As you go through your daily life, what kinds of things irritate or anger you? If you are like most people, the list is porbably quite long and may vary in length depending on the day and your mood at the time.
Our anger management participants regularly tell us they experience workplace anger, desk rage, road rage, relationship anger, irritation with parents, irritation with teachers, being mad at peers, being mad at siblings, fast-food anger, customer service anger, bank anger, computer anger, and ex-spouse anger. There appears to be no end to the growing list as our society becomes more and more complex.
When you stop and think about it, you will realize that there is no limit to things in the world that can trigger anger and stress in you. The only sensible way to view all this is to understand that you can’t live in a modern world without being constantly exposed to many potential anger triggers – which you probably are unable to change or modify. So, to survive (and thrive) you need to develop tools and skills to deal with those things that serve as anger triggers for you personally.
This involves first taking responsibility for how you deal with those angry feelings instead of blaming them on other people or cicumstances. To do this, you need to first separate the feeling of anger from the expression of anger. We have found that the tool of changing your self-talk is an excellent way to do that.
Why does changing self-talk help us with the expression of anger? Because the feeling of anger is natural when we are frustrated or have a goal blocked. But, what we tell ourselves about the anger trigger has dramatic effect on how angry we get and how we express it. Our thoughts affect our feelings just as our feelings affect our thoughts.
In future blogs, we will give you twelve powerful ways to talk to yourself when angry.
More information at www.angercoach.com
Online anger management at www.angercoachonline.com
