By: Linda Sapadin
It helps you get off your butt and actually take some action to confront a situation that has been bothering you. Most of us are pretty familiar with the bad side of anger. Here are a few of the difficulties: 1. If your anger is the first (or only) response to situations you don't like, then anger is not just another emotion; it has become a personality characteristic. You are an angry person. 2. Your anger quickly turns into rage. When enraged, you may say and do things that embarrass you and cause major damage to relationships. You may become so out of control that you curse at those you love, threaten violence, become aggressive, throw things, break things or become physically violent. 3. You have a tendency to nurse your anger and are slow to let go of it even once a situation is resolved. Your anger is intensified by resentment that simmers beneath the surface for long periods of time. Failure to let go of anger once a situation has been settled is living in the past, and can be a huge waste of energy and a hindrance to repairing relationships. Because of these significant negative effects, you may want to learn how to tame your anger. Here are a few suggestions: 1. Since anger is a difficult emotion to control once it gets out of hand, it makes a lot of sense to try to catch it in its early stages. So, as soon as you feel anger in your body, instead of stoking the fire, work to calm yourself down. One way to do this is to take 3 deep breaths, inhaling slowly, exhaling slowly until you feel your body relaxing. On your last exhale, silently say something reassuring to yourself, like "I can discuss this calmly," or "It's probably not as awful as I think it is at this moment."2. People say terrible things in anger, because they've temporarily lost the rational part of their brain. What comes in their head spills out of their mouth. So, take a moment to think. Think about whether what's so important to you this moment will be so important in the long run, or even in a day or two. Think about the repercussions (to you and to others) of acting in anger. Think about whether you can gain someone's cooperation instead of immediately making the interaction adversarial. 3. People often get excessively angry because of their assumptions. So, examine your assumptions. Are you outraged because you think someone is trying to put something over on you? Are you upset because someone did not act the way you expected them to? Are you incensed because you believe someone has discounted your opinion or demeaned your competence? Check out these assumptions. They may be only partially true; they may be false; or they may be true, but so what? What if someone has not acted the way you expected them to? How and why is that significant to you? The goal here is not to rid yourself of anger but to learn how to contain it and use it well. When you succeed, you will be in charge of your anger instead of letting your anger control you.
Linda Sapadin, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice who works with individuals, families and couples. Copyright © 2003
