Have you been told that your angry reactions frighten others?
“I feel like I’m losing control” is one of the explanations we give when we have anger problems Hits, screams and offenses are presented as reactions to the frustrations that life brings, affecting the main areas of daily life: the sentimental, the social, the family area, and not to mention the work area.
Anger is an emotion; When this happens, guilt comes but in most cases guilt and willpower are not enough motivators to change the situation that hurts us emotionally.
Impulsivity is the path that goes from when we feel the emotion of anger until the aggressive reaction occurs. We do not have time to have more information before interpreting the moment: we are victims of the need to vent emotional and physical discomfort.
On the one hand, the interpretation we make of the facts is negative, leading to some uncomfortable emotions. A physical activation occurs with alteration in breathing, increased palpitations, immediate blood secretion to our extremities, and therefore heat and sweating. These emotional and bodily discomforts are regulated by exploiting anger. So impulsivity is necessary for immediate reactions to anger.
The importance of paying attention to emotions
But, as for uncomfortable emotions… What emotion do we actually feel? Identifying personal emotions is a path that requires training Being aware of our emotions is not common in our culture. On the contrary, we know and practice emotional avoidance more than being aware of them, and even more so about uncomfortable ones such as sadness, fear…
However, the reality is that we feel a variety of emotions and on some special occasions they arrive all at the same time and we cannot decipher them. Then we hear the typical question: How do you feel? With the typical response: “I don’t know, with a lot of anger.”
Learning to learn from anger
Emotions are physical and psychological reactions to specific stimuli, and they have the function of identify each situation to allow us to adapt and survive in the face of a dangerous moment What is better than reacting with the emotion that best adapts to the moment, that obtains the most results, the most accepted and approved by the environment? Yes, anger! This is the emotion par excellence used to obtain immediate results.
Who does not run at the sound of a shout, who does not act when seeing someone angry? In most cases the recipient’s reaction is immediate, responses are usually obtained instantly. But is ours the best way to behave? We see how many adults go to therapies for anger management and to learn assertive communication, since interpersonal problems do not take long to arrive (and sometimes with irreparable consequences)
Many times we show ourselves with the wrong emotion, the emotion that has worked par excellence for us to solve problems, to be heard, cared for, to make people stop acting or act as we want. However, this situation can bring us confusion, interpersonal problems, and on many occasions anxiety, since there would be no coherence between what we feel and how we react.
Identifying if what we really feel (“is sadness and not anger, pain and not anger, fear and not anger…”) is a learning process through training with personal introspection until we achieve emotional awareness.
Learning to manage anger
Nowadays, several techniques are used to achieve good identification of emotions ; Among them is Mindfulness and emotional validation. The latter should be used from childhood so that we are allowed to cry, be sad or be afraid at an early age and not have difficulties with emotions later.
Modeling is the best way to learn Just as our parental figures reacted, it is usually the way we react emotionally to frustrating stimuli. They taught us that anger makes us look strong and brave, that men do not cry or be afraid, that children must fear their parents so that they are obedient and firm.
We tend to repeat these behaviors; However, we are rational beings and can choose to be different from our upbringing.
Through a psychological treatment We can learn not to need immediate reinforcements, but rather to obtain a good result in the medium and long term to enjoy healthier family, sentimental, work and social dynamics.
