Do you need help with anger management?
What makes you angry? Is it the rush hour traffic, bad weather, a really slow internet connection, a colleague who talks loudly in an open plan office, the kids bickering, a nagging or unsupportive partner, the customer service that doesn’t help, bullying, someone going behind your back, the train running late, someone pushing in, kids talking back? When you think about it, there are so many things that happen on a daily basis that can trigger anger, irritation and frustration.What is anger?
Anger is a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility – and a natural human reaction. Sadly, anger is one of those emotions that is considered ‘bad’ and we are rarely encouraged to or taught how to express it in a respectful and empowered way.
If you’ve had to bottle anger up most of your life and haven’t been taught how to manage it, you can end up like a pressure cooker and the smallest things can set you off. Sometimes it feels completely irrational, like it has control of you in the moment.
If you anger easily, there is every chance it is coming from a deeper cause of pain than the daily irritations of life. It’s like having a well-worn neural pathway in your brain and one that your brain becomes very familiar with using. In some ways, it’s like you’re on auto-pilot and it’s your first reaction.
Anger is generally expressed in 3 main ways – aggressive, passive aggressive, and assertive.
- Aggressive anger expression is when you direct your anger towards a person by trying to hurt them emotionally, physically, or psychologically or damage their belongings. It can be malicious, lashing out or because you perceive that the person has wronged you in some way.
- Passive aggressive anger expression is when you avoid dealing directly with the source of your anger. You might try avoidance, stonewalling, the silent treatment, procrastination; spreading rumours; deliberate mistakes; sarcasm, criticism or belittling; or trying to get someone else to support your position.
- Assertive anger expression is when you respectfully communicate that you’re feeling angry, being specific about the behaviour or comment that stirred your anger.
It is also helpful to express whether any other stress or past experience contributed to you feeling angry and also to express your understanding of why the other person may have said or behaved the way they did.
I think we all express or have expressed anger in unhelpful or unhealthy ways, especially if we’ve never been taught how to deal with it. However, as adults we need to take responsibility for our actions, learn new skills and be mindful of how we express our emotions. Expressing anger assertively generally requires some time and space for self-reflection.
Signs of anger issues
According to Raymond W. Novaco, a professor of psychology and social behaviour: “We all experience anger; anger only becomes a serious concern when an individual is angry too frequently, too intensely, and for too long.” That’s a good general and broad definition, but the way you express anger can also make it a serious concern too.
If you’re not sure that you have problems managing anger, let’s have a look at some of the signs of anger issues. Ask yourself if you’ve done any of the following because you were angry:
- Overreacted – blowing the event into something much bigger
- Assuming that people and life are generally out to get you
- Behaved recklessly – for example, driving a car aggressively and fast
- Destroyed property
- Thrown a tantrum
- Physically lashed out at someone
- Yelled at someone
- Verbally abused or sworn at someone
- Harshly demeaned, criticized, or humiliated someone
- Hurt yourself
- Tried to take revenge on someone
- Have obsessive thoughts about a person or event that made you angry
- Manipulated other people as “payback” for making you angry
- Done passive-aggressive things like:
- Always being sarcastic towards someone
- Purposefully ignoring someone
- Spreading rumours
- Going behind their back
- Giving the silent treatment for days
If you’ve done some of these things once or twice, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need anger management therapy. However, if you recognise that this is the ‘normal’ way that you express anger and have it done it consistently over the course of weeks, months or maybe even years, then please seriously consider anger management therapy. This may also be the case if you’ve done any of these things and suffered serious consequences, for example, being fired, being dumped or losing friends.
Anger often causes people to move away or stay away from you, which will affect your ability to create meaningful relationships, receive help and support, have fun and feel like you belong.
If you have anger issues you may also feel disconnected, ostracised, alone, not good enough and unworthy, possibly leading to you feeling more angry and depressed. It can be a vicious cycle unless you do something to change it.
If the way you express anger hurts or frightens others or yourself and has led to significant repercussions, I encourage you to seek help to change. If you know you’re showing signs of anger problems in one or more areas of your life, anger management may be able to help you.
What is anger management?
There are three main aspects of anger management therapy:
- Developing skills and techniques to help you deal with the surge of anger that courses through you before you react or lash out on autopilot.
- Making lifestyle changes to help reduce the day-to-day stressors that contribute to or exacerbate your anger issues.
- Resolving any deeper underlying issues that may be the root cause of your anger issues.
It is important in the first instance to learn to manage your anger as soon as it flares up. These are generally mindfulness techniques. All emotions need to be felt, but it is best to give yourself time and space to take the charge or intensity out of your emotions before you try to deal with an upsetting or stressful situation.
Some of the most common anger management techniques include:
- Meditation, relaxation, and breathing techniques
- Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Programs
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- Positive visualisation and personal development
- Journal therapy
To read about Jocelyn’s holistic approach to managing anger, click on this link: Holistic strategies for anger management
Don’t let anger lash out or stew and fester until it drives away the people you care about. If left untreated anger issues can lead to depression.
If you know anger is becoming or already is an issue for you, please seek help to manage and resolve it!
The 3 Key Sources of Anger
Fundamentally, there are 3 key sources of anger and it may be confronting or surprise you to know that it’s actually more about you than it is about someone else! The problem is, it doesn’t feel like it at the time and it’s a ‘normal’ reaction to project, blame or judge the other person or situation to justify your anger.
Anger is often an outward sign of unmet needs and an inability to express them. It is also strongly linked to your self-perception and the way you interpret other people’s words, actions and behaviours towards you. How strongly you feel self-love, self-worth, self-acceptance & self-compassion as well as your confidence in identifying and expressing your needs will significantly impact the level of anger you feel.
So what are the 3 main sources of anger?
- Your anger stems from feeling pain & hurt
There are a number of reasons why we feel pain and hurt. At a deeper level it is often due to poor self-perception and a belief that other people’s actions are a reflection or confirmation of our low opinion of ourselves, rather than a reflection of their poor self-perception. I’ve listed some examples situations when we might feel pain and hurt with some of the possible unmet needs.
- Feeling like someone has lied, cheated or betrayed you
- needs for respect, trust and honesty
- Feeling like your boundaries have been pushed or crossed physically, emotionally, mentally & spiritually
- needs for safety, trust, security and respect
- Gossip, rumours, spreading untruths
- needs for honesty, integrity, to be seen for who you truly are, respect
- Rejection of ideas or as a person
- needs for acceptance, connection, inclusion, to be heard and to belong
- Tactless, insensitive or hurtful words
- needs for consideration, empathy and equality
- The death of a loved one, especially due to negligence
- needs for love, intimacy, meaning, reassurance & dependability
- Your anger stems from a situation where you are not in your power
This can be a tricky one because there are times when you really do feel like things are outside your control. However, feeling powerless is closely linked to your faith, boundaries, and ability to speak up and express your needs. And at a deeper level, if we find it hard to feel confident and empowered it is generally related to our self-worth & self-esteem. Here are some example situations when we might feel powerless or disempowered with some possible unmet needs.
- Feel like a victim – something is out of your control
- needs for choice, autonomy, respect and power
- Someone or a situation is unjust or abuses their power
- needs for equality, acknowledgement and co-operation
- Loss of freedom – to speak, to choose, to act
- needs for independence, choice, freedom, respect and tolerance
- Feeling controlled or pushed, bullying
- needs for acceptance, autonomy, privacy, inclusion and recognition
- Emotional manipulation
- needs for authenticity, presence, consideration, respect and love
When you are truly in your power you will be able to maintain presence of mind even when you feel the anger surface, see challenges as opportunities for learning and growth, recognize and express your needs, and express your truth.
Yes, I know, not an easy task. It does require a certain level of personal awareness and practise, practise, practise. It can be daunting at first so I recommend you start practising with people or situations that cause you to feel low levels of anger. This should help you to develop some new communication skills and improve your confidence so you can start to handle the more demanding situations.
- Your anger stems from situations where you’re not able to express your needs & truth
This is the type of anger that we often project at others or use to judge them. Have you ever noticed that when you do ‘clear the air’ with someone, you feel better simply from having had the conversation? Speaking up can be one of the most daunting things to do, especially if you’ve been brought up in authoritarian family or school environment. However, we do ourselves a disservice and often harm when we don’t. At a deeper level, not expressing your needs and truth can stem from a lack of self-worth – feeling unlovable, undeserving, shame or guilt.
- Not being recognized, acknowledged or appreciated – ignored, undervalued, taken for granted
- needs for acknowledgment, collaboration, contribution & competence
- Not feeling seen or heard
- needs for recognition, to matter, community, expression and connection
- Not feeling accepted – judged, criticized
- Needs for love, harmony, belonging, closeness and inclusion
- Unresolved issues that trigger a snowball reaction
- Needs for awareness, growth, trust and self-expression
I’ll leave you with 5 key thoughts around anger.
- When you truly feel self-love, self-acceptance, self-worth, self-compassion and self-belief you are likely to have a positive belief system about yourself and are therefore less likely to be triggered by others.
- If you find yourself getting angry with someone, ask yourself where in your life you do the same things to others. We don’t enjoy observing our shadow side and find it easier to see in others!
- If you don’t learn to express your needs and truth, you will likely live in self-denial or bottle up your anger until it erupts like a volcano.
- Your outer world reflects your inner world. If you find yourself feeling angry often, then reflect on what you are angry with yourself about. Do you have regrets? Do you need to forgive yourself about a situation or relationship?
- If you feel angry and don’t really understand why, then you have likely disconnected from yourself and have lost touch with your needs.
So, the next time you feel angry, I invite you to firstly acknowledge and feel the anger, give yourself a time out until the intensity passes, and then reflect on what needs are not being met. Once you work that out, you’ll be able to have a very different conversation with the person who triggered you to feel angry.
Let’s get connected – to our needs and truth.
Other articles you may find helpful:
What are Healthy Boundaries Exactly?
The 7 Universal Needs – Are You Honouring Yours?
Create True Intimacy with Non-Violent Communication
Holistic strategies for anger management
Learning healthy ways to deal with anger is an important life skill. Your health and wellbeing – on all levels – depend on it. This is why you need holistic strategies for anger management.
- Physically, angry people are more prone to heart attacks.
- Mentally, anger issues can lead to clouded judgment and irrational behaviour.
- Emotionally, anger issues can lead to superficial or distant relationships and a lack of support.
If we’re honest, I think we all express or have expressed anger in unhelpful or unhealthy ways, especially if we’ve never been taught how to deal with it. However, as adults we need to take responsibility for our actions, learn new skills and be mindful of how we express our emotions.
If you anger easily, often and intensely or don’t know how to communicate your anger assertively and respectfully, it may lead to significant repercussions (for example, being fired) and can often cause people to move away or stay away from you. This will affect your ability to create meaningful relationships, receive help and support, have fun and feel like you belong.
How do I control my anger?
Learning how to control anger will take some consistent and conscientious practise because if you do have issues with anger you’ll have a well-worn neural pathway in your brain. Initially, anger will be like a default option.
Interestingly, we can become ‘addicted’ to emotion in a similar way to becoming addicted to other substances. That’s why you need to learn and practise new skills and strategies for managing anger to develop new neural pathways.
There are three main stages of anger management therapy to help you develop new strategies for managing anger and developing new neural pathways so that being angry is no longer your ‘normal.’
1. Developing new anger management skills and techniques
to help you deal with the surge of anger that courses through you before you react or lash out on autopilot.
It is important in the first instance to learn to manage the anger as soon as it flares up. These are generally mindfulness techniques. All emotions need to be felt, but it is best to give yourself time and space to take the charge or intensity out of your emotions before you try to deal with an upsetting or stressful situation.
Some common tips for anger management include:
- Removing yourself – simply telling the person you’re feeling angry and need to go away and calm down
- Initially you may need to physically let that energy out by, for example, doing sprints, a hard gym workout or using a punching bag
- Ask someone you trust to be a support buddy who you can call if you’re having trouble calming down or phone the free 24-hour crisis telephone service – Lifeline 13 11 14
- Breathing techniques combined with physical actions to release the energy of anger
- Meditation and relaxation
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – allowing your brain to direct your behaviour, for example, repeating to yourself: “I am centred and relaxed and choose to handle this situation calmly.”
- Visualisation – for example, picturing a stop sign to trigger you to stop and think before you do anything else, picturing yourself in a calm setting or picturing yourself laughing and happy
2. Making lifestyle changes
to help reduce the day-to-day stressors that contribute to or exacerbate your anger issues.
- Eating a healthy diet – there is a direct link between gut health, mood states and mental health. Eating certain foods can also trigger emotions.
- Exercising daily to help release the build-up of daily stress. A swim in the ocean or a good sweat can be cleansing in more ways than one.
- Reducing activities and slowing down. When we’re on the go all the time, we can feel overwhelmed and it’s easier for tempers to flare.
- Choose your friends and social environments carefully. Avoid people and situations that you know don’t bring out the best in you.
- Start an activity that allows you to channel the anger in a healthy and respectful way, for example, martial arts.
- Writing in a journal each day to reflect on what situations and people trigger you to feel angry and explore why you feel angry
3. Resolving deeper underlying issues
that may be the root cause of your anger issues.
Your ability to regulate emotion as an adult is significantly affected by your early childhood experiences. For example:
- Did your mother want to fall pregnant with you?
- Did something traumatic happen during the pregnancy?
- Were your needs met as a baby and toddler?
- Did you feel a close bond with your mother as a baby and toddler? Were you held often?
- Did your parents or carers experience significant stress during your childhood?
- Was your family environment safe and predictable?
- How did your parents ‘do anger’? What was modelled to you?
- Were you given a healthy diet as a child?
- Did you experience bullying or other traumatic events where you felt you had no control?
Some of these may not seem linked to your present anger issues in adulthood. However, I assure you they can leave significant marks that lead to you feeling angry or quick to anger most of your life.
Holistic strategies for anger management
Jocelyn uses a unique, integrated approach to teach you healthy ways to deal with anger and help resolve anger issues at a deeper level. She combines the following for effective results:
- Counselling
- Explore key family dynamics and experiences in childhood
- Resolve the 5 wounds of childhood, sources of fear, and 18 unhealthy childhood schemas contributing to anger issues
- Create conscious awareness of filtered or blinkered thinking that can intensify your anger or make it quick to flare
- Use creative visualization & role play techniques to develop new beliefs and healthy ways to deal with anger
- Discover which of the 7 universal needs are not being met
- Support development of healthy boundaries and personal empowerment so you feel in control of yourself and your life
- Reclaim your power & voice so you can authentically express your truth & needs
- Provide tools and strategies for the practice of forgiveness, self-compassion & self-love to help mend relationships damaged by anger issues
- The LifeLine Technique – Developed by Dr Darren Weissman in the USA
- A 16-step process that combines 15 healing modalities in one system
- Fast and effective harmonising of subconscious reactive behaviours and limiting beliefs that have you angrily lashing out on autopilot
- Particularly beneficial for processing traumatic experiences locked in the subconscious mind that may be the root cause of your anger issues
- Helps reprogram unhealthy belief systems and develop new neural pathways for a calmer, more empowered and relaxed you
- Nutripuncture – Developed by Dr Patrick Veret in France
- Combines Western nutrition & biochemistry with acupuncture
- Particular sequences designed to heal unhealthy relationship dynamics that may be the root cause of your anger issues
- Supports 3-dimensional axis so you can be centred, grounded, and within your healthy boundaries or limits
- Supports healthy function of cellular membranes & exchanges to better deal with life stressors and help maintain overall balance
- Amethyst BioMat – FDA & European registered medical device for pain relief
- Being angry often makes your body tense and puts increased pressure on your cardiovascular system. Your nervous system and adrenals are also often in a heightened state, which can be draining and affect the overall health and balance in your body
- The biomat produces deeply penetrating far infrared light (15-20cm) & negative ions – helps ease physical tension, soothes & relaxes, reduces stress & fatigue, and boosts energy and circulation
- When your body is more relaxed and balanced it helps you to stay calm mentally too
Posted by: Moshe Ratson | Jul 06, 2013
If you feel that your anger is really out of control, if it is having an impact on your relationships and on important parts of your life, you might consider counseling to learn how to handle it better.
If the anger is chronic, one should seek professional help. But almost anyone can benefit from some level of coaching and psycho-education that can teach skills not only to manage anger but also to manage other emotion, become less emotional reactive.
The goal of anger management program is that no matter happened, particularly when you face with difficult, undesirable situation, to control your behavior. Understand that you are the one who is always responsible of his feelings, thoughts and actions. So, you are in control of your emotions rather than the emotions controlling you.
The following are the goals of anger management program:
- Enjoy constructive working relationship
- Turn anger into healthy, productive signal while utilizing healthy strategies
- Process anger constructively by understanding its psychodynamic
- Manage anger and other challenging emotions in healthy ways
- Eliminate self-destructive/maladaptive behaviors
- Become assertive (not aggressive)
- Develop communication skills
- Overcome emotional reactivity
- Develop self control
- Let go and move on
- Build problem solving skills
- Create change and get unstuck
- Take responsibility for your actions
- Halt escalation and resolve conflicts
- Understand what is underneath your anger
- Explore hurt that has been masked by anger
- Express your needs and feelings in a constructive way
- Feel the joy and zest for life
To manage your anger, you need to first understand what anger is, why you get angry, and why you do the things you do when you are angry. Without this insight into your anger, you will find that it is not as easy to defeat that particular problem as you might wish.
In addition to understanding and psycho-education, anger management provides the necessary tools to overcome the anger emotions and have a healthy relationship and life. The fact is that almost anyone can benefit from some level of coaching and psycho-education that can teach skills not only to manage anger but also to manage other emotions, while becoming less emotional and reactive.
Please visit author, Moshe Ratson at his google+ Profile:+Moshe Ratson
How to Control Anger – 5 Steps to Master Your Emotions
Posted: January 10, 2019
Author: Christina Reeves
Controlling anger is not an easy thing to do. For most people it takes years of counseling, therapy and meditation to master their emotions, and even then there are some that never quite overcome it. For those that do, they must first accept the fact that the forces that drive anger do not exist externally, but they come from within. Once they come to terms with this reality, it’s simply a matter of identifying which emotion and belief that is at the root, and reprogramming the mind to be able to effectively control these feelings of fear and anger. Here are 5 steps to do just that.
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Step 1: It’s Not Them, It’s You – You’re in Control
This one’s a tough pill to swallow for most that have difficulty controlling over their emotions. Those who suffer with anger issues have a hard time accepting responsibility for their wrath, because usually it’s usually external stimuli that trigger this emotion. It’s helpful to remember that no one can make you feel anything. You are the only one in your mind.
Our feelings come from our thoughts and our thoughts are based upon our belief systems. This will take practice, sincerity, patience and perseverance. It is not always so easy to name the exact emotion one feels. It’s also important not to stop with the surface emotions such as anger, jealousy or hatred. These superficial emotions are always the result of deeper emotions, which are based on feelings of weakness, lack of self-acceptance or fear.
We usually do not feel angry unless we fear that we will lose something (i.e. some object or a relationship, or self-esteem, or the acceptance of others, or one’s security base etc.) or the fear that we will not be able to obtain something which is very important to us. Anger usually follows fear, a feeling of inability, depression, disappointment, hurt, or being ignored or ridiculed.
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Step 2: Identify the Emotion that is Causing the Anger
The next step to controlling your anger is to observe your thoughts and feelings from the outside looking in. This is the hardest part for most. This is the part where you have to look deep within, and figure out what emotion is preceding the wrath. Remember that anger is just another emotion manifested. It’s a knee jerk response to fear and vulnerability.
So, in our analysis, we must go deep inside and ask, “Why does this thing bother me so much? Why is it so unacceptable to me? What do I fear that it causes me to feel anger, hate, jealousy or bitterness? Behind every aggressive type of emotion there is hiding a feeling of weakness, fear, inability or self-doubt.
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Step 3: Identify the Trigger that is Causing the Emotion
After discovering the real emotions that we have, then we must try to identify the trigger which seems to be “causing” us to feel that way. This is NOT the external influence that is causing the anger, but the actual thought or event in our mind that is causing it. The stimulus may be something that has happened very recently or in the distance past. The memory of this event comes into the mind and passes though our programming, which interprets it as positive or negative, as pleasant or unpleasant, as good or bad, as helpful or threatening or harmless. Based on our programming, each of us perceives the same events, situations, persons and objects in completely different ways. Our reality is personal and relative and a function of our programming.
For example, if we program twenty computers to do different manipulations with the same input, each computer will come out with a different result. We too are like computers, who process the stimulus in our environment in the different ways we have been conditioned to.
The stimulus might not be an event from our past, but rather some thought about the future or some value we hold close. Or it may even be a total fantasy, which exists only in our minds. We may think about the future and have anxiety because we are programmed to feel incapable of coping with the various forces around us.
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Step 4: Identify What Part of My Belief System is the Root Cause of the Anger
Once we have determined which stimulus is disturbing us, then we begin to examine our programming or beliefs, which are really making us feel the way we do, when the stimulus comes into our minds. We want to discover what we believe, which makes the stimulus threatening or unacceptable to us. What is it in our system of values that is causing us to react so harshly?
We can also examine positive emotions to see what it is that we believe makes us happy when we receive that particular stimulus. That will help us understand the beliefs which make us unhappy without that stimulus. We will focus for now on the negative emotions and try to analyze and dissolve the emotional mechanisms which create anger so that we can create greater happiness peace and love in our hearts.
Step 5: Understand That Your Reaction is Not In Line With Your Values – And That It Actually Hurts Those Closest To You
The last aspect of the analysis of emotional mechanisms and anger responses has to do with our reactions, which result from these emotions. We react according to how we feel. We feel according to how we are programmed to think. The stimulus passes through our beliefs, creates emotions and then reactions.
These reactions, may be internal or external. Some may turn their negative energy inward in the form of self-rejection, eating too much, anxiety or depression. In the case of anger, we act outwardly, casting wrath and negative energy towards the environment and the people around us, causing them the same amount of fear and anxiety that we feel inside.
In many cases, those who are angry may try to forcefully change others or the world around us in various ways to make the outside world fit with our programming and expectations. Of course, the attempt to change others usually results in conflict. People will always feel intimidated by our attempt to change their programming just as we would feel the same way if someone tried to change ours.
Once we accept the fact that our pre-conditioned beliefs and values are what causes our anger, it’s easy to look back on instances that we lost our cool and realize it was not in line with how we truly feel, and it probably did some harm to the ones we love the most. Once you come to terms with this reality, your well on your way to mastering your emotions, but you’re not out of the woods yet.
The hardest part is applying this process in real life. The next time you are triggered, focus on progressing through these 5 steps and compartmentalizing your emotions which parts of your belief systems are causing the anger you are feeling. When you feel your blood pressure rising, remember to take a deep breath and try to look at yourself from the outside looking in. This process will give you a new perspective on your reactions and your subconscious, and it will lead you to finally taking control of your anger.
… Love and Light, Christina
Recommended Reading: Chapter 8, Riding Our Emotions to Freedom, of our Book, The Mind is the Map
Our Book “The Mind is the Map” outlines this process in great detail, explaining through thought and practice how we can learn to master our emotions and control our anger. Learn more on our Book Page here.
We also have a community forum on Emotional Intelligence and self-mastery. Join the discussion today!
- Energy balancing
- Jocelyn uses other energy balancing devices and techniques to help bring back your internal harmony and balance
Born in Toronto, Canada, Christina is a Holistic Life Coach and Energy Psychologist. She is also an accomplished author, speaker, and facilitator, hosting workshops, seminars and lectures in North America and Internationally. Following a successful career as an entrepreneur, mentor and coach, she made a conscious choice to shift her focus to one she was passionate about and one with a stronger bottom line than simply commerce for commerce sake. Over the past fifteen years she has developed her own programs for assisting others in the process of self-discovery and personal transformation. The Writing on Our Walls is one such program. Working from her clinic and training facility she continues to share her methodologies and techniques mentoring and supporting others to take responsibility in reaching their full potential while guiding them towards enjoying a joyful and happy life.
Having anger issues can negatively affect your relationship, family life, friendships and work opportunities. The problem is that when anger flares, it can feel like it’s got control over you and you’re just along for the ride hoping that it doesn’t cause too much damage.
However, with a holistic approach, and a compassionate and professional practitioner, you can start to rewire your brain and learn to deal with life’s stressors in a calm and controlled manner.
Please also remember that there are 24-hour crisis help lines (Lifeline 13 11 14) to help you stay calm in intense situations. Don’t let your anger get out of control and lead you to do or say something you regret. There is help!
Unresolved anger issues can significantly impact your beliefs about yourself, your ability to connect with others and negatively affect ALL aspects of your life.
Need to learn healthy ways to deal with anger?
Need to learn healthy ways to deal with anger?
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