“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
-
Buddha
W
|
hether it is in your
personal or professional relationships, anger in interpersonal relationships
can be a stubborn fire whose damage can be really very difficult to quench or
put out. Anger can unleash such a terrible wave of destruction that it burns
every good thing that once exist down to the very ashes with more destructive
elements than the rage of a thousand spreading wild fire.
Anger in itself though can
be a positive emotion when its inherent energies are directed in the right
direction and used to a positive end – for example, when anger leads you to
take an important decision that leads to a positive change in your life. Such
example include when your dissatisfaction with your current behaviour brings
about anger which leads you to cease a bad habit such as laziness, jealousy, smoking,
alcoholism and other drugs abuse, stealing, cheating, gossiping, blackmailing, prostituting,
fornicating and other forms of sexual immorality, bribery and corruption, etc.
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| Angry Couple Quarreling |
However, when your
anger is allowed to fester and channeled negatively, such anger can set in
motion a terrible avalanche of destruction and pain that it ruins every good
thing in its wake – and may ruin your own life in the end too. Such deadly
anger often originates from danger signs such as:
·
Envy
·
Jealousy
·
Hatred
·
Laziness
·
Unforgiving heart
·
Poor spiritual connection to God
·
Poor self-consciousness and awareness of your inner
being, etc.
RELATED ARTICLE: 5 Simple Ways to Find Lasting Peace
When you allow these
danger signs to go unchecked, they often incubate in the very unsuspecting
quiet of your heart, go through a significant gestation period unnoticed, and
then spill over upon maturation with horrible attending consequences. These
consequences often spiral into ripples of pain, betrayal, sorrow and still more
anger. Such consequences may include:
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| Angry Workers Fighting in the Office |
·
Getting sacked at work or expelled from school for
fighting with a colleague/classmate or assaulting your boss/a school authority
·
Breaking up a once beautiful relationship
·
Killing and impaling someone by physically attacking
them with dangerous objects
·
Publicly destroying someone’s good name
·
Destroying your own hard-earned reputation by
engaging in a regrettable act
·
Destroying a beautiful family and home you once had
with your other family members
·
Destroying yourself through substance/drug abuse leading
to heart damage through alcoholism, liver and/or lungs damage through smoking
of tobacco, mental deterioration and breakdown through Indian hemp abuse,
cocaine abuse, heroin abuse, etc.
But then all hope is
not lost. No matter the magnitude of your anger, or that of someone you know,
there can always be a solution. True anger management is not a myth. Anger
indeed can be managed. Below, join me as we consider techniques that you can
use to manage your anger. They include:
·
Awareness of your anger. Being aware of your anger and anger tendencies and
triggers is the first step to managing anger in your relationships. To do this,
you must begin to practice what is called self-monitoring.
This is not the same as an excessive preoccupation with yourself. Rather, it
has to do with engaging yourself enough to understand your patterns and
actions, and the things surrounding them. It involves a renewed dedication to
be conscious of the things you do and why you do them. Such awareness will lead
to knowledge of your anger patterns and your anger triggers, your anger
symptoms and the amount of stress you experience in your immediate and remote
environment – especially in your relationships.
·
Acknowledgement of your anger. Once you are aware of your anger, you must begin to
acknowledge them and understand that they exist for real. It doesn’t just stop
there, you must begin to see your anger as a problem and that you need to do
something about it. Awareness isn’t enough. Acknowledging and appreciating the
fact you have a problem is very important if solution is what you seek and need
(some people neither seek nor feel they need a solution to their problems).
With acknowledgement should come appreciation
and acceptance of the problem (here acceptance means admitting you do have a
problem that needs solving rather than agreeing you have a problem and then be
fine with it). This should lead you to the next step.
·
Take ACTION to manage your anger. This is a very important (if not the most important) step in the whole
process. Taking action against your anger comes in a number of ways. They
include:
- Affective strategies (A-strategies)
- Behavioural strategies (B-strategies)
- Cognitive strategies (C-strategies)
Affective Strategies of Anger Management
in Relationships: Affective
strategies have to do with those activities that involve your feelings and
emotions. Think of crying, for example. You may think it’s a bad thing to cry
(men are usually taught crying is a show of weakness and are often ridiculed
when they do), but in truth, it is an affective coping strategy for stress as
well as anger and negative emotions, especially in your relationships. It’s a
means to ventilate and let off negative energies choking you. And when you find
that women outlive men these days (with a margin of about 5 years according to
Science), don’t look too far for the reason as they probably use more affective
coping strategy in relationships than men do. And crying is high on that list.
Others include:
·
Praying
·
Singing
·
Dancing,
etc.
Some of these are
creative, while others are spiritual.
Behavioural Strategies of Anger Management
in Relationships: Apart from
affective strategies of managing anger in relationships, behavioural strategies
also prove very effective and useful indeed. Such strategies include:
·
“Time Out” Method – This method takes its name after the popular ‘time
out’ calls in sports, e.g. Basketball, Boxing, etc. Just as time outs are used
to calm nerves, reduce tension, re-energise and refresh in these sports (think
of Tyson and Holyfield engaged in a brawl in the ring with less boxing and more
holding and biting and flaring temper. What does the ref do? He calls for a
break), so also is time out important in managing your anger in your
relationships to keep the tension and flaring temper from blowing off the roof.
This strategy is absolutely useful for those who are short-tempered, and it
involves taking a break from the situation or argument and returning at a later
time when tempers have cooled to re-engage with your partner or the other
person (if not in a romantic relationship) in a more peaceful and calmer atmosphere.
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| Anger in the Office |
·
Assertive Communication – This method of managing your anger involves
expressing feelings, needs, opinion and requests to the other person in a way
and manner that is both direct and respectful, without blaming and demanding.
It avoids using disparaging, derogatory and put-down words such as
‘stupid…idiot…lazy…fool…mad…inconsiderate, etc.’ even as your communication is
direct and straight to the point. Let me explain here with an example. I am
going to present two responses to a particular problem or trigger to illustrate
this.
Anger Trigger: Emeka makes a mistake by stepping on Funmi in the
office and causing her to spill the hot cup of tea she was carrying on her own
dress.
Funmi’s Response to Emeka:
a. Aggressive
response version: “You stupid and
inconsiderate fool, look at the mess you have done! You’ve ruined my dress and
my entire day with your stupidity and foolishness! Are you blind or what! What
an idiot!”
b. More
effective response version: “I feel
extremely annoyed that you didn’t watch where you were going. Now it’s going to
cause me a great deal of embarrassment and difficulty in getting the stains
off. I would appreciate it if you could please
make sure this doesn’t happen again in the future.” (in a firm but respectful
tone)
As
you can see, in the aggressive response, Funmi has
certainly communicated her anger and displeasure to Emeka, and has also blamed him
and verbally abused him. In the latter response, Funmi has stated her
annoyance, which is directed not at Emeka’s person but at his action. She has
expressed her feelings clearly and indicated that she wants to try to resolve
the problem.
·
Deep breathing and relaxation exercise – This
group of methods involve the use of ‘quite’ as well as rigorous physical
activity. Deep breathing exercises are very useful in that they involve
rhythmic breathing workouts that calm your nerves and ease your tension. Take
deep breaths whenever you sense your anger is rising, do 10-counts method,
meditate, practice Yoga, take scheduled breaks and holidays, or engage in those
exercises and workouts that you enjoy. These are very useful in managing your
anger.
 |
| Woman Practicing Meditation |
·
Don’t try to be right all the time – Giving up your right occasionally can be a very
useful strategy in controlling and managing your anger. In a very volatile and
heated situation, it may be very wise to temporarily give up your right just to
allow peace to reign or ensure safety. Avoiding needless conflict or violence might
make you look temporarily foolish, but it sure will guarantee you’re
permanently wise.
Cognitive Strategies of Anger Management in
Relationships: Cognitive
approaches to managing your anger in your relationships involve adjusting your
thinking and belief patterns, and how you rationalize things. Cognitive approaches
are thought focused. It is believed when you change your thought patterns, you
change your behaviour patterns respectively, as type of behaviour or responses you
exhibit often reflect the type of thoughts you have. Think negatively all the
time and you probably end up behaving negatively as well, and vice versa.
Some famous and
important cognitive strategies in managing your anger tendencies include:
·
Engaging in calming (anger-reducing)
self-talk – To do this, you have to look out for and dispute
(change) thoughts (and beliefs) that are anger-evoking, anger-retaining and
anger-sustaining. Learn to avoid words that are extreme or demanding or that
exaggerate the badness of a situation or a person’s action. Such extreme and
fatalistic words include, never, always,
should, must, should not, must not, etc. In essence, you have to decrease
the use of anger-inducing words and increase the use of anger-reducing ones.
Instead
of saying “I can’t stand this colleague
of mine. He’s too slow and incompetent!” you may want to try saying, “It is frustrating to work with him but it’s
not entirely intolerable. I can see he’s definitely giving it his best shot.”
Now
you can see from the first statement you are encouraging your anger which may
lead to an unhealthy perception of him and probably conflict later. But in the
second you’re actually discouraging your anger which may lead to a more healthy
perception of him and improve your relationship with him as well.
 |
| Angry Black Couple Yelling at Each Other |
In
another instance, this time in a romantic relationship, instead of saying, “She is so unreasonable and annoyingly
difficult! She must hate me,” you might want to try saying, “Come to think of it, she had been
reasonable in the past when I wasn’t so pushy… maybe she doesn’t hate me after
all.”
In
the first case you are giving room to hate feelings to thrive, which may bring
with it the ugly tides of anger. But in the second, you’re giving no room to
such and are trying to give loving thoughts a chance.
·
Adopt the Advantage/Disadvantage Method – In this method, when you’re faced with situations
that make you angry, try listing out the advantages and disadvantages of
behaving and responding angrily to the source of the anger. Go through the list
and carefully appraise the short and long term consequences of your angry
actions. Once you’re objectively done, then decide on the angry action and if
it is in the best interest of both of you – starting with you.
So, there you have it. Great
strategies you can use to manage your anger better in your relationships. You
will have to evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies from time to time
to assess their usefulness to you. You can use any combination of the
strategies that work best for you. The whole exercise is to help you cope and
manage your anger problems better so you could have more harmonious and
fruitful relationships.
Also remember to call
an Anger Management Professional when your anger seems to run out of control
with no end in sight.
Hope I’ve helped you
with these anger management strategies. If you’ve enjoyed reading this article
and have learnt a lot from it, feel free to call me, Benedict Chidiele, on 08137337618
or email me at chidielebenedict@gmail.com.
Also feel free to drop
your questions, comments and observations in the Comments Section below, and I’ll gladly answer all your inquiries.
Stay informed, and stay
blessed!
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