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
4 practicesAnger numbs. If it is doing the work of a painkiller for you, it will be hard to put down while the pain underneath is still untreated.
Ask what tends to be there in the half hour before you flare: a bit of shame, feeling small, an old fear about being left. The anger often arrives to…
If the irritability came in alongside a low patch, or a spell of racing thoughts and hardly any sleep, have the mood looked at rather than treating the temper on its own.
Irritability is part of depression, and it belongs to the mixed and elevated states of bipolar disorder too. Anger skills are still worth having, and…
Live under enough strain for long enough and anger stops being an event. It settles into a new normal, and it can feel as though your character has changed.
Ask what has been running in the background: money, pain, night shifts, a job that grinds, somebody ill at home. When those ease the baseline often…
A small child works out how to feel about itself by looking at its parents' faces. If that face was missing, or busy, the looking does not stop, it just moves on to teachers, coaches, friends and strangers.
It is part of why being disrespected can feel so much larger than the moment deserves. Some of that old search is still running. The work is slow and…