anger management
What do you think you know about anger?
If you (or people you know) feel that you need anger management training, it’s very likely that the understanding you have about anger is part of your problem. In other words:
How you currently understand anger is an integral part of why you have “anger issues.”
a different way
If there was a different way of understanding anger – one that could help you overcome your problems with it – would you be willing to change how you think about it? Are you teachable and ready to learn new ways of relating to yourself and others, not only during those moments when life is not following your agenda, but in general? Are you open to learning about the fact that while anger can be destructive, it can also be useful and healthy as you endeavor to build relationships and engage in creative work? These are the important questions.
deciding that things need to be different
Managing anger is easy, once you’ve truly made the decision to do what’s necessary to learn, change and grow. Becoming willing to open your mind and to learn new ways of understanding anger (and emotions in general) – now THAT’s the hard part, and it is precisely where people tend to get stuck. We genuinely want to change because the status quo is so painful, but we often want to go forward on OUR OWN terms. Not good. It doesn’t work. We cannot use the framework that got us into trouble to get us out of trouble. We need a new framework.
keep the focus on living life
If you’ve made a deep-down-in-the-soul decision to get yourself unstuck and to create new ways of dealing with your anger and other emotions, you are more than halfway there. As you progress on this path, you will begin to see that successful anger management really amounts to successful life management. Living life with ever-increasing creativity, love, playfulness and passion – while learning about how emotionality works in your life – is the most reliable and enduring method for eliminating destructive anger from our lives. From this perspective our task is less about needing to manage our anger issues and more about needing to grow out of them.
getting serious about your own growth
I am an advocate for a growth-oriented approach to anger management and to therapy in general. There has long been an enormous amount of literature about childhood growth and development, but much less so about adult growth and development. Fortunately, the tide is beginning to turn. Learning and growth must be lifelong, lest we squander precious opportunities to live, love and leave a meaningful legacy. Each of us is, forever, a work in progress. The anger we feel toward others (and toward life) must be viewed as grist for the mill – part of the raw material we use each day to build lives of meaning, satisfaction and impact. As we go forward in this growthful way, anger will slip away and be replaced by creative, loving and productive living.
Tags: anger management
Great post. If we aren’t growing, we are dying.
Yes, No doubt. As Bob Dylan wrote – “he not busy being born is busy dying”.