HOW TO DEAL WITH ANGER? WORK ON BEING AT PEACE

Good day,

A few weeks ago we discussed how mistakes provide learning experiences for you and how you should not criticize yourself when you make mistakes. This week I want to cover the subject of Anger. Specially for our male readers, this is a topic that requires much self-control.  Women have a better way of dealing with their anger for some reason.  If you are a long time reader of this blog you are familiar with how The Law of Attraction works. If not please take a look at some of the links on the lower left side of the page for past blogs posts on The Law of Attraction.  Knowing about The Law of Attraction should warn us about getting angry. Anger is a powerful emotion and the vibrations that are sent out when we are angry contain significant amount of power. So why is it so difficult to control this emotion?

That is a question that I have been struggling with all my life.  Now that I have a 3 years old the question comes up more and more.  I think one of the reasons it is so hard to control anger is that it is in essence the reverse of trying to work our way into positive. Anger response is normally a gradual progression of disappointment, frustration, hopelessness, which then culminate into an anger response. By the time we are at the anger point allot has been building momentum and it is difficult to turn that momentum around in a split second.

We know that a negative thought pattern is not as strong as a positive thought pattern, but a steady, continual buildup of negative thought patterns and emotions will eventually manifest themselves in our reality.

Since this is a blog on success and the use of The Law of Attraction it bears to mention that anger is extremely detrimental to your success. Unless you are an enforcer for a NHL hockey team anger usually signals lack of control and confidence and will undermine your success more often than not.  In today’s business, or even personal world, anger is rarely the solution.  In fact the only time I can think of anger being a positive is in life or death altercation when anger can summon extra endorphins. Even then all of my martial arts training has taught me that the combatant who uses anger usually is succumbed by the calm and collected opponent.

So the way to manage and control this beast is to monitor the emotions that lead to it and cut them off before they spiral out of control. When a situation is starting to frustrate you or go counterproductively recognize and either take actions to rethink your actions and emotions, or take a break and re-center your thoughts. Each of us has to work with this and recognize when pushing through the barrier is the best course of action and when it is time to regroup? At the time it seems like taking a break or giving way is the last thing you must do, but that is where practice of recognizing your emotional build up will come in handy. Start to monitor your thoughts just prior to an episode when you got angry. Analyze them afterward and see where you could have modified your response.

Let me give you an example from my life. Dealing with a 9 moth old and a 3 years old can test ones patience. When my 3 years old keeps on wanting to play with something that does not belong to her normally I can discuss the reasons why and she usually will understand. But let say the 9 months old suddenly is crying and I am going through the checklist of what could be wrong and I go to change her but she is squirming and moving all about, when suddenly my 3 years old now goes after what she is not supposed to be playing with. Out of the frustration that has reached a peak over not being able to calm my 9 month old, I slip into anger and put her in time out with a loud voice instead of a neutral calm voice.

It is difficult to really see where I could have recognized the events getting out of my control. May be I could have delegated dealing with the 3 years old to my wife as I was struggling to change the little one. May be I could have ignored the 3 years old until I was done changing the little one and then after calming down I could deal with her. May be recognizing the fact that the 3 years old is interested in the object I could have put the object out of her reach. All of these are dealing with the physical reality of the matter. The more masterful and advanced way of doing things would be to deal with the thought process as I am going through them. When I was getting frustrated during the time that the baby is crying I can start to work on my feelings in the moment and reach for better feeling ones. Perhaps understanding that all baby’s go through tantrums. She is teething so of course it is understandable. My 3 years old is usually a very good girl, and may be today she is just trying to see how far she can push her boundaries. I did that as a child. She is doing the same. All these thoughts take me from frustration to an area of understanding and a feeling of logical neutrality so when the 3 years old goes for the wrong object I can handle the situation with a neutral and objective tone even if I have to put her in time out.

It is sometimes helpful to write down your own analysis. There is something about writing that makes things clear and the time it takes to put thoughts on paper helps you to calm down.  It is hard to make time to write things down specially when it comes to analyzing your anger, but that is why you have to do it. It is a skill just like learning to shoot a basketball or throwing a football. It takes work and practice and it will pay off in the end. Maybe try writing a journal or a blog. That is a great thing in  itself regardless of whether you are analyzing your anger or just putting down your thoughts about the day. It also has an amazing power to concentrate your visualization.

It  takes lots of practice and lots of analysis after getting angry for you to start recognizing the feelings that  lead up to the anger. Small progressions will yield big gains though when it comes to controlling your anger. Lastly let not forget the goal is not to “work on NOT getting angry”. By The Law of Attraction that only leads to situations that make you angry. The goal is to be at peace or to enhance your calm.

Good luck and best wishes for your success.