Several studies have shown that we seem to be getting angrier as a nation. It isn’t clear why this is but some of the main culprits are undoubtedly the pace of modern life, stress and pressure and the proximity and demands of others. Perhaps there is a time that you have become angry then later regretted it or felt that you went too far.
It is worth taking a look at the process of anger and seeing if we can understand what is happening.
Perhaps t
he first thing that we might notice is that anger seems to be a scale rather than a single specific state. This if someone swears at you it may fire off anger, but you are unlikely to be as angry as a situation when your house is burgled or your car is damaged by another’s error.
If we break this down further we can see that there is usually an event or a trigger for our anger. It might be something small or something larger. The point is it is at that point our anger seems to start. It seems in that moment we have a process something that checks the event or trigger against our values and beliefs about the world and if we believe they have been transgressed we then move to the angry behaviour and actions.
As we look through this judgement stage we realise that it happens very quickly (arguably instantaneously) and that it tend to be two dimensional in its thinking. For example a different response would be to realise that the person had done something to make us angry. That we view that behaviour as unacceptable but that person like everyone else is fallible and can make mistakes or can choose to do something that we find unacceptable. It also does not make them a bad person. In fact it is rare to find someone who is entirely good, bad or neither, we all tend to switch between states. With this view of the person, perhaps it is possible to dial our anger back a notch and be able to express ourselves in a different way.
Of course it is unlikely that we will be able to go through that process if it is an instant reaction, but the important point is to realise that a trigger caused our thoughts and our thoughts mad us act.
Many who have experienced anger, have come to regret actions afterwards so perhaps the way forward is to interfere with that thought process, can we recognise the triggers can we make them pause our thought process so we might choose our actions.
Perhaps in doing so we can begin to bring our anger under our control so we might choose our actions and in doing so feel more comfortable about ourselves.
Anger is a difficult emotion to control, but it can be managed, indeed some say that if you can’t manage it, then it will destroy your life and that of those near to you. It is important to understand that anger can be controlled and with the right help you can feel better about your anger.