Anger is normal and yet can hijack our lives. Anger is a sign that something is unjust, violated, or just upsetting. We act on anger by lashing out, venting, punching, kicking, or other aggressive behaviors. The way you express your anger can be destructive because it negatively impacts your relationships, your thinking or judgment, and simply living a normal life. I’m here to give you actionable tools to control anger.
Hello, my name is Hong Jeong, licensed therapist based in Los Angeles, CA. Welcome to our first virtual therapy session on anger management skills. Why do we have issues with anger? Why do we lose our temper? Why can’t we control our anger? We all ask ourselves many “why” questions. The more we think to understand or solve anger issues, the more angry we get. It’s like quicksand. We get more stuck when we make more efforts to escape. Anger is an emotion that needs to be felt all the way, in order for it to settle down. Anger can range from a little annoyance to intense rage. When we are not aware of anger, anger can get very intense to the point where we get physically or verbally aggressive. As a result, we face negative consequences such as divorce, domestic violence, losing friends, job loss, and low self-esteem. Anger can also affect our health. A study found that unmanaged anger can cause high blood pressure, digestive issues, increased anxiety and depression, chronic migraine, and increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
In order to measure the negative effects of your anger. I have prepared “Anger Consequences Questionnaire.” This Questionnaire basically talks about various negative consequences due to anger such as anxiety/depression, getting into a physical fight, career issues, relationship issues, and so on.
Anger Consequences Questionnaire:
https://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/Images/Anger_Consequences_Questionnaire_tcm75-1305687.pdf
Emotional health requires that anger be processed and digested, or it'll keep recycling and resurfacing.
Anger is an emotion deeply rooted in our survival instincts. When we are under a threat or in danger, our body and nervous system go into the stress response, called fight or flight response. It’s our body pumping a surge of energy to either fight or fleet. Feelings are our perceptions of the sensations in our body. Let’s say my heart rate is increasing and I’m making fists. My brain interprets these sensations as “anger or frustration.” We may not be conscious of our internal process. This means that we go into an unconscious response to our threat. We either lash out or get physically aggressive with others or run away from the intimidating situation. Our unconscious responses lead to more problems. We are here to make the unconscious conscious.
To do so, I’d like to borrow the concepts from ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. ACT is an evidence-based therapy that combines mindfulness skills with the practice of self-acceptance. Therefore, ACT put a lot of emphasis on self-awareness and mindful responses to our feelings. One thing I highly encourage you to consider is putting yourself into various healing experiences. When we get consumed by anger, we lose our way to explore other options. We get a fixed mindset and engage in negative self-talk like I hate this, no one cares about me, I can’t trust myself or anyone, I’m going to fail, this is not going to work, and a list goes on. We need to move from this fixity to more fluid experience.
So, I’ve prepared an exercise for you, in order to deconstruct our anger. It would be helpful to have a pen and paper handy. First of all, we’re going to create a five-column chart just like so. In the first column, we are going to write “pre anger feelings.” Imagine your recent episode of uncontrollable anger. You can pause the video and take a moment to close your eyes and run a movie of that memory. What emotions did you feel before your anger? Pre-anger feelings can be shame/guilt, fear, anxiety, sadness, hurt, hopelessness, or feeling misunderstood.
Notice What Arises
Anger comes with certain physical sensations. In the next column, we’re going to write down bodily sensations associated with anger. Let’s think about your recent anger experience. Go inside and scan your body from head to toe. What sensations did you feel in your body? You might have experienced increased heart rate and body temperature, tension in your stomach, jaw, or shoulders, headache, shakiness, and so on. If you feel uncomfortable doing this exercise, you can pause the video and take a break and return when you feel ready. It’s important to do your healing at your pace.
Alright, I want to take a deep breath. You’re doing great. The next column addresses trigger thoughts. Simply put, what was the threat at that time? Did you think about painful memories? A lot of times, we have a negative thinking pattern developed by our past experiences where we struggled with anger. Let’s say I grew up yelled at and ridiculed by my siblings. The chances are I can get very reactive when my boss raises his voice or when my friend says no to my request. What are the trigger thoughts that bring past hurts, failures, and insecurities? Trigger thoughts can be black and white and all or nothing. Examples of trigger thoughts are “I'm a failure, I’m not safe, I’m not worthy, I’m not good enough, I’m not interesting, I’m not likable or loveable, and so on.” Trigger thoughts lower our self-esteem and cause helplessness.
Differentiate between Feelings and Behavior
The fourth column is about the impulse to act. As I mentioned earlier, anger activates our survival instincts, fight or flight response. We can have the impulse to lash out or punch or kick or just run away. And there is a big difference between our impulse to act and actually acting or behaving. Again, let’s run a movie of your recent episode of anger and notice your impulses to act. Did you have the impulse to be aggressive or behave in a passive-aggressive manner or just escape from that stressful situation?
Thus far, we’ve noticed our internal state with anger. Now, the last column is about actual anger behaviors. What was your way to express your anger? We have two habitual ways to express anger- we either act out the anger and act in the anger. Shouting, blaming, name-calling, hitting, or throwing things are the extreme ways to act out. The subtle acting out can be rolling eyes, avoiding eye contact, saying judgemental or passive-aggressive things, or withdrawing from social interactions. On the other hand, acting-in means suppressing anger. We freeze or shut down as opposed to fight or flight response. We can numb out our anger by consuming drugs or alcohol, binge eating, binge-watching, bingle playing video games, and oversleeping. We suppress our feelings in a very self-destructive way.
There you have it- five anger stages. It is important to not only notice these stages when feeling angry, but also notice any changes in these stages when feeling neutral and stable. That is to say, we can experience the full range of our emotions. This exercise will teach you skills to monitor your internal state and become proactive with anger rather than being reactive when feeling anger. Your self-awareness will slow down your anger.
Take care of yourself and do your healing every day.
If you need assistance with Anger Management, please schedule a 20 minute free consultation with me.