Coping With Anger

Writen by Joe Love

The wild tempest that rages within us when we are furiously angry has been a focus for much of Western civilization’s great literature. In his plays, William Shakespeare immortalized the lengths to which extreme anger can devastate relationships.

King Lear exiles his most beloved daughter from his kingdom and his heart when she angers him. “We have no such daughter, nor shall ever see that face of hers again,” he rages. “Thererfore be gone/Without our grace, our love, our benison.” (King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1.) But Lear learns, after it is too late, that she is the one daughter who truly loves him.

In Othello, the insane Iago poisons Othello’s heart with lies about his beautiful wife, Desdemona. The Moore is driven into the blackest of rages over Iago’s tales of infidelity and kills her in a fit of anger. He learns of her innocence after it is too late, and, like Lear, he dies a tragic death.

We all have felt the hot flashes of anger, although, perhaps, not on such an epic scale as Shakespeare depicted. However, even though you might not be driven to radical lengths, the ability to control your temper, whether or not your anger is justified, remains crucial to both your personal and professional life.

When you are angry, you should first examine why you are angry. Be specific in describing to yourself the cause of your anger. Then try to see the situation from a different point of view. We can become so wrapped up in our own feelings and difficulties that we forget that, for the most part, people are truly trying to do the best they can. They aren’t out to get us.

When we are angry with others, we are often being unfair to them. Our anger usually arises out of a misunderstanding or an unrealistic expectation. What seems like infuriating behavior is more often just the other person’s effort to keep his or her balance.

When you’re angry you should ask yourself, “Am I jumping to false conclusions? Do I have unrealistic expectations?” It also helps if you try to see things from the other person’s point of view, and avoid believing you know how he or she ought to be acting. For example, suppose a man is furious with a boy in his neighborhood who hits his new car with a rock, but his attitude toward the boy changes when he learns the boy’s sister is dying.

If you decide your anger is justified but that it is not an appropriate time to engage in an all-out confrontation, you need to control your anger. One strategy to stem the rising tide of anger involves becoming more aware of how your body reacts as you grow irate. Through various relaxation techniques, you can learn to bring the physical effects of anger under immediate control.

It’s important to pay attention to how your posture changes when you are angry. For example, as you struggle to keep your composure, you might find yourself tightly gripping the telephone receiver, or clutching the steering wheel of your car in traffic. The jaws are also a target for stress.

When you’re angry, you will most likely find yourself tensely clenching your teeth. Realizing that these are common reactions and that they are not helping you calm down is a big first step in coping with your anger. Now you should take additional steps to do something about it.

I always recommend to my clients and people who attend my seminars to use progressive relaxation exercises. These exercises help you center; they teach you to be aware of your body’s reactions when you’re angry and to assert some control over them. In progressive relaxation exercises, you alternately tense your muscles and relax them. You can start at your feet and work your way up to your head, or you can focus on a particular tense area.

Here are some other techniques to help you cope with anger:

Take deep breaths. Like the progressive relaxation exercise, deep breathing encourages you to relax and normalize your body’s reaction to anger.

Take notes. This can help you reflect on what the person who angered you has said. The very act of writing will force you to take some time before you respond and will help you obtain a more objective point of view.

Close your eyes and use positive visualization. Closing your eyes gives you time to relax and shut out the world. Couple this with positive visualization, a technique where, for example, you picture yourself speaking calmly and objectively with the person you are angry with until you reach a satisfactory resolution of the problem, and your results are very effective.

Use the hold button on the telephone. If you are on the telephone and find yourself growing angrier by the minute, don’t be afraid to use the hold feature on your telephone. Be polite, of course, and don’t get off the telephone too abruptly or keep the person holding for too long. Make sure you take the time to calm down so that you don’t end up saying something you’ll regret later.

Lower your tone of voice. When people are angry, their voices tend to get louder. Be aware of this, and consciously turn down your volume. When you are shouting, nobody is listening, and you are only exacerbating an already tense situation.

Anger can be a frighteningly overwhelming emotion. Whether your anger comes on like a sudden storm or simmers slowly, you must learn how and when to express your anger. It is healthy for us to acknowledge that we are hurt or threatened or frustrated, but we must make sure that our expression of anger is appropriate. Otherwise, we could end up with a fate as tragic as that of a character in a Shakespearean drama.

Copyright©2006 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Top Ten Ways of Moving Through Anger

Writen by Johanna Vanderpol

Our culture makes anger a dirty word. Yet, it is an emotion that deserves attention. Because it has not received the proper attention, it is responsible for coming out “all wrong” and come out it will. The way to manage anger is by recognizing it as a valid emotion with a purpose. Next time you are angry, look at it as a form of information that has a message for you. Determine the message and act in a way that satisfies the message with self-respect and respect for others. Here are ten points to keep in mind as you move through anger:

1. Recognize that anger is a valid message that something is wrong.

2. Experience the sensations in the body: Where do you feel it? What does it feel like?

3. Determine the message in the emotion. What is the message? What is anger trying to tell you? Have one of your boundaries been violated? Is it a response to protect you from feeling hurt? Are your goals being frustrated? Are you responding to feeling threatened? Has your sense of justice been betrayed? Figure out the message. Your body and mind are trying to tell you something.

4. Understand the other person’s point of view. Are you angry at someone? Have you thought about or talked about what may have provoked their behaviour? If you can truly understand, it will change your anger.

5. Understand your need for nourishing people in your life. Is your anger a pattern, a theme with the same kinds of problems with the same kinds of people? Is it time to respect yourself and choose friends and others who treat you better?

6. Recognize your beliefs. What beliefs about yourself and others are driving your anger. Use the ABC exercise on my site to excavate your beliefs. Are your beliefs adaptive or maladaptive? If they are adaptive, go ahead to action. If they are maladaptive, what new belief do you need to try that would work better or be more accurate?

7. Take action. Inherent in the message of anger is the need for non-violent action that is respectful of self and others. This is the tricky one. What action is required here that will satisfy the anger without causing damage to anyone including yourself.

8. Manage your anger. If you need to manage your anger, in what ways can you do that which would allow you to continue to function?

9. Acknowledge the anger. Suspend self-judgment. Are you truly acknowledging your anger, even if you know it is connected to a maladaptive belief that you haven’t yet changed completely? Acknowledging and having compassion for yourself in a nurturing style will go a long way to having your anger feel heard.

10. Look for moderation. Remember, suppressed anger is linked to cancer and cathartic anger is linked to cardiovascular heart disease. Find the moderate point on the continuum for hearing and taking appropriate action and your anger will be attended to in a way that is befitting for all concerned.

Now that you have some new insight, what will you do today to bring it into consciousness and apply it. Every day we get angry but don’t pay much attention to it. Today, notice a small thing you are angry at and apply any one of these principles or insights and see how it changes things for you. I would love to hear if it had any effect for you.

Copyright 2006 Johanna Vanderpol

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Anger- How Does It Accumulate In The Body

Writen by Pradeep Chadha

A young man lost his mother when he was 10 years old. He could not understand why it happened. He was angry with his mother for leaving him. He was angry with God for taking her away. He could not express it. He was expected not to cry because it would be unmanly. His father remarried. He was angry with him for it. He was angry with his step mother who had taken the place of his mother. He could not express the anger. He was supposed to be a good boy.

He was intelligent. In school, he watched his peers being beaten up by teachers. He felt angry but could do nothing about it. He was himself at the receiving end of some bullying by other students. He did not talk about it to anyone. He thought that once the school was over, it would be easy to forget the bullying. He became a young man. He realised that he had difficulties in relating to women. He was devastated when his relationships with his girlfriends broke down. He used to have rows with them. He did not know why it happened.

He got into a job and found he could not get along with female bosses. He was afraid of male authority figures. He did not know why. He got married to a woman he loved. He continued in his job and with years passing, he realised he needs to be doing something different. He also started to drink a little too much. After three children, his relationship with his wife started to change. He realised he was simply coping with life. He took premature retirement. He separated from his wife. He became depressed.

At that stage, he decided to address his anger and other problems associated with it. As he addressed issues from his past, his life started to change. He never realised before he dealt with his anger how much he was holding on to. It had all to do with his past. His present was being affected by his unresolved anger with his early relationships. As layers of anger were peeled off , his alcohol consumption reduced. He became more and more accepting of himself and his past, the world around him and his relationships. His life changed.

Pradeep K Chadha is a psychiatrist who specialises in helping patients with meditation and imagery using little or no medication. He is the author of The Stress Barrier-Nature’s Way To Overcoming Stress published by Blackhall Publishing, Dublin. He is based in Dublin, Ireland.His website address is :http://www.drpkchadha.com

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