Anger

I was on a train, the only space left was next to a poorly dressed large man who had a rucksack, his feet and dog sitting on the empty seat opposite. I sat reading my newspaper aware of others getting on the train seeing the space but not wanting to confront the man or his dog and instead standing in the aisle.

Then a woman got on, she saw the space and gently moved the dog off the seat, the man apologised and she replied there was no problem, it was a good dog. I wanted to laugh out loud, from relief that there was no anger, laugh too because the mans image belied his gentility and manners. Laugh too at myself for building an expectation of confrontation would be needed instead of an exchange of good manners.

Dealing with anger is a full length book in itself, most of us have not been taught to be angry, nor been taught how to recognise it or deal with it in others and yet we feel upset if we don’t deal with it well.

Anger for me is like love, just another emotion, which doesn’t mean that I’m not scared of this emotion because just like Love; I’m not sure whether its for me…

The Basics, develop your anger inventory.

This involves looking at what sparks you off, looking deeper at what this can be about, looking deeper still at what anger does for you…

Understanding Anger

Never getting angry is impossible and not worth chasing, instead, try to remember that it’s how you act on your anger that makes any situation better or worse.

Anger is generally misunderstood but if you can understand your emotions you can deal with them and learn to take charge, to not let anger control you. That way everyone wins.

You can do this by learning the ABC‘s of anger. This helps you establish what caused you to be angry; your Anger trigger. What you did about it; your Behaviour and what happened then: Consequence.

Doing this over time will help you recognise the situations that create anger or anxiety around anger for you, then you can try different behaviours and understand how your behaviours create consequences.

There are a variety of issues that influence our anger; if we learned in our families to get angry first and resolve issues later, we are likely to use the same approach. If we feel frustrated, feeling stressed or are tired, we are more likely to react with anger. If we tend to hold onto our feelings rather than talk about them, we tend to outbursts of anger rather than deal with situations as they arise.

Some possible truths about Anger; Anger is a reaction and not a planned action, to change our angry reactions we need to understand them. Anger is easier to show: we all get angry. The feelings underneath our anger make us feel vulnerable and weak, so getting angry makes us feel strong and in control.  Instinctively we express anger by responding aggressively, anger is a natural response to threats as it inspires powerful feelings and behaviours that allow us to fight or defend ourselves when we feel attacked. Anger therefore, is necessary to survival. Anger patterns are reinforced or learned throughout our lives and can be unlearned or replaced with better behaviours. Anger can be an immediate reaction single event or a response after many events. Repressing anger is unhealthy; expressing it impulsively can initially feel good but can have long-term negative consequences.  Anger can motivate us in positive ways; anger is beneficial when it motivates us to make necessary changes but it can also block our ability to think constructively.

Effect on health of Anger

If managed inappropriately anger affects our physical and mental health;

• Headaches
• Gastrointestinal disorders
• Respiratory disorders
• Skin disorders
• Genito-urinary disorders
• Arthritis
• Disabilities of the nervous system
• Circulatory disorders
• Aggravation of existing physical symptoms
• Emotional disturbances
• Suicide

Anger Busters
Here are some other things you can do when you start to feel angry:

• Talk to a friend you can trust
• Count to 10
• Get or give a hug
• Stamp your feet
• Beat up a pillow; the pillow can’t get hurt
• Draw a picture of your anger
• Sing along with the stereo
• Doing manual tasks
• Think happy thoughts about things
• Timing: try changing the times when you talk about important matters so conversations don’t turn into arguments.
• Finding alternatives: if what you have to do creates anger, do something else. Change your job, your life and your behaviour.
• Avoidance: walk away from the things that upset you.
• Take breaks, create personal space and time for when you know are likely to get stressed.
• Identifying what provokes; this helps you confront or avoid later provocation.
• Seek alternative explanations; find alternative explanations of provoking events, maybe then you can place your feelings in to the appropriate perspective and respond more effectively.
• Assertiveness; learn techniques to stand up for your rights and express your needs.
• Negotiation; work conflicts out by coming to agreement-even if agreeing to differ.
• Criticism; improve your ability to give and receive constructive criticism.
• Body Biofeedback is about discovering how your body feels when angry or when others are angry and using these feeling cues to alter your responses, thoughts and behaviour to help you better cope with your feelings around anger.
• Simple relaxation tools, such as deep breathing and relaxing imagery, can help calm down angry feelings.

Some simple relaxation exercises you can try:

• Breathe deeply from your diaphragm; breathing from your chest won’t relax you.
• Slowly repeat a calm word or phrase such as ‘Relax’  Repeat this to yourself while breathing deeply.
• Use imagery; visualise a relaxing experience, from memory or imagination.
• Yoga exercises can relax muscles and help you feel calmer.
• Changing the Way You Think; when Angry we tend to swear or dramatise our thoughts, learn to replace these dramatic words and slow yourself down, its not ruined…its just not going well…
  This is about not acting on the first thing that comes into your head, but slowing down and thinking carefully about what you want to do or say. It’s about listening very carefully to what others are saying and you being worth thinking time before you answer. You may need to learn to listen to what is underlying another’s’ anger and understand that if they are angry it isn’t necessarily about you.
   

Anger Management

Anger management is about reducing your emotional feelings and the physical symptoms that anger creates. You can’t avoid all the things that create anger but you can learn to control your reactions.

Anger can be regarded as negative, as it’s good to express happiness, anxiety, depression or other emotions but not anger and so culturally we feel bad about our feelings. Sometimes our anger is caused by real problems in our lives and is a healthy response to our difficulties.  Learn to listen to what is underlying your anger and learn to express your angry feelings in a positive way. Express your feelings in an assertive manner; learn how to make clear your needs and how you want them met, without hurting others.

The three main approaches to Managing Anger are;

1. Expressing; learning to express your feelings in an assertive manner, making clear your needs and how you want them met, without hurting others. Being assertive doesn’t mean being demanding, it is about being respectful of yourself and others.
2. Suppressing; this is holding in anger, stopping thinking about it, focussing on something positive and then converting or redirecting feelings to convert it into more constructive behaviour. The difficulty is that repressed anger can turn inward and create high blood pressure or depression
3. Calming; is calming down inside, not just controlling outward behaviour, but controlling internal responses, taking steps to lower heart rate, slow yourself down and allowing angry feelings to subside.

Anger is useful to alert us to changes that need to be made and we often feel angry in response to situations not under our control. By being alert we can make productive steps to resolve our issues and regain peace of mind.

There will be times when we get uncomfortable feelings in our body while with difficult people or thinking about them. We can protect ourselves from difficult people by either avoiding contact with them, observing what they do or say or by learning what they show us about ourselves that we find difficult.

When we recognise that we have continuing problems in relating harmoniously, we begin to ask ourselves why. After all the explanations outside ourselves are exhausted, we can then begin to walk the true path to personal self-enlightenment.

This desire to know ourselves will lead to personal harmony and with practice in living harmoniously with ourselves; we can then begin having easier relationships with others. Anger teaches us what we need to know about ourselves

I remember clearing a piece of land, this had been left for 30+ years, there were dead trees, undergrowth and bits of rubbish interwoven amongst these. I was really enjoying myself as I had all the toys; chainsaw, brushcutter and my imagination to fire up what I’d do once this was all cleared. Yet I found myself angry at times; angry at this (to be) beautiful piece of land being neglected. A puzzle? I was happy yet at times angry. It was only a puzzle until I recognised that anger was fuelling my energy and drive to clear the space. I’d like to tell you I let go of my angry feelings as soon as I recognised them, but that wasn’t so. I let them go after I’d finished the work, maybe you will too.

Your anger inventory may be painful to compile, dredging back to memories, feelings you thought gone. If you can make this part of your letting go and forgiving work, then that’s great too.

After your inventory is complete; spend time thinking on it. Which anger modes can you let go of?

If you get angry everyday driving in traffic, angry at those who drive badly, those on ‘phones, those nudging up to your back bumper etc. think on this for a while; what does it do for you? Where does this come from? Is this best for you? Your body? Mind?

Can you learn that this happens everyday, that if the world doesn’t change that you may have to?

Being able to listen when someone is angry;

When confronted with anger the hardest thing to remember is to breathe…

As mammals when we feel threatened we are programmed to move into fight or flight behaviours. These prepare us for running away or fighting; adrenaline kicks in to give immediate energy and we take shorter breaths to pump in necessary oxygen, needed to run or raise our fists and fight.

Unfortunately in some circumstances these automatic responses don’t help us when what we really need to do is to listen to the other person, listen to their anger and discover whether it is about us, toward us or is anything we can do something about. I say unfortunately, because these automatic behaviours only prepare us to run away or fight and if we do try to be still and listen, the adrenaline makes us ‘jittery’ and can give off aggression signals rather than trying for acceptance of a point of view.

It is hard to listen in these circumstances; so we need to consciously change our behaviour. We need to slow ourselves down, slow our thinking, to slow our breathing and this then slows us physiologically to a pace we can deal with.

This in turn stops the fight or flight response and means we can hear what is being said. This doesn’t stop you from running away should you need to, but what it will do is to put you in control of why you’re running away…which has got to be good, hasn’t it?

Being heard when you are angry tends to defuse the situation; your anger is accepted, your feelings validated and maybe something new can happen to ease your discomfort with these. I’m not suggesting you automatically try to placate when confronted or challenged. Instead I’m suggesting that if control your breathing as you listen; you may be able to hear what’s yours, what’s theirs and what-if anything-both of you could do to change the situation. This feels more like a winning situation to me than automatically accepting the programming of running away, fighting or feeling out of control when faced with anger.

Learning to Release

This is useful because it will teach you how not to get caught up by emotions, events or others behaviour.

First think of a problem in your life, something of concern or an emotion you are experiencing now that is causing difficulties.

Identify the emotion, what comes to mind?

Begin to focus more, what are you really feeling?

Become aware of any physical sensations and focus on these.

Feel deeper into your emotion, let it inhabit you. If you feel grief, cry. If it’s anger, feel how your body tightens and any armour you put on.

Then develop your awareness of the difference between you and the emotion. When you fully experience and accept that emotion, there will be a clear sensation that you are not that emotion and you can begin to let it go.

If you can’t let the emotion go, feel it deeper, experience it fully, feel your body, your mind and how these are affected.

The point of this is not the pain but of recognising that we hold emotions and if we allow emotions to hold us, they distort who we are. To fully learn this lesson we need to recognise our hidden thoughts, assumptions, decision or intentions and how these drive our emotions.

Check your thinking to see if this emotion is appropriate for the circumstance now or whether you apply it through habit. These habits are generally negative and unless you learn from your negative emotions, they will return again and again until the lesson is learned. Its tough but that’s how it seems to be, that unless we learn from life, life keeps kicking us until we wake up.

Release, it feels good to let go of the energy held in your body and you will hopefully feel more relaxed, calm and more you.

If you still have any of the emotion, go through the exercise again, you may find some emotions require a number of release exercises, this is good too, as you are finding your way back to you.

After a while of doing this you will be able to do it when you need to, you’ll be able to let go of your emotions until you begin to control them, rather than them controlling you.

Neil Benbow

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