going to a shooting range where they rent both guns and ammo. I do not recommend shooting a real gun for everyone, because although it is a great form of Anger Work, it can be scary and emotionally traumatizing.
Going with a friend is recommended if you decide to do it. At the shooting range they instruct you in how to shoot the gun, and then let you use it on your own. They have targets with circular rings like a classic bulls-eye, or life-sized silhouettes of a man or woman. You could pretend that it is the man who raped you, or you may prefer to imagine it as a potential attacker, and how you would deal with that now that you are empowered and no longer a victim.
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Anger Work While Driving - By: Dr. Robert Puff
For those of you who spend a lot of time on the road every day, I have a few suggestions. First, while you are driving, you can squeeze the steering wheel and let your anger out. Or you can pound away on the seat or door next to you, or the dash board. Hitting the windshield is not recommended for obvious safety reasons. Yelling also works really well, and because no one else can hear you if your windows are up, it will probably be the most useful technique to use while driving.
People rarely take the time to really look at the other people driving by, and if people do see you yelling, you will probably never see them again. If you like, you can use a trick that my friend taught me. She is a singer and loves to sing at the top of her lungs in her car. She doesn’t care if anyone sees her singing, but she feels shy about being seen screaming. So when she is really mad about something, she either makes up a sarcastic song and belts it out to express her anger, or she simply taps her fingers on the steering wheel to make it look like she is keeping time with the beat on the radio while she yells with gusto!
Sooner or later, anyone who drives will encounter a rude driver, but those rude drivers can actually be helpful to you. First, remember not to act-out your anger by being rude back to them. When someone cuts me off in traffic, I usually wave and smile. But as soon as they are out of my sight I express how I feel about the way they drive. This may seem insincere at first, but in truth I do wish the person well. I am simply angry at them at that moment, but that is something I can deal with on my own.
For many people, anger is easily triggered while driving, including my clients who have a difficult time getting angry elsewhere. Carol was a client I worked with who could never bring herself to do Anger Work on a planned basis; however, she felt very angry whenever someone cut her off on the freeway. I encouraged her to go ahead and use these aggravating situations to work on her anger. She had lots of opportunities to express her anger because she lived in Los Angeles and commuted to and from work five days a week. As a result of this Anger Work, the stomach pains she had been experiencing from repressed feelings gradually went away.
I encourage you to release the anger you feel while driving. You may find, as Carol did, that it helps you to release other repressed feelings, unrelated to the traffic in the moment.
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Dealing With Anger: The Real Reason People Get Mad - By: Maria Meiners
Ever wonder why people get angry?
Sure on the surface there are lots of reasons, some which may be completely valid. When you go beyond the surface however, to the core of why people get mad, it always comes down to the same thing.
People get angry because they're not getting their way.
I know....at first it may not seem like that. But think about the times you've gotten angry at someone. It always boils down to someone not doing something you think they should do or not acting in a way you think they should act. In the case of circumstances it comes down to things not turning out how you want them to. And when you're mad at yourself it is always because you somehow came up short of your own expectations.
Does it feel a little uncomfortable to think that not getting your way is the root cause of your anger? It sure made me feel uncomfortable at first. I really wanted to blame someone or something for my emotional state. But then I realized that by taking ownership of my anger, it actually put me in a place of power. You see....If my anger is about someone or something doing something to me then I'm powerless to do anything about it. But if it's about ME not getting my way then I have the power to affect change.
So ok, you're angry and you acknowledge that it's because you're not getting your way about something. What can you do about it?
First allow yourself to feel the emotion fully. Allow yourself to be really mad. Say you're really mad. If you need to do something physical then do something safe and non-destructive. When you allow yourself to feel the intensity of an emotion it usually peaks then wanes over a few minutes. Then you can decide how you want to proceed.
Note - When you're feeling an intense emotion there are no words. You are not yelling or accusing or telling a story about how you're right and the other person is wrong. It is a very physical and base experience.
After the intensity of emotion fades, your logical mind can take over and you can decide what's next. Since you know that the base reason you're angry is that you didn't get your way, you can start to think about exactly what isn't going your way and what you'd like to see happen instead. Then you can go a step further and decide if it's something to insist on, compromise about, or let go.
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Lessons Children Teach Us About Managing Anger - By: Dr. Robert Puff
Lesson 1: It is the pure emotions of anger and sadness that are at the root of our more complicated adult feelings.
When children are traumatized, they heal from it naturally as long as there is a safe environment to do so. Many children experience a wide range of traumas like sexual abuse, death of a loved one, divorce, moving to a new neighborhood, or being teased at daycare. As surprising as it may be, I have observed that there are only two emotions which children express to help themselves heal. These two emotions are ANGER and SADNESS. In affirmation of the wisdom of this natural choice by my young clients, I have noted a similar pattern among my adult clients. Those who make the most progress are those who get in touch with these primary emotions of sadness and anger.
Lesson # 2 Express your feelings. Don’t repress them.
As adults we develop defenses such as depression, anxiety, phobias, worry, stress-induced illnesses, and a myriad of other non-healing ways of trying to cope with emotional pain. In contrast to children, some adults never cry or display anger. Most adults take repression too far. While doing Anger Work, both children and adults learn to express their anger in safe environments. The following case of Shawn and Jaime are good examples of how children use their sadness and anger to heal themselves. (Please note that names and details have been changed to protect the confidentiality of my clients).
Once when I was directing a day care center, the parents of a two-year old child named Shawn was left with me by her parents. It was the first time in her life she had ever been separated from them. As I took Shawn from her anxious parents, she immediately started crying. Shawn cried off and on for the entire three hours. She never did let go of me, though I tried to set her down a couple of times. By the time her parents returned, my shirt was soaked.
The next week Shawn returned and of course started crying the second her parents left. I held Shawn for about five minutes and then she stopped crying. She slowly made her way out of my arms after watching the other children playing all around us. Though she kept a watchful eye out for me for a few minutes to make sure that I would rescue her, Shawn began to play. She never cried again when her parents left her at childcare with me. Shawn’s tears of sadness helped her heal from the emotional trauma of leaving her parents for the first time in her life.
As the case of Shawn demonstrates, experiencing and expressing your sadness through tears can be an effective tool for healing. However, I find that children between the ages of two and seven primarily express one feeling during their treatment: that is anger. They rarely cry about their trauma--they just get angry, sometimes very angry. Afterward they leave the session feeling better, and over time the symptoms which brought them into therapy go away. Children like Jaime in the following story have taught me that anger heals.
Jamie was a two-and-a-half year old girl with whom I worked for a year. She was brought to therapy because she had been sexually abused by a man and woman at a day care center where she was being watched for a few hours. Evidence of this crime was her radical behavior change after the incident. She regressed to soiling her panties, began playing with her private parts, started pinching and biting her younger brother, and did not want to return to the daycare. When I saw her, she appeared to be a sweet little girl who just wanted to play. During all the sessions with Jamie, her mom or dad stayed with us in the same room, reading magazines or books, so that Jamie would give me her full attention. Quickly Jaime began displaying intense anger towards toys as she played with them. She would growl at them, hit them, throw them, and even try to destroy them. Jamie had told her parents what happened at the daycare, but she never verbalized anything about the abuse during therapy. Her play clearly displayed that she was angry at the abusers who had fondled her private parts. The parents were instructed not to let Jamie aim her anger at them or her younger brother. Gradually during the year, Jamie’s behavior improved until she was back to her old self. Therapy was terminated and Jamie has never returned. She is reported to be doing fine.
Lesson # 3 Have an appropriate object for your wrath. Acting-out on people or animals takes you backwards.
Tony was an eight year old bully. He was always getting in trouble at school for teasing and tripping younger kids. Other times, he would take strings that had bells or forks attached to them and tie them to the cat’s tail in order to torment the poor old cat. Once Sam, the family’s golden retriever who loved people food, had to be rushed to the animal emergency hospital because he had suddenly become deathly ill. After surgery, the veterinarian found a cactus spine in Sam’s stomach. Tony confessed that he had given the cactus spine to Sam covered in butter. His parents were very concerned and did not know what to do.
First I helped them to come up with rewards for when Tony was behaving appropriately, and taught them to use time out for when he was taking out his anger on others. Having his parents reinforce appropriate behavior at home, in addition to bringing him to therapy was very helpful. Very shortly, Tony began to love coming to therapy, because here he and I had lots of toys and he could do whatever he wanted. As long as he did not direct it at me, he was free to express his anger. His favorite “toy” was my couch. He loved to throw things at it, jump on it, hit it whatever he wanted. When Tony first came to see me his anger was a constant threat, boiling just beneath the surface. He was expressing his anger at people and animals, and his problems only snowballed. His self esteem was very low and he felt that nobody really liked him. He was ostracized on the playground because he had done so many mean things to his classmates that most of them stayed away from him out of self-protection. In therapy he expressed his anger by directing it at inanimate objects and his life began to transform. He was now releasing his anger regularly, instead of letting it build up. Without all that repressed anger, he didn’t feel as many impulses to do mean things.
Lesson #4 Stay active and use your body to express yourself, especially when you’re doing Anger Work.
If you think about it from a historical perspective, it has not been long since our world was much more physically active, like our children’s world. In the past, people did more physically demanding work for a living. They spent 5-12 hours a day doing something physical, like chopping wood, harvesting fields, hand-washing the laundry or grinding grain. This type of work provided more natural opportunities for letting off steam.
Today our lives are often more sedentary. We need to be proactive in creating opportunities for exercise and include a healthy expression of anger at the same time. My young clients are almost always throwing, shooting, or hitting something during their sessions. Combining physical work with anger work is not only good for the body, but for the psyche as well. Today we must work to add that additional activity to our daily lives.
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Anger Management Via Anger Work - By: Dr. Robert Puff
Anger Work is a therapeutic tool that works because so many people carry around emotional and psychic wounds that they express in a variety of ways, such as addictions or outbursts of anger. In order to heal the wounds, the person needs to specifically focus on the anger within. By focusing on the trauma over and over, the pain will gradually go away, never to affect you again. Anger Work teach you how to do just that and is the healthy path to healing.
Three types of individuals would benefit from Anger Work:
1. Those who know they are angry.
2. Those who are struggling with past events and perhaps don’t know they have repressed anger.
3. Those who wish to lead happier, more fulfilling lives.
This article will deal strictly with the people in the first category—Anger Work for people who know they are angry.
A comparison can be made between our physical health and our emotional health. When the body experiences a severe injury or laceration, infection will most certainly occur if the wound is left unattended. Eventually, it will fester and may even turn into gangrene, a life threatening condition. If, however, the wound is cleansed thoroughly and allowed to heal completely, all that is left is a scar to remind the victim of the event.
Likewise, when an emotional wound is sustained by the psyche, it will start to affect other areas of the person’s life, just as infection spreads to other parts of the body. People who do not learn how to deal with abusive people or emotional pain appropriately will start to experience a cumulative negative effect because unfortunately, emotional pains and abusive people are part of everyday life. Eventually the individual’s overall emotional and psychological health will be at risk. But if the emotional wound is cleansed well, and allowed to heal completely, all that is left is a memory. Like an old scar, this memory does not hurt. It becomes no more than a record of your personal memory, an experience that you have learned from. Anger Work is the cleansing process that can bring this healing about.
People who do not learn how to deal with abusive people or emotional pain appropriately will start to experience a cumulative negative effect because unfortunately, emotional pains and abusive people are part of everyday life. Eventually the individual’s overall emotional and psychological health will be at risk.
Okay, so you know you are angry. You have been mistreated or abused and you’ve had enough of that. You may be in touch with the feelings of your anger, but have not yet started expressing them, or you may be a seasoned veteran at “giving people a piece of your mind.” You may even have a “temper problem” so serious that you experience episodes in which your anger seems to have control of you, rather than your being in control of your anger. People have been getting angry since the beginning of time, and that is nothing new. You may be thinking, “I don’t need a book to tell me to get mad when somebody does something that ticks me off!” But Anger Work is not simply “getting mad” at someone, nor does it deal exclusively with the present. People who describe themselves as having a “temper problem” are generally people who have had some very negative experiences in the past. Because they have not yet successfully worked through all their feelings about these events, they walk around with “leftovers,” that is, leftover anger from situations that happened a long time ago. They bring these “leftovers” with them into every new situation. The result is that they are already somewhat angry before anything happens. So when someone does something that might normally be a minor source of irritation, the person with “leftovers” finds him or herself inordinately angry. They feel the anger of the current situation plus the “leftovers” they had in store. In situations that would normally make them feel genuinely angry, and for good reason, they go beyond that and become explosive. They may haul off and slug a person or berate him or her verbally instead of of assertively asking someone to stop the offending behavior. You may be experiencing problems because of angry outbursts. Or maybe you haven’t done anything regrettable yet, but you feel like a volcano about to explode and burn everything in your path. If either of these descriptions fits you, you can learn how to channel your anger and aggressive feelings in positive ways. Over time, through Anger Work, you can work out all your residual feelings of anger so that you have no “leftovers.” You will break out of the negative cycle of Anger → Outburst → Guilt → Regret → Shame → Anger, without becoming a doormat.
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Anger Management: Get in Touch with Your Inner Anger before it Gets you into Trouble - By: Susan Wilner
Most of you have varying levels of comfort with your more powerful negative feelings such as anger. In many families children are discouraged or even punished for expressing anger so it is not surprising that as adults you have the habit of driving your angry feelings underground. In fact you expend a lot of energy denying you have them at all. However, when you do so, it tends to provide only temporary relief. Generally the anger you bury has a way of eventually coming out and often with a vengeance. And yet expressing anger in impulsive unconscious ways usually gets you into considerable trouble with those whom you care for the most. Chances are your most satisfying relationships rely heavily on your ability to monitor your emotions and make healthy choices in expressing anger.
What are angry feelings? They can be imagined as waves that wash over you. You cannot control which feelings may arise moment to moment but you can learn to make conscious choices about how you react to them. At the crest of a wave of anger you most likely feel you will remain in your angry state forever. You are the anger! But this is an illusion and it can be helpful to remind yourself that it will pass. Meanwhile what can you do?
Building some perspective on your angry feelings is the first step in gaining control over how to express them in healthy appropriate ways. You are probably unaware of how you get from feeling relatively okay to shouting or suddenly fleeing the room. It is only after the damage is done that you realize something bad happened. One of the keys is beginning to learn your unique set of signals indicating your wave of anger is mounting. Some common signs are flushed/hot face, increased heartbeat, sweating, stomach sensations, increase in voice volume, facial grimaces, specific spoken phrases often involving words like "always" and "never" and swearing. Get some feedback from a family member or close friend about the signals they notice that indicate your anger wave is rolling in. After you have identified some signs, begin to watch for them. When they occur, work to keep a part of yourself observing what is happening. This takes practice and is easier at first with mild states of irritation rather than full-blown rage. Consider putting yourself in situations that you know tend to trigger mild anger and then set out to watch for your signals. Ask a trusted close friend or family member to give you a nonverbal cue when they recognize your anger increasing. Building awareness of your individual pattern is crucial to establishing more control over how you react to your anger in the moment. If you fail to recognize your anger until you are shouting or find your head pounding with a headache, you have missed an opportunity to make a healthier choice for riding out that wave.
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How to deal with anger through anger management counseling - By: Mike Justin
Anger. One of the most charged emotions a person can feel. To some people, it just isn't an emotion that consumes them. It is maybe something that is a small irritation. It is something they can get under control.
For others, it can cause intense fury and rage. When that happens it gets out of control and turns destructive. This leads to problems at work, in personal relationships, and in general their overall life.
A person who allows himself to get out of control is really controlled by this emotion and its unpredictableness.
With my experience in anger management counseling I would like to explore a couple of ways to control this emotion. The goal of is to reduce the emotional feelings the physical arousal that anger causes.
First thing you can do is relax. One relaxation technique is to breath deeply. You might also try to use images that are calming. Another tool is to use slow calming words to repeat to yourself.
Don't just use these methods for when you are angry. Try to make it a practice everyday if you feel you have an anger issue.
Second is to change the way you think. Simply put, when you get angry you may swear, talk loudly, and express yourself very colorfully. These just express your inner thoughts. What you are going to have to do is change the angry irrational thoughts into more reasonable rational ones.
Instead of convincing yourself you have suffered an injustice, let yourself know it is not the end of the world.
Third, communication is something you have to try to do better. When a person gets angry or in a heated discussion, that is when communication breaks down.Rather than having a thoughtful comment, their emotions control what they say.
Slow down and think about how best to communicate.
Finally, a change in your environment might help. Most of times when we are angry, just going to another room can change our moods completely~When we find ourselves angry or frustrated, often times, just stopping and going to another place can change our moods.
This change of environment might give you just enough quiet time to calm your emotions down and get that anger under control.
Although not the final word, these bits of advice can help you start to control your anger. If you find it does not, you will want to go get some professional help.
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Overcoming the Fear of Anger - By: Robert Puff
Anger work can serve as a path on your journey to wholeness, and forgiveness of yourself and others is part of what you may find along the way.
Maybe you don’t feel guilty at the idea of getting angry. It’s just that the whole thing simply frightens you. As far as you’re concerned, anger is scary stuff. Maybe you decided never to get angry because you lived with someone who constantly ranted and raged, inflicting their anger on all who were near. As a result you have become just as extreme in refraining from anger as the enraged person was in expressing it. I often hear people talking as though if you really got into expressing your anger, it would send you “over the deep end” and you’d lose control, but I have never seen this happen as long as you don’t take you anger out, either directly or indirectly, on another person or animal.
Years ago I worked with an older gentleman who had been in the Korean War and had repressed his anger about his war experiences for many years. He was convinced that if he ever let his anger out, something terrible would happen. I assured him that expressing his anger would be very beneficial for him and arranged for him to get a soft bat and a bed mattress so that he could do Anger Work. We went to a pre-arranged room where he was free to let out his anger while I held up the mattress. I must admit that I was a little nervous because he had talked in such detail about how his anger could destroy the whole hospital, let alone the mattress that I would be holding! I was glad to learn that his anger did not live up to his expectations. He did hit the bed hard, but he could only hit repeatedly for less than a minute. Instead of his anger destroying everything in sight, he found that the room, and even the bat, were virtually unaffected by his display of wrath. However, he did discover that he felt much less agitated afterwards.
As I said above, it has always been my experience that as long as anger is directed at objects and not people, no one will be harmed. Of course, don’t go out and destroy a person’s car or house, or item of sentimental value. This will hurt them indirectly. You do not want to hurt anyone with your anger, directly or indirectly.
Holding on to one’s anger instead of letting it out as the gentleman who served in the war had is what begins the progression toward more and more serious problems. Perhaps you may have identified some specific experiences in your life as traumatic (such as physical, sexual or emotional abuse, a bad marriage, loss of a loved one, or loss of physical capability due to injury, etc.), yet still you have never fully processed those experiences or been angry about the pain you went through. Likewise with your emotional health, if you repress your anger year after year, you may not feel the pain for awhile, but the problems will come. These problems could include fractured or dysfunctional relationships, depression, obsessive-compulsive behavior, anxiety, psycho-somatic or stress-induced illnesses, phobias, addictions, or a general dissatisfaction with life. If you do not make the time to work out your issues, you will become increasingly dysfunctional. You will hurt other people by lashing out or withdrawing, and you will suffer from feelings of shame. Don’t let your life go down that road. It’s time to start cleaning those wounds so you can heal properly.
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Anger Work to Ease Depression and Achieve Forgiveness - By: Robert Puff
I agree that forgiveness is an important part of the journey to emotional and spiritual wholeness. However, quick forgiveness is often false forgiveness, and false forgiveness can be detrimental to the health (both mental and physical) of the one who practices it. In that sense, false forgiveness can be worse than no forgiveness. You can rush yourself into professing forgiveness only to discover later that anger is still sweltering inside of you. Then you may feel guilty for having this anger because you supposedly already forgave that person. Then you engage in all sorts of behavior to try to make it go away.
One of my clients, Bob, reported to me that he was not angry about anything in his life. He had come to me because he just did not want to feel depressed anymore.
After a few sessions with Bob I met with his wife, Karen. I learned that Bob loved to tease Karen. She had had an affair two years earlier and Bob had immediately forgiven her. But shortly thereafter, his teasing of Karen increased and he got depressed. I encouraged Bob not to tease his wife and instead to do Anger Work about the affair. Although he did not feel angry at first, the anger soon came out for it had been lying just under the surface the whole time. It was this unresolved anger that had been motivating his jabs to Karen. He felt good about doing his Anger Work because it made it easier for him to stop teasing Karen. He did not want to shame or hurt his wife anymore. Bob’s depression gradually went away, and their marriage grew closer because he finally got rid of the resentment he had been harboring.
We tend to deal with things the way we were taught to deal with them. Sometimes this teaching comes in the form of overt statements from our role models such as “don’t be mad,” “you have no right to get angry at me,” or “let bygones be bygones.” “Forgive and forget” is another classic favorite. But often the most powerful message is a simple attitude that is learned by example from parents who never express anger themselves. Now that you are grown up and responsible for your own life, it is time to reevaluate the teachings that your family may have passed on to you and make a conscious choice about how you want to handle things. In Bob’s case, his family had always been big teasers while he was growing up. His mom would tease his dad about drinking too much beer, and his dad would tease his mom about getting fat. No one ever talked openly about what was bothering them. Bob fell into the same pattern without even realizing it. Once he became aware of how destructive his behavior was (eroding Karen’s self-esteem while adding to his own depression) he chose to stop teasing and vent his anger in the form of Anger Work instead.
There is nothing wrong with feeling angry, even for a long time when someone hurts you deeply. Anger is a natural, healthy response to abuse. Still, it is not a good enough reason to become abusive yourself. Your anger is there for a reason. Learn to make it your friend.
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Anger Instead of Depression, There is a Choice - By: Robert Puff
People often run from anger because they fear their feelings. They've might have been taught to think anger is bad. Some people don't get angry because they feel guilty when they do. Or you have been taught by your family, teachers, or religious community that it is wrong to get angry, or that it should be a brief phase passed through as quickly as possible on your way to forgiveness. Well, I say that anger is a normal, human emotion. And when managed correctly, it plays an important role in the maintenance of a healthy mind.
They might know intellectually that they have plenty of reasons to feel angry, but for some reason they just can’t feel the appropriate emotions to fit the circumstances. Some people have repressed their anger so deeply that they can’t even identify anything to feel angry about. Often times you might have had some sad, painful or frightening experiences in the past that still bother you. You may know that you’re not finished healing from them, and even see that they still impact your behavior and the choices that you make today. Sometimes, when you reflect on those experiences, you just don't feel angry. So instead, you try not to let it bother you; you try to act like it didn't happen, or you try to grow from the experience, or maybe you just try to move on.
Many people have troubling thoughts that return to them whenever they slow down enough to have quiet time to think. You probably know someone who will tell you he doesn’t like to be alone, or a friend who says she likes to keep busy because otherwise she “thinks too much.” In actuality, of course, the mere quantity of thought is not the problem...surely everyone can afford a free hour or two of thought each week without any harmful effects. Yet many busy people do not allow even that much time for quiet contemplation. The reason is that they find their thoughts returning over and over to particular worries, feelings of failure, or self-doubt. Often people feel powerless with respect to making the memories go away, solving the problem, or resolving the nagging feelings. The best they can do is to avoid these reoccurring thoughts by not allowing themselves time to think. They find some behavior or substance that is the emotional equivalent of a painkiller (a drug which deadens the sensation of pain without remedying the source of the pain). They may turn to various means for keeping their feelings inside, and these are called "coping mechanisms" or "things people do instead of feeling angry." These are some of the ways men and women try to cope with their repressed feelings of anger. Even if you think you don’t feel angry, if you suffer from one of these, anger may be at the root of your problem.
1. Alcohol and prescription or illegal drugs to alter their moods so that they don't have to feel their true responses to the events of their life.
2. Addiction to romance—flitting from one relationship to another or remaining long-term rocky relationships.
3. Sexual addition.
4. Work-addiction or “workaholism”
5. Busyism (very close to work-addiction. The main difference is that you do not get paid for your efforts).
Using the addictions and behaviors just discussed to avoid the deeper issues may help you hold it together and keep up appearances for a while. However, it is as unwise as letting termites eat away at your home. After a while there will be nothing but a shell, and eventually the whole thing will come crashing down around you. Running to these distractions is like feeling safe only when you hide behind an imaginary wall. Anger work provides a means by which you can confront that boogie man lurking in the corner of your mind, and eventually vanquish it. If you have examined yourself and decided that you do not have any of the addictions listed above, then look a little farther and ask yourself if you suffer from anger masked by depression. Anger work can be just the tool you need to free yourself from much of the pain in your life.
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How To Express Your Anger and Still Be Kind--Anger Work - By: Robert Puff
What is Anger Work:
Anger work is a psychological tool which is used to heal from past and present emotional pains. The basic premise of Anger Work is to let go of emotionally painful events by focusing on them and expressing anger about the pain. By focusing on the trauma over and over, the pain will gradually go away, never to affect you again.
A comparison can be made between our physical health and our emotional health. When the body experiences a severe laceration or other injury, if the wound is left unattended it will get infected. Eventually, it will fester and may even turn into gangrene, a life threatening condition. If, however, the wound is cleansed thoroughly and allowed to heal completely, all that is left is a scar to remind the victim of the event.
Likewise, when an emotional wound is sustained by the psyche, if it is not addressed, and feelings are repressed, it will fester as surely as any physical wound. As a result it will start to affect other areas of the person’s life, just as infection spreads to other parts of the body. Since abusive people and emotional pain are part of everyday life, the person who does not learn to deal appropriately with them will start to experience a cumulative negative effect. Eventually the individual’s overall emotional and psychological health will be at risk.
If, however, the emotional wound is cleansed well, and allowed to heal completely, all that is left is a memory. This memory, like an old scar, does not hurt. It becomes no more than a record of your personal history, an experience which you have learned from. Anger Work is the cleansing process that can bring this healing about.
There are two essential keys to making your Anger Work productive. These are:
1) Do not take out or “act-out” your anger on yourself.
2) Do not act out your anger on others (this includes animals.)
Instead, focus your anger on an object, not on yourself or others.
For example, you can practice boxing a punching bag as you feel anger and think about how your boss just fired you for some unjustified reason. Or you may be with some friends at a bowling alley, throwing the balls at your ex-wife who cheated on you. You may be out rowing in a river, pretending to hit your father’s hand with a paddle for slapping you across the face when you were eleven years old.
Who Needs Anger Work?
There are three categories of people who can benefit from doing Anger Work. The first category is comprised of people who are already consciously angry and need to find some constructive way of resolving their feelings. The second category consists of those who don’t feel angry, but who struggle with interpersonal or intrapersonal difficulties and have never fully processed the traumatic events which shaped them and set them up for the problems they face today. The third category includes those individuals who have successfully dealt with all the issues from their past, but are interested in healthy ways of handling aggravating situations that come up in their current, daily lives.
Anger Work is a practical tool for processing the feelings these situations create. By doing Anger Work you can flush out the negative energy generated by them. At the same time you are reducing your stress and increasing your energy level. You will find that you are able to solve interpersonal problems more quickly and you will spend less time trying to take back words you said in the heat of an argument. I recommend Anger Work to anyone and everyone. It is simply a healthy way to process the negative experiences of life, from severe traumas to minor irritations.
Once you have learned how to use Anger Work to process your feelings about the negative experiences of life, this ability can serve as a great asset to you. Every life contains a measure of suffering. Perhaps nothing tragic has happened to you thus far, but eventually, if nothing else, someone you love will become sick and die. When this happens you will have the tools to deal with your loss.
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The Indications for Requirement of Anger management - By: Moshe Ratson
Anger is one problem that leaves no space for love and understanding. The foundation of any relation gets badly shaken by anger and the consequences are definitely not very pleasant. It damages a person both emotionally and physically and includes in the wild and untamed whirlpool our near and dear ones as well.
To get relieved from anger, it’s really important to go for counseling, which we commonly call anger management. For those individuals for whom anger is a consistent problem, it may hamper their well being. Anger management ensures that an individual enjoy peace of mind and have a happy personal and professional life.
Symptoms of anger
Many people wonder how to determine that they are stressed out and need to give their mind and soul some relaxation. It’s although difficult to accept that one is suffering from anger but it’s very important for one’s own growth as a human being.
The most common symptom that call for anger management counseling is frequent fights that lead to emotional, verbal or physical abuse. Fights and quarrels are very common amongst couples. But when these quarrels take a nasty shape, one should understand that his or her anger is taking over the relationship and it’s the time to go for anger management.
Breakdown is yet another symptom of anger. You get so badly affected by anger that the entire body shivers or you run away from your family and near and dear ones, avoiding contact, so that you may not indulge into a regretful fight. Certainly if a person feels like this often, he is definitely in need of anger management.
Facing difference in opinions in office amongst co-workers is one thing but indulging into conflicts with them that may take shape of unhealthy conflicts is another. If you are suffering from unhealthy and uncomfortable working atmosphere due to your strained relationships owing to your anger, it’s a big call for anger management.
Being short tempered on road may certainly end you up in cell. Road rage is something very dangerous and if your anger shoots up to that level, then it’s advisable to contact an anger management counselor.
Objectives of Anger Management
Anger management is a comprehensive program that includes various therapies like colour therapy, yoga and meditation and counseling that brings out all the stress a person has stored within. Anger management program depends upon various objectives, the most important of which is to meditate and understand the whirlpool of emotions that revolve inside your mind.
Personal issues take a gigantic form and later on come out in the contour of anger anyone and everyone. It’s most crucial to understand and acknowledge such issues first.
Impulsiveness leads to many problems and embarrassments and anger is one of those. Another objective of anger management is reducing the impulsive nature of an individual. This is normally done by enhancing your skills to cope with people around you; be it your family or friends or colleagues.
Often patience and tolerance play a major role in ceasing anger. Anger management gives emphasis to the same and through various techniques ensures that the tolerance level of an individual increases.
Self monitoring always inhibits aggression. Another important aspect upon which anger management focuses is de-escalation and self monitoring techniques. Once an individual learns the same, its very unlikely to get angry.
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Understanding the Angry Child - By: A Wolski
Aggression and anger are quite normal during the process of growing up. Often, this is seen as a way of getting their own way because they have seen this behavior modeled during their formative years with the result being that others give in to this behavior in order to ‘keep the peace’.
In the very young child, anger is usually expressed through tantrums and hitting. However, older children, particularly teenagers, may engage in antisocial and risk taking behaviors as a result of their anger and frustration. Whilst some of these behaviors may be considered a normal part of teenage behavior, violent aggression and delinquency are not.
In most Western cultures, there tends to be an uneasy view to anger expression. Many people are raised with the belief that it is inappropriate to express anger directly and that it is always dangerous. Many people feel that anger must not be tolerated. Because of these beliefs, a lot of people learn to distrust anger, to bottle it up and ignore it. These people tend to express it only in indirect ways or to use it as a weapon.
However, anger is also a vitally important part of the self-preservation and self-defense impulse. People who see anger as all negative are also generally reluctant to stand up for themselves. Anger can also act as a motivational tool giving you the will to carry on where you may have otherwise quit. Look at Martin Luther King who was a prime crusader for human rights. His anger and indignation at the way he and others were so wrongfully treated motivated him to keep going.
Anger can also create negative motivational feelings such as the feeling that a person has an entitlement to something or that he is in some way morally wronged in such a way that he may feel justified in performing illegal or immoral acts such as terrorism.
Therefore, it is important that people learn to recognize their anger and to express it in healthy and socially acceptable ways. This means not letting anger get out of control to the point where it negatively acts on health, relationships and other social interactions.
Recognizing when a person has a problem with their expression of anger is important both for the target of the anger and for the angry person. The problem occurs when a person becomes dependent on anger as a normal way of self expression. It becomes normal behavior for them to express themselves through anger or threat of violence in order to get what they want. This is harmful for everyone concerned and destroys relationships, employability, as well as the possibility of criminal charges. Uncontrolled anger also has a negative affect on physical and emotional health.
Nobody is born with uncontrollable anger problems and most anger is short lived as a response to some frustrating or abusive situation.
Chronic anger response reactions are learned in early childhood through the copying of the people around them. If a child sees the adults in his life acting ina hostile manner to get what they want, the child learns this as a way of getting what he wants. This is seen as normal behavior to the child and only becomes a problem later on in life when anger becomes his way of controlling those around him.
Sometimes, the victim of the anger can become angry himself such as in the case of abused children. These children will sometimes become so determined to never again let themselves be so vulnerable that they may become aggressive adults for self protection. There may be others who may have been hurt by one or two people from a particular group of people but show hostility against all people from that group of people.
Another learned response of aggression is that of the bully. He finds that his hostility is reinforced and rewarded by the respect and fear of others, thus motivating him to continue bullying. Often, the bully is revered and has social status and position so that they are unlikely to see their aggression as being a problem.
So, what are some ways to prevent anger and aggression in your teenager?
Teach your children to respect and value differences. Teach them not to bully, gossip or to threaten others health or happiness in any way.
Encourage your child to be involved in the community and their school through sport, music classes, and other groups.
Always encourage your child to be open about their feelings. Often if a child is sad, fearful, angry or depressed, the advice from yourself or another adult they trust can be all that is needed to help the child to stay out of trouble.
Make sure your child is fully educated about the danger of drugs and alcohol. These can be the source of trouble as the child becomes dependent and often angry at himself for not being able to stay away from the substance.
Teach your child other methods of conflict resolution techniques so that they don’t feel the need to resort to violence.
Discourage your child from carrying weapons of any type.
Sometimes there are mental illnesses such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder that are a common problem in violent youth. If a child shows unusual aggressive traits, he should be evaluated early so that the future problems may be avoided through proper treatment.
Obviously, as a parent, it is important for you to seek help and advice if you believe your child has a problem. Don’t let embarrassment stop you from avoiding future distress for both you and your child.
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Signs of anger problems - By: Christine Ruvelo
What is anger?
An emotion which is commonly expressed in situation of irritating, unpleasant, frustrating. Anger can be notice from our body language, facial expressions, increase heart beat, and over aggression. We can say that a strong feeling of displeasure, opposes or hurts one
Anger can’t be removed from our body because if there is an emotional feeling in your heart towards your love ones then you will get angry. But angriness can be control by you only. When we get angry our heart beat increase, our mind get confused, little bit reddish face, loss control on you, that type of person can do any things.
Causes of anger:
• Frustration
• Hurt
• Annoyance
• Disappointment
• Harassment
• Threats
Symptoms of anger:
• Explosive mind with destructive or attacking property
• Fast and wrong decision made you and others harms
• From your body language such as tense muscles, clenched fist of jaw, red face, and glaring look.
• Always refusing to do ant work.
• Verbally use of abuse words.
Now how can you control your angry anytime? Here are some basic tips for controlling anger:
• First things is every entered into the things which make you angry and frustrated. Because if didn’t entered in it you never get angry.
• Second things if you entered in it and you are noticing that your body language is changed then there is best way to stop your anger start counting with in a second your angry is over and you behave like a normal person.
• Third things when we get angry our face become reddish, increase in temperature and rapid increase in heart beat. Your whole body is a bomb it can blast any time so it make your body cool take bath with cold water and drink cold water. It makes your body and mind cool.
• Fourth things if you getting angry in any topic and ready to fight then there is best way to make your mind cool and fresh do yoga. Best yoga for making you calm is breathing yoga. Take a sitting position and close your eyes and start yoga take breath in and hold for second and then take it out slowly. Repeat it again and again do daily morning and evening for 30 minutes. I can surely say you that you will feel fresh and can Control Anger.
Now I am telling you some basic types emotional felling of anger like fear, hurt, guilt, frustration, jealously, loneliness and helplessness this all things feel you like anger.
• Fear – When you are afraid of something it make you feel or act angry. For ex- if you have a fear that your girlfriend will leave you. It makes you aggressive or mad.
• Hurt – Feeling of hurt can remove your attention from the other? These hurts can make you response with anger. This feeling comes when someone break your hurts.
• Guilt – Sometime it happen when you are guilty and trying to same yourself you frustrate on other. This guilty makes you Anger.
• Frustration – When you feel helpless or powerless it may makes you frustrated. And this frustration is changed into anger.
For more information on anger and anger related query visit our site http://www.bodyhealthbeauty.org.
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Keeping Anger Under Control - By: Garrett Coan
Keeping Anger Under Control
In my work with individuals and couples, I see many people who have a difficult time expressing and managing angry feelings. Let’s take a look at what causes people to become angry and how they can respond to stressful situations more productively.
What Is Anger?
Many people think that anger is caused by hormonal changes or brain activity. This is only partly true. Researchers have found that while hormones play a role in an angry response, there is always a cognitive (thinking) component.
Some people think that humans are innately aggressive or warlike. While our behavior is sometimes hostile toward others, anger is not part of our basic nature.
Frustration may lead to aggression, but it is not inevitable. Some people respond to frustrating events with anger, while others don’t. Anger is only one response to frustration. In many cultures, people are taught to respond to frustration in other ways.
Since Freud’s day, psychologists have disagreed about the value of venting feelings. It may surprise you to know that today’s research shows that expressing anger often results in more irritation and tension rather than feeling more calm.
Why Expressing Anger Can Be Bad for You
Giving vent to anger can produce the following kinds of harmful effects:
• Your blood pressure increases.
• The original problem is worse rather than better.
• You come across as unfriendly and intimidating.
• The other person becomes angry with you as a result of your behavior.
Physical Effects of Anger
Heart. Researchers at Stanford University have found that of all the personality traits found in Type A patients, the potential for hostility is the key predictor for coronary disease. The combination of anger and hostility is the most deadly.
Stomach and intestines. Anger has a very negative effect on the stomach and has even been associated with the development of ulcerative colitis.
Nervous system. Anger is bad for you because it exaggerates the associated hormonal changes. Chronic suppressed anger is damaging because it activates the sympathetic nervous system responses without providing any release of the tension. It is a bit like stepping down on a car’s accelerator while slamming on the brakes.
Why We Get into the Anger Habit
Anger is our response to stress. Many times we feel anger to avoid feeling some other emotion, such as anxiety or hurt. Or we may feel angry when we are frustrated because we want something and can’t have it. Sometimes, feeling angry is a way of mobilizing ourselves in the face of a threat.
Anger may be useful because it stops (blocks) stress. Here are two examples:
1. You are rushing all day in your home office to meet an impossible deadline. Your daughter bounces in after school and gives you a big hug as you furiously type on your computer. You snap, “Not now! Can’t you see I’m busy?”
2. You have just finished taking an important exam. You have studied for weeks and the result is very important to your career. You fantasize all the way home about dinner at your favorite Italian restaurant. When you get home, your husband has prepared a steak dinner for you. You yell, “Why don’t you ask me before you just assume you know what I want?”
This explains why people often respond with anger when they experience the following kinds of stress:
• Anxiety
• Being in a hurry
• Being overstimulated
• Being overworked
• Depression
• Fatigue
• Fear
• Feeling abandoned or attacked
• Feeling forced to do something you don’t want to do
• Feeling out of control
• Guilt, shame, or hurt
• Loss
• Physical pain
What to Do Instead of Getting Angry
Here are some constructive things can you do to reduce stress—instead of becoming angry:
• Beat a pillow with a tennis racket.
• Cry.
• Do relaxation exercises.
• Get physical exercise.
• Listen to your favorite music.
• Make a joke.
• Play games.
• Say it out loud.
• State your needs assertively.
• Take a nap.
• Tell a friend about it.
• Work.
• Write about it.
New Responses to Stress
An angry response often results when we are unhappy with someone else’s behavior. Here are some other responses you can choose instead of flying off the handle:
1. Set limits. Let’s say a friend hasn’t returned a book you loaned to her. Now she wants to borrow another one. You could say, “I’m not going to be able to lend you this book until you return the first one.”
2. Don’t wait. When you realize that you’re feeling annoyed by a situation, speak up. Don’t wait until your annoyance escalates to anger.
3. Be assertive. Say in a positive way what you want from the other person. For example, say, “Please call me when you get home,” rather than, “Would you mind giving me a call when you get there?”
4 Ways to Stop the Spiral of Anger
1. Call a time-out. This is a very effective technique for breaking the sequence of behavior that leads to a blowup. It works best if it is discussed ahead of time and both people agree to use it. Here’s how it works: Either person in an interaction can initiate time-out. One person makes the time-out gesture like a referee in a football game. The other person is obligated to return the gesture and stop talking.
2. Check it out. If anger is a response to personal pain, it makes sense to ask the other person, “What’s hurting?”
3. Make positive statements. It may be helpful to memorize a few positive statements to say to yourself when your anger is being triggered. These statements can remind you that you can choose your behavior instead of reacting in a knee-jerk manner—for example, “I can take care of my own needs,” “His needs are just as important as mine,” and “I am able to make good choices.”
4. Be prepared with a memorized response. Here are a few statements and questions which will help deescalate anger:
• What’s bothering me is...
• If it continues like this, I’ll have to to take care of myself.
• What do you need now?
• So what you want is...
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Anger management for Recruiters - By: Camilla Patten
Managing enraged outbursts in the workplace is something that we all need to master and finding ways in which to do so can be frustrating at best. Anger management and calming methods practiced when we are in the height of our fury range from "new age Zen-techniques" to rational and practical pacifiers.
Aggression and furious anger displayed in the workplace is unprofessional, deconstructive and leaves others sharing the environment feeling uncomfortable and ill at ease. It is vital that we all pull a lesson out of the anger management handbook and find ways on how to manage and control hostile outbursts at work so as to not make working conditions unpleasant and unwelcoming for those around us.
There are two polar ideas referring to anger and its existence in the workplace both of which are valid but not necessarily right. Pacifists argue that anger is negative, completely deconstructive and counterproductive to creating a healthy working environment conducive for employees to tap into their highest level of output. The other school of thought supports the notion that the expression of anger is a release of energy that unless expressed, cannot be yielded to produce forward motion.
In truth, anger and the infuriation that you feel when things don't work out the way you had anticipated them to, is not necessarily where the problem lies with anger management. The problem with managing anger in the workplace is learning how to express this without squashing company moral and frightening off those around you. The way in which anger is expressed has everything to do with managing anger itself and the effects if has in the workplace. Anger in the workplace becomes a problem when emotions are heightened beyond the point of rational control and constructive direction. Negative anger comes in the form of furious confrontation or passive aggression, both of which are paralysing to forward motion.
The biggest challenge faced when managing fury in the workplace, is keeping a level head about you and directing your anger in a positive direction. As with physics, a negative attracts a positive and thus out of any negative situation, so a positive outcome may be achieved depending on how well we utilise the passion that anger stirs in us.
Here are some tips to practice when directing your anger, managing it and ensuring the best possible outcome is achieved in the most positive of ways.
Anger management Tip One: Define the Trigger
Understanding what it is that has in fact made you as furious as you are, is the first step that needs to be followed when trying to get a handle on your temper. Define the 'what, when, who, how and why' of the situation and get a clear picture of what has upset you so. In doing so you will be less likely to add more emotion to the expression of your anger and defuse the situation based on its face value and not from an emotionally sensitive standpoint.
Anger Management Tip Two: Could you have controlled the Outcome of the Situation?
Understand how much control you have over the situation. Whatever has made you angry at work is it worth the feisty energy or was the outcome unavoidable from the offset. Often when adverse events occur they come about as a result of external factors that are beyond our control. While still aggravating and disappointing, by getting angry at outcomes that could not be avoided is a waste of such 'angry energy'. By assessing the level of control over the situation and accepting that certain things are out of your control is a solid way of remaining calm and avoiding unnecessary outbursts of anger.
Anger Management Tip Three: Don't be Stubborn to Possible Resolution
Often when situations are emotionally charged, the first thing to fly out the window is sensibility and reason. The more we cut off our noses, to spite our faces, the more frustrated we become and the more workplace anger is heightened. Be rational about the situation that has given rise to your anger and look for potential solutions that could solve the problem before allowing your anger to get the better of you. When alternative solutions to a negative situation are present, diverting your anger to these as opposed to getting angry for the sake of getting angry will defuse the emotion and move the situation forward in a productive manner.
Anger Management Tip Four: Listen to your Heart
Pay attention to your heart rate and try to keep calm by controlling your breathing. While this may sound like a cop-out, it is a medical fact that through your breath you can control your heart rate and anxiety levels. Try to maintain a controlled intake and out-flow of oxygen and in doing so your heart rate will remain stable along with oxygen levels in your brain and throughout your body, as a result you will feel more under control and less likely to become more aggravated.
Anger Management Tip Five: Practice the 3 P's; Professionalism, Patience and Positivity
There is nothing professional about having a habit of flying off the handle in a fit of anger when things don't go your way in the office. Try to govern your actions with a high level of professionalism and positivity. The more impatient you become the more your anger will grow, the faster your positivity will fail, and professionalism will decrease. Try to tap into the three p's and practice each of these when faced with an infuriating scenario. The higher level of positivity, patience and professionalism you can display the calmer you will remain along with those around you.
Expressing anger is a very human response to common factors that tend to upset us throughout our day. When anger is correctly channelled, expressed productively and controlled during heated situations, it in fact serves as a motivating force in finding solutions to adverse events requiring our immediate attention with efficiency and forward motion.
Copyright (c) 2009 Camilla Patten
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EFT to Release Anger - By: Dr. Theodore Herazy
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is very effective when used to let go of inappropriate anger, regardless of the cause or length of time it has been present.
Anger arises under a few different circumstances:
1. When injustice is perceived
2. When our personal limits or boundaries have been violated
3. When an intolerable situation has been created in which we have been involved.
When anger persists for longer than necessary, say, many years, even after the offending person dies, even after we rationally know there is no good reason to feel angry any longer, it is certainly time to do something about it.
EFT is used to manage and eliminate anger that does not serve any purpose, or has persisted an inappropriate time, or is personally destructive. After an anger is identified as a core issue of an emotional problem it is usually easily neutralized by EFT tapping on the mental image related to the anger associated with a person or particular situation, being as specific as possible.
As an example, rather than using the set up phrase, “Even though I am terribly angry with my husband…’, it probably would be more effective to say use this set up phrase, “Even though I am furious with Jim for staying out until 2AM with his bowling buddies, and then lying that he didn't call me because his cell phone battery was dead…”
Another example, instead of the limited and general, “Even though I am angry how my boss talks to me…”, a more effective way to approach this kind of situation is something specific like, “Even though I am so angry at Mr. Tillman that my heart is pounding every time I think about the way he raised his voice at me in front of Carol just because I was 10 minutes late coming to work in a snow storm…” This, and other specific examples of how Mr. Tillman makes you angry are what you are after.
It is often helpful to pretend the person you are angry with is sitting in front of you while you do your EFT tapping about the anger. At this time freely and fully express all your anger – or any other emotion you feel while tapping. With just a few rounds of EFT tapping, the anger will cease and the negative memory will be cleared.
Most often when anger does not clear after doing multiple rounds of nicely crafted and specific EFT tapping, it is my experience the reason is often that the person finds the anger as a useful way to hold the offending person accountable for the injustice. It is as though the person who holds onto the anger feels that the other person is being punished or penalized by their anger; that letting go of the anger would allow the offending party to “get away with" the wrongful deed or omission.
In another way of explaining and dealing with anger that cannot be released, it is common for people to feel that if the anger was released it would mean that the problem, the transgression, the harmful act somehow "didn't matter." People often feel that by forgiving and releasing an anger they are saying that the harmful act was really no big deal, that it was actually “OK” after all, and that perhaps it was wrong to feel harmed and have been angry in the first place. So in holding onto the anger, they feel that it is the only way to hold the person accountable and exert some form of "punishment.". The dilemma always is that the person holding onto the anger eventually understands that the only person actually being affected by the anger is the anger-holder.
If a difficult time is encountered releasing anger with EFT tapping, look deeper within to see if this anger is based on an issue of "cosmic injustice" that is preventing your progress with Emotional Freedom Technique.
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The Anatomy of Anger - By: A Wolski
Why is it that anger takes so much of our emotional strength and leaves us feeling that we have achieved nothing as a result of it? Of course, there are times that our anger has a positive effect when it drives us to positive change.
This is because anger can be constructive or destructive. If you are angry at something or someone, it is destructive and negative. However, if your anger is for something, it is constructive and positive.
Destructive anger saps our energy and destroys relationships. It takes away our happiness and, if left unchecked, can leave us sinking into depression and depressive habits such as alcohol and drug abuse, or violence. How many people incarcerated in our prisons are there as a result of destructive anger that they have failed to bring under control?
Constructive anger, on the other hand, is one born of passion. It is anger for something such as an issue or a situation that is perceived to be unfair. Look at those who have fought for changes in civil rights and other issues over the years. Their anger over the situation motivated them to fight for change. They see a situation of social injustice, poverty, racial, or other inequalities and they direct their constructive anger rather than allowing their anger to consume them.
The important thing is to question your anger. Are you angry at something or angry for something? There are physical signs that identify the anger as well. When it is destructive anger, your body tenses up and you feel like you may explode. However, constructive anger makes you feel that you are being driven by an inner force. Identifying the type of anger helps you to make the right decision. You need to resolve the destructive anger or express the constructive anger and take proper steps to changing the injustice that this positive anger is aimed toward.
Unfortunately, the greater majority of a person’s anger is of the destructive type. Acturally this makes it easier to eliminate as you come to a proper understanding of it. To overcome this anger, you must identify what is causing it and learn how to nip it in the bud before it becomes all-consuming.
One thing that people need to do is to listen properly. By this, I don’t only mean hearing the spoken word but identifying the meaning behind those words. How many times have you or someone you know become angry because of a ‘misunderstanding’? This is common because of our tendency to hear words literally. Sometimes our interpretation of another’s words can depend on our mood. For instance, if a person is feeling a little irritable, they may interpret words negatively regardless of their meaning. This may quickly lead to confrontation.
Only you are accountable for your reactions to what others say and your interpretation of what they mean so you yourself choose whether to make it confrontational or seek clarification. Think about it the next time you let negative anger try to invade your state of mind.
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Anger Management Techniques for Teens: 3 Great Tips To Deal With Anger - By: Michael Lee
These days, there is a great need for people to learn about anger management techniques for teens. Teenagers today deal with so many personal issues and yet know very little about handling them the right way.
Unfortunately, this lack of knowledge gets them into all sorts of trouble. Teens have the tendency to release all their negative energy onto other people (and even themselves) and do things they later regret.
However, there are better ways to deal with anger, and these three anger management techniques for teens will show you how.
1) Learn to relax.
When you’re angry, everything about you is agitated. Tense. Feeding this agitation will only serve to make you angrier.
In order to prevent the situation from getting worse, calm yourself down. Think of the people who make you happy and feel your body muscles relax.
2) Focus on solving the problem.
One of the most important anger management techniques for teens is to divert the focus on the solution, not the problem.
Don’t let your emotions get the better of you. Instead of focusing on the negative feeling, focus on the possible solutions to the problem. Look at it from a different point of view and try to figure out what you can do to make things better. Do this one step at a time.
3) Find a creative outlet.
If there’s nothing you can do to solve the problem at the moment, find a creative outlet. This is one of the most effective anger management techniques for teens because it does not only help you release aggression in a healthy way; it also paves the way for the discovery of new skills and hobbies. You can try drawing or writing in a journal for starters.
There’s nothing wrong with being angry or even letting it all out. What is important is that you don’t get yourself into trouble for it, and that you express your anger in a healthy way. Hopefully, these three anger management techniques for teens will help you achieve that.
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