Managing anger: how to turn fury to your advantage
There are only four true reasons for anger against other people.
The Danish writer and psychotherapist Ilsa Sand in her book Compass of Emotion: How to Understand Your Feelings laid out the true origins of aggression on the shelves and gave recommendations on how to direct the seething emotions into a productive channel instead of destructive.
Each of us has moments when we are angry with other people. And it seems that there really is an excuse for anger. Someone pushed you and did not apologize. Someone was late for an important meeting, forcing plans to shift. Someone climbs with their tenderness and silly SMS, when at work a blockage! You give the will to objective, at first glance, indignation, read out the "offender" - and on the output you get a conflict, a spoiled mood, strained relations with others and other delights of splashed anger.
At such moments, many consoled the thought: "He was the first to start, I just answered." But this is not so. Extremely rare anger is just anger. Much more often we get angry with other people not through their fault - the causes of fury are hidden in ourselves. Anger is a typical secondary feeling that arises only as an answer to other, deeper emotions that we experience in connection with the situation.
These emotions, becoming the trigger for rage, are in most cases based on one of four reasons.
Someone by word or deed intentionally or accidentally wounded your self-esteem, humiliated you, demonstrated your insignificance. This is one of the most frequent causes of anger. Vanity is the painful point of all mankind.
Someone offers you attention, closeness, care, which you are not ready to accept now. The resulting irritation is self-protection, it works almost automatically.
Someone commits actions that categorically contradict your values and ideals.
Someone by their actions violates your plans and complicates the achievement of goals.
If you determine which of these causes caused anger, it will be easier to deal with anger. Consider these four groups in more detail.
Anger management, when hurt self-esteem
Anger that arises in response to criticism or humiliation, psychologists call narcissistic. The reaction to it is predictable in the majority from https://customwriting.com/essay-help-online: people turn into children who repel the offender and shout to him: "It's like that!" The more restrained and rational there is another desire - to try to explain, to point out that he was mistaken in his criticism, to get him changed his mind.
Unfortunately, these tactics often do not work. If you are outraged, the matter will develop into a conflict in which your abuser hardly recognizes your rightness. If you start to explain, you are likely to be considered a bore and are unlikely to listen.
How it looks in life
Imagine her husband and father (well, let's say, Tom), who returns home after a day's work, sees wallpaper painted by children, tired wife Lisa, and in addition she discovers a mountain of dirty dishes in the kitchen. "You stayed at home all day, could not you at least wash the dishes ?!" he flares up.
Lisa predicts vomiting in response. She wants to shout: "You can not! Try to "sit at home" myself, I'll see how you manage with two children, run away with them shopping, feed them all, read books with them, you'll hang them! "Lisa is ready to list all the homework she's doing in Tom, but he does not notice.
And, at first glance, Lisa is right. But if it gives vent to its indignation, it will only aggravate the conflict.
What to do
Understand that anger in this case is a secondary feeling. Most likely, behind Lisa's indignation lies not anger at her husband, but two other feelings.
1. Sadness
Sadness is due to the fact that a close person sees Lisa not as she would like to look in his eyes. Not a wife who puts a lot of energy into creating a "reliable rear" for her husband, to be a good mom for common children, but a lazy and slovenly woman.
If so, then the best way out is to voice your real emotion. Tell Tom: "I'm very upset that you are scolding me." Most likely, he will answer: "And what do you think I'm wrong?" And only now is the time when Lisa has a reason to start explanations, because Kolya expressed his readiness to listen to her.
2. Fear
This feeling also often hides behind narcissistic anger. Lisa is worried: if Tom really thinks of her as a slob, then suddenly he will not want to live with her any more? Suddenly he will start looking for another woman?
If Lisa really is afraid of parting, she needs to voice her feelings again. For example, ask: "Do you say this ... This means you love me less?"
Tom can answer this: "I love you, but I'm so tired after work. I just want to come to a clean house, where they meet me with dinner. " From the aggressor in the eyes of Lisa, Tom will become what he is, into a tired man who nevertheless loves her and the children. Fear will fly away, and with it will leave and anger. And the life problem can be solved without raising the voice of each other.
