There are different types of anger and when it comes to overcoming it, you have to make a decision whether it serving you or not first. Anger is an emotion that arises under many different circumstances and unfortunately sometimes it becomes a habit. Though while feeling it, we feel certain and strong, and sometimes even clear on what we need to do, a lot of times when it is gone, the certainty and strength are also gone.
Useful Anger:
As Harry Dresden call it, constructive anger, also know as passion. Useful anger is anger that makes you take action, that makes you make decisions you’ve been putting off. If you want to just get by and do not want to improve, this type of anger is not useful to you. However if you want to motivate yourself to improve, be it your financial, love or emotional life, anger can be a great catalyst. An example would be a person who has been lazy for years and years, just getting by. On a moment of reflection, he gets angry at all those parts of his personality that stopped him from living up to his/her potential. Anger gives him certainty that he can do it, so he starts searching ways to improve. He rereads a book on improving his life, which he at the time found interesting but never took action upon it. After reading the book, he starts taking action and takes control of his feelings and behaviors.
In this example, the person was not angry during the whole process. The anger was the catalyst that made him decide to improve. Then he relaxed and thought of ways to accomplish this… and from there it went on. So anger is great when it forces you to make long overdue decisions. But…
Destructive Anger:
It is not so great when it propels you to hurt people. Destroy things. Hurt yourself. Make judgements. Too often people, in the heat of the anger do things that they regret for the rest of their life. In a moment of anger, you can take away life. But you can’t bring it back, no matter how angry you get. In a moment of anger, you can break a heart. It will be incredibly difficult to mend it back up. In a moment of anger you can destroy a marriage, you can betray your loved ones…
In any case, you need to be the judge whether your anger helps you or brings you down. How? Think of the last few times you have been angry. Did you, afterwards, feel happy about what you did, or you felt bad about it? If the former, you probably have ‘the good’ kind of anger (or you are just a malicious person, in which case this blog may not be for you. If you want to come to the good side of the fence, where goodness and kindness are the states you enjoy, I suggest taking up meditation). If the latter, you probably have a destructive kind of anger.
Tips For Overcoming Anger RIGHT NOW
- Take Deep Breaths – Okay so, breathe down to your belly button. Slow your breath down and focus on it. Do it for a minute or two…or more! The way for this to be really effective, is to begin a 5-10 minute meditation practice where you breathe deeply anyway, so you train your body to get into a relaxed calm state before you need it.
- Change Your Frame – Frame is basically a fancy word for point of view. Look at the situation from the point of view of the other person. From the point of view of an outside observer. From the point of view of god. Really get into it.
- Think of Long Term Consequences – A lot of the destructive anger is acted upon because we don’t think of long term consequences. Ask yourself: “If I do this now how will this affect my life in a month from now, and how will I feel about it?” (this is another way of changing your frame)
- Remember past consequences of your anger. In the past, when you were angry in this way, and you took similar action, what were the results? How did you feel afterwards when the anger dissipated? Would you like to feel the same way again? (yet another way of changing your focus)
Now if anger is an issue you’re battling with, there are many ways of going about the fight. BUT, the key to success, is to just PICK ONE and just go with it for a couple of days. When you get angry, you won’t be thinking to yourself – oh, here are the 4 tips this dude from the internet gave me, let me try them. You mind will be somewhere else entirely. So PICK 1 out of the ones I gave you…or maybe from another source, doesn’t matter. What matters is that you begin to overcome your problem. Pick one, and decide now – for the next few days I am going to do this whenever I get angry. If it works…great, you found your cure. Pretty soon it will become automatic and you won’t have to think about it consciously. If it doesn’t…well just in this article there are 4 tips. And I am not even an expert. You can find hundreds of ways to overcome anger, the important things is to not give up.
Some Long Term Solutions For Anger
In the past two sections I talked about the different types of anger, and gave you some tips to overcoming it at the moment of it occurring. Now lets try some long term solutions. If you really want to tackle the issue, you have to use this in conjunction with the tips for getting rid of anger in the short term, and in a couple of weeks you will find that you are much calmer and composed.
So what can you do to get rid of the habit of getting angry?
- Take up meditation. There are so many types of meditations that you can do that you can’t complain of not having choices. Give yourself 5-10 minutes a day. Yep. That’s absolutely enough. Find a couple of guided youtube videos of your desired length (you can try mine as well!) and do them. You can do a different one everyday, or you can pick one you like and do it repeatedly. The key is: CONSISTENCY. One time will not cut it, at least in the long run. Make it a habit. Like showering. See it like a shower for your emotions. If you want them to be clean, do it daily. Best time to do it? Morning. And Before bed if you want to really kick it up a notch.
- Use affirmations. What are affirmations – these are positive statements where you affirm your desired state as if you already have it. An example for anger would be: “I am calm and confident. I am composed. I allow myself to be calm and confident.” Do not use negative statements like “I am not angry anymore”. Best time to do them? In the morning, 1-2 minutes of affirmation right after your meditation will do. Where to get the affirmations? From your mind. Spend 2 minutes writing down 4-5 Statements like the ones above. Tailor them to your specific case. If you get angry at your parents for whatever reasons you can say “Anytime my parents do such and such, I find myself calmly and confidently responding and going on with my life.” Repeat them out loud, 2-3 times each, calmly and confidently.
Like this article? Share & Subscribe! And if you meditate, what is your favourite meditation? How and why did you begin meditating? Do you have have any other methods of dealing with anger?