Areas › Anger
Anger
Almost nobody wants to be the person who says the thing they cannot take back. The window between the surge and the words is short and it can be widened. That is most of what this area is about, along with the fear or hurt that anger is usually protecting.
What works for this
Anger control, with distress tolerance
Anger has a runway, and the earlier you step onto it the less force you need. The work is in the seconds before, not in the explosion, and it starts with the body rather than the thought.
One move, today
Name the first physical sign you get. Jaw, chest, hands, heat in the face. That sign is your only warning, and noticing it is the whole skill.
What matches
5 practicesA good deal of what stings in a tense moment is what you imagine the other person is thinking. Sitting inside a silence and watching your own mind fill it shows you that plainly.
Practitioners run this on purpose. Half a minute or so of held silence, with the client asked to notice what happens inside them. Since nothing is…
Run the same moment twice. The second time, change nothing except what you do with it, and let yourself not mind what the other person might be thinking.
Keeping the situation identical is the point, because then the only thing that moved was you. In a session that means the same silence and the same…
Practice gets more useful when someone is really watching. It also gets harder, so agree that part before you begin instead of adding it once the person is already in the middle of it.
An audience raises the stakes in a way that makes the rehearsal more like life, which is exactly why it helps. It is also where consent gets…
Practise not needing the praise, not only the approval. If a compliment can lift you that much, the same dial is being turned when somebody criticises you.
The mirror version of this exercise has someone hold a flattering thought about you while you sit with it and stay level. It feels odd, because few…
If you have someone safe to do it with, ask them to say the thing you dread being thought about you, on purpose, while you practise staying level.
Home is usually where the anger actually happens, so practice that stays in a therapy room or in your head only goes so far. Agree the words…