Anger

 

Being easily triggered, by just a few words or by small things, that we cannot contain our angry feelings, and the best we can do is being snappy if not verbally aggressive, if only… could we smash a wall, then we would feel so much better!

Anger is one of the primordial feelings and as such it’s difficult to manage, like fear, because instinctive and normally what takes for a person to learn to manage their anger comprises of three steps.

First we must be become aware of the warning signs of our anger being triggered; these start from bodily sensations such as a wave of heat sweeping through the body, muscular tension, especially in the limbs, tightness in the stomach or in the throat, or a racing heart etc. Once we are mindful of our bodily sensations the second step is to bring the attention to the feelings generated, which are never feelings of anger. They are most likely feelings of sadness, disappointment, feelings of being devalued, which stem from feeling unimportant, jealousy, which stems from feelings of not being good enough, etc. The third step is to choose how to react, and instead of following our instinct to lash out, we must learn to address and express the feelings behind the anger. Only this way we give ourselves the chance to be understood properly and we give the chance to the other person to meet our unmet needs. 

This process can take effort and time to learn and it can be difficult to master because of the instinctive nature of anger.

Normally an anger issue is present when our own personal reservoir for this feeling cannot contain any more and thus the feeling easily overflows, when triggered. Obviously the reservoir is full at present because there is a lot of unaddressed anger from the past, so before diving into learning the above process it makes sense to find out about past experiences, where rather than expressing our anger we just swallowed it down, either because we didn’t have the courage or the skills to vent it. By re-processing those events the anger is released safely and this will empty out the reservoir to an acceptable level, thus emotional resiliency is developed.

By carrying out this type of work we become naturally mindful of our bodily sensations and feelings, which will make the anger management learning process much quicker and almost effortless, hence choosing how to react also becomes much easier.

Finally, techniques will then be taught for you to be able to deal with and release anger when it arises, so the reservoir is kept to a safe level at all times.

Remember: “Nothing is Impossible, the word itself says I’M POSSIBLE!”