I always have this mental picture when I hear that someone went to “anger management” – a picture of someone gritting their teeth, panting, and trying their hardest to “control” themselves from bursting out in a fit of rage. Fingernails clawing the ledge of a rock for dear life.
I guess it’s good that they’re trying, but this method unfortunately does not work very well according to the latest research. Here’s the thing: What we really want is to not feel angry! Wouldn’t that be nice?
Imagine the following situations:
- You walk into the house and your partner is on the phone and doesn’t even say “Hello.” That would probably make you angry, right?
- Your spouse comes home very late for the third time this week and won’t tell you why. I would assume that would make you angry, too, right?
- Your spouse has spent more money than you have and now you can’t pay the bills. Surely a reason to get angry.
And the anger is this awful feeling building up in inside of you. You really, really want to suppress it. You try to. And for a day, you succeed. You throw yourself into something else. You get your thoughts re-directed. Until something reminds you….Then…BOOM! The explosion. The explosion that you did not want and tried to avoid.
Oh, man. These things take the guts out of you. You feel so bad, so ashamed. A failure. It happened AGAIN. When will it stop?
And the worst is that you do not want to think about how bad you feel about that….until the person you love, whom you blew up at, reminds you. Grrrr. Oh, man, you are SO angry at that. What right do they have to throw it in your face? You’re already feeling like #$%^. Man! Don’t they see what they’re doing to you…?
And on and on. The never-ending cycle of pain, anger, stuffing the anger, exploding, pain, anger, stuffing the anger, exploding.
The person you hate most is not them. It’s yourself. But that’s really painful to admit.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
The happily married people know how to do it. They have the same stresses – sometimes more. But they just don’t get angry. They’ve discovered the secret sauce. And no, it’s not smoking either. No drugs necessary.
The secret sauce is a complete transformation of how they think and see the world. Who they are and their place here. Kinda big stuff. But possible for anyone and everyone who cares enough to go for it. What about you? If you care enough, contact me at https://drdeb.com/book