Keep Control

We have all had times when anger was our response to a given situation, we were unable to keep control.   If you review the event you can usually pick out the trigger that made you lose control.  Often this will be an interruption of some sort, or perhaps a courtesy is not acknowledged.  Imagine:

• Your on a car journey and while discussing the route, with your wife, the kids in the back keep asking the old favourite “are we nearly there yet?”
• You hold the door to a shop open for someone and they walk past as if you don’t exist.
• Your in the middle of a conversation with someone, their mobile phone rings and they just take the call, without a word.
• You allow someone to pull in front of you in a traffic cue and get no thanks.

By the time the realisation that you have lost control sinks through, its usually too late to redeem the situation.  At this point you are probably calling yourself an idiot for your over the top response and even becoming angry with yourself because of it.

For most of us coming back from an outburst of anger is very difficult.  How often do we find ourselves going back over the situation that made us angry after the anger has faded?  In some instances this can even renew the anger.

You need to be aware that anger will not help you deal with any situation.  The energy behind anger is negative and invariably does not build on relationships but breaks them down.  If you think about it we all tend to distance ourselves from an angry person.

If we can keep control how much time and energy could we save?  This could then be put to much better use, moving your business forward or spending time with the family perhaps.

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• 6 Steps to Manage Anger (beliefnet.com)