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 practicesIf anger management sounds like something being done to you, call it impulse control instead. The work is the same and the word is easier to live with.
Plenty of people who will not sit through feelings talk will happily work on catching an impulse, because that sounds like training rather than…
A certain wariness is standard equipment. Nothing in this work is trying to leave you soft and open to whatever comes along.
People often hesitate here because it sounds like being asked to stop protecting themselves. The opposite is nearer the truth: you keep the guard and…
This is just how I am ends more attempts at change than anything else. It is also less true than it feels.
Temperament is real and some people do run hotter than others. What is not fixed is what you do in the ten seconds after something lands, and that is…
For most people anger is weather that passes. For some it is closer to climate: quicker to arrive, bigger when it lands, slower to leave.
Knowing which you are changes what you plan for. Weather can be waited out. Climate needs arrangements: sleep kept regular, fewer things stacked on…
At the start the anger drives and you are in the passenger seat. With practice you get to take the wheel, though the engine stays the same engine.
Nobody makes that move in one go. It tends to arrive in stages: first you only see it afterwards, then you catch it as it happens, then you catch it…