UNDERSTANDING ANGER; LEARN TO HANDLE IT , NOT TO GET RID OF IT

To start with, I always give this advice to all with anger issues, do not try to get rid of it but learn how to manage it as this is a more realistic goal. Let us take a closer look at the essence of anger. Its basic nature is demand, this demand can be from oneself, others or from the world, and it is connected to our ego component. Unfortunately, humans sometimes fail to realize when their expectations turn to demands. Let me exemplify this, I should be the best influencer on Instagram (demand on oneself), my parents should have the same goals as me (demand on others) and, people should accept me as the best singer in the world (demand from the world). What I mean to say is that if people become aware of their language and change the modals of SHOULD to PREFER, there can be a significant mind shift in them as it is a known fact that our language helps us change our beliefs and these beliefs in turn change our thoughts and thus our behavior. Therefore, I request all those who have anger issues to change their modals of must and should to prefer and say for instance, I will prefer if I become the best influencer on the Instagram, I will prefer if my parents share the same goal as me and finally, I will prefer if the world accepts me as the best singer. Thus, the focus here is on becoming aware of your language and trying to use a more flexible language.

Since I have mentioned the word aware, I will emphasize on it as the first step to transform oneself. If a person is aware of his or her non-useful patterns of thoughts and behaviors, he can move towards change. How does one become aware? This is created by self- reflection and analysis which is a cognition only we humans possess when compared to other animals. It is definitely a great gift as when we become aware of our triggers which make us angry, we can remove ourselves physically from the person or situation, in other words use the avoidance technique.

To understand anger further, I will have to bust a few myths related to anger. Firstly, that venting out your anger helps. To clarify, research says that venting out anger has no benefits; in fact, it is detrimental to all, the person, others and the environment. So, I recommend that all with anger problems delay it rather than venting it. Let us talk about the second myth which is that a person can have a calm demeanor when angry. This is not possible for sure, so I suggest instead of an unrealistic outcome, we focus on a more realistic one and try to achieve a healthy anger rather than an unhealthy one. Let me explain how your anger can be healthy, instead of shouting and blaming, use an assertive language and blame the issue and not the person. When our language is respectful and the tone befitting then we are being assertive in the true sense. This takes a lot of practice but it is certainly achievable.

I would like to leave you with a couple of techniques for managing anger.

Because I am an ardent fan of positive psychology, I would suggest you to use the visualization technique which is a solution focused technique often used for people with anger difficulties. Ask yourself the below questions:

If you wake up after 3 years and your anger has disappeared, then,

1. What would you do differently?
2. What behaviour would you like to stop?
3. How would you be behaving with others without this anger?
4. What would your day look like?
5. Would your goals be different?

Let me describe how this helps, initially this activity gives the hope to the individual that he can get rid of his anger, secondly, it helps him see the advantages of not having this not so useful behaviour and  it helps to gain another perspective that he has a choice to behave differently. Lastly, this imagination takes the person to his goals which are opposite to his problems.

At the end, I would like to recommend a technique included in Mindfulness which encourages us to be in here and now and observe the incident AS IS. I want to be very clear that the only thing a person who is angry can do is take deep breaths as anger arouses our nervous system and it also affects many other systems of our anatomy. Any suggested technique will be useful once they have calmed their excited body.  Let me throw some light on this activity, close your eyes and recall an event when you felt really angry and open your eyes after 30 seconds and talk about how that felt and you would surely have felt something of the actual feelings. Close your eyes again and this time recall that time calmly from the outside. Viewing it as a CCTV camera or as an observer, but this time imagine how it could have been different without this negative emotion of anger. Reviewing this memory, lowers your emotion and attachment and makes you pay attention to aspects you were not aware of before, maybe, your physiology or your voice modulations. In this case, we are encouraging them to use their logical brain and encouraging detached observation. There is no doubt that when we are angry , we go into our emotional brain and we need to come out of it and go to our logical brain to take  better decisions. This technique helps in cognitive restructuring and understanding the cognitive aspect of anger as a third person without being bias.

Al things considered, I would like to conclude and say that our goal is not to do away with anger but manage it. If we train our mind and remind it this goal, we will not waste our energies and time in throwing away this anger it but in handling it in a better manner.

Author

Ms. Mohita Aggarwal

Psychological Counselor, An Educator and a Parenting Coach