Feeling anger and not being able to control it is one of the most unpleasant experiences of our lives in addition to bringing us the most difficult consequences to solve.
Anger leads us to raise our voices, impose ourselves on others, generate more conflict than existed, and after that burst of anger comes exhaustion and worry.
It can occur in your romantic, social or family relationships, or also at work (conflicts with peers, with a work team or with the people we care for). Can we avoid it? How to manage it?
On many occasions we feel that our greatest difficulty is communication It is difficult for us to say things if it is not with anger, in an imperative way or with the imposition of ideas.
However, although communication is a behavior that can and should be worked on to improve our well-being and personal relationships, the real origin of the problem is not communication, but emotional
What does the way we communicate depend on? From our emotional state. Anger makes us interrupt, impose, yell or maximize the damage of what happens. Our relationships deteriorate beyond repair.
Many people request a professional company to experience a process of change where they improve this part of themselves. Although at first they believe that the problem is one of communication, we later discover that it is actually about emotion management (communication is due to how we manage communication).
In this article we have the following objectives: first, discover what anger really is, how you are managing it and what causes it in our relationships and well-being.
Second, find out what the real problem that is behind these expressions.
And finally, see how you can solve it thanks to your own personal change (a deep, stable and lasting change, not just with tips or patches).
Anger is an intense and unpleasant emotional experience in which we think we are right Our anger leads us to think that something inappropriate is happening and we try to remedy it through aggression.
First of all, anger implies that we want to have control over what happens… and it is an interesting paradox, since The mere fact of having problems with anger means that we lose control
It is important to understand that anger, as an emotion, is not necessarily a negative emotion. Negative emotions are a common but impractical concept. All emotions are positive by their very nature, since we feel them to adapt to situations. However, what we feel does not depend primarily on those situations, but on how we understand and manage those situations.
In the same way that insecurity can help you protect yourself and act prudently, or fear helps you isolate yourself in relation to a fact that worries you, Anger is an emotion that helps you express something that is happening that you don’t like or don’t want exactly like a dog when it barks (we want something that is happening to stop happening).
Anger can help you, then, establish certain limits. If you witness some type of injustice (towards a child, an elderly person, an animal) and it bothers you and you feel anger, that anger can motivate you to help a person or limit unpleasant behavior. The problem is not anger… but how you understand and manage anger in such a way that it is too intense, frequent and long-lasting.
Common problems linked to anger
Some of the consequences of living with dysfunctional anger are as follows.
1. In your love life
The relationship ends up being linked too much to these episodes of anger, generating discomfort, exhaustion, discouragement and a gradual and increasing disinterest in the relationship (anger is only useful for a few seconds, never for several minutes).
You may have noticed that after a couple’s argument we feel exhausted. It is an exhausting experience in both an emotional and physical sense. Anger exhausts us because in it our neuroendocrine system secretes the same substances as when doing intense exercise… but without any benefit for your health (quite the opposite).
Anger hinders relationships with others, damages trust, creates greater distance and communication becomes more opaque With anger we pretend to have control but we lose it even more.
At work we need to generate bonds with trust and assertiveness to be able to meet common objectives. Anger creates an unpleasant environment, even if only from a temporary episode.
3. In your social or family area
Human beings are social beings, we need links in which to find trust and support Anger hinders the quality of these bonds and isolates us, damaging both your mood (anger leads to discouragement because it is so exhausting) and your trust in others.
Although it seems that anger is a problem in itself, it is always a consequence of something else. It comes to us because we understand that what is happening is not appropriate and we intend to change it But we cannot control what happens, neither the behavior nor the decisions of the other.
In the same way, we can establish clear limits and reach agreements, but always within assertive communication and not with anger.
Where does the problem come from?
Anger implies that we want to be in control because we fear the consequences If at work we fear possible consequences in relation to projects, dates… anger will make us try to control the behavior of others.
If anger arises in your relationship, it is because we fear the consequences of the other’s behavior (if they do not behave or value as you want, if they do not accept demands or meet expectations, etc.). Anger always implies fear. It is a type of active fear.
When fear cannot paralyze us or make us escape, it binds us to anger, exactly like the animal that attacks when it can no longer hide. How can we manage something so profound so that it doesn’t condition us so much?
Managing anger is not controlling it…
One of the most common mistakes we make with anger is thinking that we should control it. Like I said, trying to control an emotion that implies we’ve already lost control doesn’t make any sense. Controlling, furthermore, is equivalent to repressing What happens if you leave a pot full of water covered and on the heat? Finally, it explodes.
That’s what happens with anger. When we try to control it, it explodes with more intensity. Anger, like any emotion, It cannot be controlled… but rather understood and managed so that it is not so intense, frequent and long-lasting.
The most important step is to discover how you are now managing your anger. What are the situations that make you feel angry? What do you interpret from those situations or experiences that lead you to feel anger over and over again? What are your behaviors in relation to anger?
We usually think that emotions cause behaviors, but in reality It is behaviors that make us manage emotions in a certain way (and the emotion arises again the moment a similar experience arrives, since that association has been established).
The only way to learn to understand and manage not only your anger, but all your emotions (anger, discouragement, distrust, insecurity, fear, guilt) is in your own personal change.
What would have to change in you for the rest to change? How could you interpret the situation to see it more openly? What boundaries do you need to set in your relationships? What experience should you avoid before it appears? What value judgments do you make about others that lead to anger?
I am now going to make you a special invitation. Living a process of change to learn to understand and manage your emotions and thus have them in your favor instead of against you is something profound, but at the same time, it must be practical, where you achieve daily achievements and where you feel company in every need that you have. you have (not just with occasional sessions).
For this reason, I invite you to schedule a first exploratory session, where we can get to know each other, delve deeper into your problem, find a solution, and see how I can accompany you in your process so that you achieve the change you need 100% (be it in relation to anger or other emotion, self-esteem, personal or relationship relationships, professional productivity, relationships at work, etc.). In Human Empowerment you can find the option to take that step.
