Not all feelings of anger lead to aggressive outbursts, and not all outbursts of temper stem from genuine anger. As a rule, anger is what we feel when we believe something is unfair. Aggression, on the other hand, can sometimes be the “fight” part of a ‘fight-or-flight’ response to a perceive threat or attack.
1. Start with damage limitation
Before you try to work on anger the feeling, it’s better to limit the damage caused by aggression. Start by removing yourself from the situation when you feel your temper rising if you can. In other words, leave the room. You might still be seething inside but if you can keep yourself from causing harm you won’t have an extra burden of guilt to deal with. Counting to ten might be an old saw, but it works.
2. Find your triggers and Plan Your response
This is best done when you’re feeling calm. Write down as many incidents of getting angry as you can remember. Now ask yourself: What do these situations have in common?
Once you’ve identified situations which can push your buttons, plan ahead of time what you’ll do if they come up. It might not always work, but it’s still easier to implement something you’ve prepared beforehand than try to come up with an alternative on the spot.
3. The Cause and Response Scale
There might actually be situations when you need to react forcefully, although these will probably be quite rare. A lot of troublesome reactions come from having nothing in between “ignoring it” and “full blast”, so having in-between options can help you give a more measured response.
Try writing various situations you don’t like down in a scale of 1-to-10, with one being things that mildly displease you and 10 being a true danger to life or limb. Make sure you have something for each number. Now next to each number, write down a different response and one which is appropriate for that level of annoyance. The next time you feel angry, think about where you’d put this situation on your scale e.g. is it a two or a six? Then recall what you decided to do for that level.
4. Looking at underlying ‘Shoulds’ and Fears
Once you’ve gained some control over how you express anger, you might want to look a bit deeper at why you can feel so angry at times. This usually comes from what you are reading between the lines. So instead of dwelling on how bad you think something is, try asking yourself what you believe it means.
Two main areas to look for are “shoulds” and fears. ‘Shoulds’ are links you make between how someone acts and what you think it says about you or how they feel about you. “A good friend should keep appointments” will make it seem as though they are not wanting to be a “good friend” to you if they cancel. A good exercise to free yourself from these hurtful thoughts is to write down at least five possible explanations for why someone has acted in a certain way. Even if you don’t believe them all, it’s better than having only the worst possibility.
Underneath angry reactions there can also be fears of what might happen if someone doesn’t change their behavior. Being furious at a family member’s untidiness, for example, can stem from a worry that you will wind up carrying an unmanageable burden of household chores all by yourself. You can uncover these fears by simply asking yourself what you imagine might happen if this situation continued. When it’s time to raise the issue with the person, hightlighting what you want to prevent instead of focusing on their wrongfulness will get much better results.
