Manage anger with awareness

Renee Singh

All stress is basically arising from ignoring our emotional self. We seem to be bombarded by information on self-love and self-care.  Most of the time, we overlook this as people think self-love is synonymous with selfishness and this in itself reflects a negative emotion. We need to understand that self-love is an essential quality and emotional self-care is inherently needed by us. 

It is only when the awareness strikes you that you are neglecting a certain part of your inner-self, which is leading you towards stress, you pick up on your stance, and start focusing on it and then start working towards alleviating it. 

EMOTIONAL SELF-CARE

This actually involves healthy coping skills to deal with a lot of negative emotions. This could include anger, anxiety, depressive thoughts, etc. It is very important to acknowledge the presence of negative emotions in oneself and then go about finding the right methods of dealing with them. 

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

These need to be handled and managed well if we are looking for a happy and balanced life. Just because anger, fear, frustration and many other negative emotions are a part of our life, we take them for granted. They are all basically what make us walk on the path towards stress. Most people tend to avoid these and ignore them.  Though I personally feel we should allow them space within our inner selves.  Once we have learnt to experience them, we must learn to manage them and not deny their presence. 

Today I will deal with one of the main negative emotions that very easily overtakes our lives and doesn’t allow us to cope with ourselves in adequate self-care. 

ANGER MANGEMENT

It is of course considered natural to get angry sometimes. I could almost say, ‘it is a healthy emotion up to a point’. Setting goals like ‘I’m never ever going to be angry’ are rather ridiculous, as they are extremely unreasonable, for our own psyche. We need to see it from a more positive perspective. We need to see that if we do not chide ourselves, in the matter of moving forward for certain issues, we never will.  We need to express necessary anger in healthy ways. It is important to be able to eliminate unnecessary anger too. 

INTERPRET FEELINGS

It is important that we understand our feelings, and can interpret, as to why we are in the anger mode. We need to go backwards into the root cause of our angry feelings. It may not be as it appears on the surface.  It could have arisen from a negative emotion, generated from an experience, completely detached from your immediate environment. 

ANGER TRIGGERS

Once you are at a level of awareness, as to what triggers your anger mode, it becomes easier to find a solution. You basically need to

1. Examine yourself to see what are your anger triggers.

2. Is it traffic that gets you?

3. It could be a friend who really rubs you the wrong way.  If this person irritates you, try and ease them away from your life. 

4. If it’s a particular music that irks you, do not listen to it. 

5. Activities which you don’t enjoy, do not involve yourself with them

 Keeping away from irritants will allow you the space to feel free of things, which keep building the anger mode within you. 

MAINTAIN BOUNDARIES

Communication should be essentially within a conceded boundary.  This will keep you in balance.  Do not let others intrude your private space. Once you are in your own area, happiness reigns supreme. 

ANGER RELIEVERS

1. Meditation 

2. Breathing exercises 

3. Physical exercise 

4. Cognitive restructuring 

It is important to prioritise anger management, as anger unhandled can lead to dire consequences. It leads to bad relationships and can act as a threat to health and happiness. 

(Singh is a Chandigarh-based psychotherapist)