Anger, now serving Melissa, Party of One

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I am usually very, very good at managing my emotions. It has become almost second nature for me to pause and assess a situation, and my emotions about it, before I react. Notice that I said almost? Yesterday I was in a rush to get out of the house for an off site meeting, and I needed to bring our wireless router with me because my LAN card appears to be fried. My husband and I have very different styles of desk management. While I’m not a neatnik by any stretch, I tend to keep a more organized desk than he does. Right now he is the sole occupant of our home office and it looks like a bomb, more like several bombs, have hit the desk. There are files, papers, pens, random electrical parts and wires everywhere!

The chaos made it harder than it should have been for me to disconnect the router, and that led to frustration. Normally when I feel frustration build, I take a step back, breathe deeply a few times and put it all in perspective. I didn’t do that this morning. I let it rush forth from me as anger, and in the process I yanked a wire spilling a cup of coffee all over the desk. Yup, now I had more problems than just a tangled wire! Since I had let myself completely lose control of my anger I was now yelling like a lunatic. Very constructive, right?

Let’s just say I didn’t leave the house that morning on good terms with anyone, and they were left behind in my wake of frustration and anger. As I have a goal of always leaving my family with my love and appreciation for them on my lips, I felt like a real jerk when I started to calm down. I’m probably not the only person on earth to ever have anger overtake them, but as I mentioned, for the most part, I have learned how to control what once seemed like a natural tendency to erupt like Mount Vesuvius. If you are struggling with anger getting the best of you here are some tips that have helped me tremendously.

• Stop, breathe and think: I have to be completely truthful on this point. I am stealing it 100% from the children’s show Blue’ Clues. They have a wonderful episode about being frustrated that instructs children to do these three things in order to deal with this confusing emotion. I really wish someone had taught me this as a child! Whatever you are doing, just stop for a moment. Take a deep breath and let it out. Continue to pause in your activity and think about what you are trying to accomplish and what the problem is. From here follow on to my next tip.

• Put it in Perspective: I honestly and truly stop myself and ask two questions. The first is “has anyone I loved died because of this?” Really, I ask that. The answer with a couple of rare exceptions has always been “no”. Once I have established that, I ask myself “what is the very worst thing that can happen because of this?” By bringing myself down a bit to consider the true gravity of a situation, I am able to gain the needed perspective to stop the brimming tide of anger. What am I really facing? Inconvenience? Loss of an important customer? Loss of an object of material value? Am I just not getting my way? By following that determination up with picturing the worst case scenario I can then begin immediately to take corrective or restorative action. Taking action helps us to feel in control and feeling in control calms us down. In the example from my morning I was clearly frustrated because I was facing being late for a meeting, which is something that I really dislike. No one was going to be injured if I was late. As a matter of fact, the worst possible outcome could have been my boss teasing me for being late, when I’m always the one to be annoyed by the tardiness of others. Hmmm…now I’m feeling like an even bigger jerk for getting angry, LOL.

• Ask For Help: This is a really huge one for me in particular. I was the child who yelled “I CAN DO IT MYSELF!” When people tried to help me. That fierce independence has carried over into adulthood. Although I have learned that getting help from others does not devalue your accomplishments, and it is not an indication of weakness, I sometimes fall down on this one. Don’t be hardheaded. Just ask for help. You could keep beating yourself up, or banging your head against a wall, but you are losing valuable time. Reach out and ask someone who might be in a better position to help.

• Walk Away: If you are experiencing anger as a result of an interaction with another person, it is time to walk away. I don’t mean to invalidate your feelings, but if your anger gets out of control it is likely you will say things that you will later regret. Calmly state that you need a moment to collect your thoughts and excuse yourself. Or, if things are really intense you can always just yell over the person currently yelling that you are not going to have this discussion right now and walk out. I don’t want you to think that this is going to be pretty, and there is a chance they will try to follow you. Just hold your tongue and keep walking my friend. You will be a better person for it

If you do lose your temper it means you are human. The idea is not to let it become a reaction to every difficult or frustrating situation. Anger is a very unhealthy state for both your mind and body. Still it will happen to all of us from time to time, and you can’t beat yourself up over it. Look back on the event and see where you could have perhaps reacted differently and then move on. You’ve got your whole wonderful life ahead of you, no sense dwelling on your past.

And now it is time for me to apologize to my family, so I too can move on. Have a great day!

Courtesy of Salendron

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