How to manage anger: beyond control

A reflection on the process of managing anger and giving up controlling it completely.

Feeling anger and not being able to control it is one of the most unpleasant experiences of our life, as well as bringing us the most difficult consequences to solve.It is one of the most unpleasant experiences of our life, besides bringing us the most difficult consequences to solve.

Anger leads us to raise our voice, to impose ourselves on the other, to generate more conflict than existed, and after that outburst of anger comes exhaustion and worry.

It can happen in your couple, social or family relationships, or also at work (conflicts with peers, with a work team or with the people we serve). Can we avoid it? How to manage it?

The keys to anger management

In many occasions we feel that our greater difficulty is of communication.. It is difficult for us to say things if it is not in anger, in an imperative way or with the imposition of ideas.

However, although communication is a behavior that can and should be worked on to improve our well-being and personal relationships, the real origin of the problem is not communication but emotional, the real origin of the problem is not communication, but emotional..

What does the way we communicate depend on? On our emotional state. Anger makes us interrupt, impose, shout or maximize the damage of what happens. Our relationships deteriorate without remedy.

Many people ask for a professional company to live a process of change where they improve this part of themselves. Although at first they believe that the problem is one of communication, later we discover that it is actually about emotion management (communication is due to how we manage communication).

In this article we have the following objectives: first, discover what anger really is, how you are managing it and what it does to our relationships and well-being. on our relationships and well-being.

Secondly, find out what the real problem is. the real problem behind these expressions.

And finally, see how you can solve it thanks to your own personal change. personal change (a deep, stable and lasting change, not only with tips or patches).

My name is Rubén Camacho, psychologist and Human Empowerment coach. In this article I bring you the main experiences of the people I have accompanied in their change processes and who had this problem in the last 11 years.

The meaning of anger

Anger is an intense and unpleasant emotional experience in which we believe we are right. we believe we are right. Our anger leads us to think that something inappropriate is happening and we try to remedy it through aggression.

First and foremost, anger implies that we want to have control over what happens... and it is an interesting paradox, since the mere fact that we have problems with anger implies that we lose control..

It is important to understand that anger, as an emotion, is not necessarily a negative emotion. Negative emotions are a common but impractical concept. All emotions are positive by their very nature, as we feel them to adapt to situations. However, what we feel does not depend primarily on those situations, but on how we understand and manage those situations.

In the same way that insecurity can help you to protect yourself and act wisely, or fear helps you to isolate yourself in relation to an event that worries you, anger is an emotion that helps you express something that is happening that you don't like or don't want.We want something to stop happening, just like a dog when it barks (we want something to stop happening).

Anger can help you, then, to establish certain limits. If you witness some kind of injustice (towards a child, an elderly person, an animal) and it bothers you and you feel anger, that anger can motivate you to help a person or to limit an unpleasant behavior. The problem is not the anger... it is how you understand and manage angerThe problem is not the anger... but how you understand and manage anger so that it is too intense, too frequent, and too long-lasting.

Common problems linked to anger

Some of the consequences of living with dysfunctional anger are the following.

1. In your love life

The relationship ends up being too closely linked to these episodes of anger, generating discomfort, exhaustion, discouragement and a gradual and increasing a gradual and increasing disinterest towards the relationship. (anger is only useful for a few seconds, never for several minutes).

You may have noticed that after a couple's argument we feel exhausted. It is an exhausting experience in both an emotional and physical sense. Anger exhausts us because our neuroendocrine system secretes the same substances as during intense exercise... but without any benefit to your health (quite the opposite).

2. In your work area

Anger makes it difficult to relate to others, it harms trust, it creates a greater distance and communication becomes more opaque.. With anger we pretend to be in control but we lose it even more.

At work we need to generate bonds with trust and assertiveness in order to achieve common goals. Anger creates an unpleasant environment, even if it is only a temporary episode.

3. In your social or family area

Human beings are social beings; we need bonds in which we can find trust and support.. Anger hinders the quality of these bonds and isolates us, damaging both your mood (anger leads to discouragement because it is exhausting) and your trust in others.

Although it seems that anger is a problem in itself, it is always a consequence of something else. It comes to us because we understand that what is happening is not right and we want to change it.. But we cannot control what happens, neither the behavior nor the decisions of the other.

In the same way, we can establish clear limits and reach agreements, but always within an assertive communication and not with anger.

Where does the problem come from?

Anger implies that we want to be in control because we fear the consequences. If at work we fear possible consequences in relation to projects, dates... anger will make us try to control the behavior of others.

If in your relationship anger arises because we fear the consequences of the behavior of the other (if he/she does not behave or value as you want, if he/she does not accept demands or does not meet expectations, etc.). Anger always involves fear. It is an active type of fear.

When fear cannot paralyze us or make us escape, it binds us with anger.How can we manage something so deep that it does not condition us so much?

To manage anger is not to control it?

One of the most frequent mistakes we make with anger is to think that we must control it. As I said, trying to control an emotion that implies that we have already lost control makes no sense. Controlling, moreover, is tantamount to repressing.What happens if you leave a pot full of water covered and on the stove? Eventually, it explodes.

That's what happens with anger. When we try to control it, it explodes with more intensity. Anger, like any emotion, cannot be controlled... but understood and managed...It can be understood and managed so that it is not so intense, frequent and long-lasting.

The most important step is to discover how you are now managing your anger. What are the situations that make you feel anger? What are your interpretations of those situations or experiences that lead you to feel anger over and over again? What are your behaviors in relation to anger?

We tend to think that emotions provoke behaviors, but in reality it is the behaviors that make us feel angry. behaviors are what make us manage emotions in a certain way (and the emotion comes back to us again and again). (and the emotion comes up again the moment a similar experience arrives, since that association has been established).

The only way to learn to understand and manage not only your anger, but all your emotions (anger, discouragement, distrust, insecurity, fear, guilt) lies in your own personal change.

What would have to change in you for the rest to change? How could you interpret the situation to see it in a more open way? What boundaries do you need to establish in your relationships? What experience should you avoid before it appears? What value judgments do you make about others that lead you to anger?

I am going to make a special invitation to you now. To live a process of change to learn to understand and manage your emotions and have them in your favor instead of against you is something deep, but at the same time, it must be practical, where you get daily achievements and where you feel company in every need you have (not only with eventual sessions).

For this reason I invite you to schedule a first exploratory session, where we can get to know each other, go deeper into your problem, find a solution, and see how I can accompany you in your process to get the change you need 100% (whether in relation to anger or another emotion, self-esteem, personal or couple relationships, professional productivity, work relationships, etc.). In Empoderamiento Humano you can find the option to take that step.