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How can one control short temper?

This is a question I received on Quora and my response to it.

Before I answer this question, I must assume that by “short temper” you mean that you are quick to react to an anger eliciting situation and do something you later determine was not appropriate to the initial situation in which you chose to get angry and ended up acting out inappropriately.

Let me elaborate on the italicized words above….

React: The goal in dealing with any situation in which you get angry is to respond not react. To react is to take action without giving much thought to what you do. To respond is to reflect on the situation and choose an effective response which both matches and deals with the situation. This is the heart of anger mastery.

That being said, you should know that anger, as a primitive threat detector, prepares you to react to a dangerous situation and eliminate it with a show of force.

Thus, while to react is normal, it is often not optimal and needs to be resisted.

Anger eliciting: Situations in which you find yourself appear to cause your anger. This is an anger myth. Your perception of your situation as a “threat” is what elicits or leads to your getting angry. You can see this visually in The Anger Master Cycle pdf which you can download, without opt-in by scrolling up to the top of this page and clicking on the link to your right.

Chose: It is important to note that while the initial reaction to a threatening situation is anger, the behavior you engage in is ALWAYS a choice. In addition, whether you stay angry or let your anger dissipate is also a choice and is based on how you evaluate your situation and the nature of the threat you both initially perceived and the perception that arises after you have evaluated what is going on.

Not Appropriate: When your short temper results in your reacting to a situation in such a way that it does not match what is going on, your behavior is seen as inappropriate. It is this lack of a match that results in your thinking you need to control your short temper.

Your belief is that if you control your short temper, you won’t get angry, you won’t do inappropriate things, and you won’t get in trouble or cause trouble which you later regret.

Sorry for the long intro but I needed to establish a context for my answer.

Controlling your anger is only the first step to mastering your anger. Many anger management courses teach that control is not only an important step regarding anger but the most important step. This is incorrect.

The basis of mastering your anger as a strategic tool (the title of my Amazon best selling book) is to validate and accept your anger, control your behavior, evaluate your situation and choose whether to hold onto and take action using the energy of your anger, or let the anger go.

Ok, let’s look at the issue of control.

Control happens when you put a pause between the initial awareness that you are angry and the choice to take action.

Adding this pause to your behavioral repertoire can be learned but it takes a bit of effort and “practice”.

The principle you will be using involves “mental time travel”. Don’t freak out here as I am only asking you to take a moment, relax in a chair, and visualize yourself at some future date being in an anger eliciting situation, beginning to get angry and pausing.

If you have difficulty “seeing” yourself doing this, you can talk yourself through it.

“My boss just did xyz. I’m getting angry. I really want to go off on him. I stop myself, take a step back from him, and take a deep breath. This is my pause. I now use that pause to think about what is going on and what actions I choose to take.”

As you go through this script, do your best to “see” yourself doing these steps. Be patient and stay with it. This may be a new “skill set” for you and it may take several tries before it becomes more comfortable to you. There is no failure here. The more you attempt to visualize the future you want, the better you get at it.

By the way, this is not pseudo psychology as there is neuroscientic evidence that this mental time travel is effective.

The most important parts of this pause are 1. taking a physical step back from the situation which is eliciting your anger and 2. taking a deep breath.

Doing these two steps will give you the pause that you are trying to learn.

So, you are “training” yourself to take a step back and take a deep breath whenever you get angry.

Old reaction: Get angry ==> take action

New reaction: Get angry ==> step back and take a breath.

That is the answer to your question but I would like to go a bit further.

Once you have stepped back and taken a breath, you will need to assess what is going on so that you can choose a response.

In the interest of not making this post too long, I refer you back to the Anger Mastery Cycle so that you can see the options available to you as you seek to master your anger.

I hope this answers your question. If it does, or it does not, please leave a comment.

Yoda quotes and emotions as tools

In the Phantom Menace, Yoda says “fear leads to anger .. anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering ( or s/t like that).

While I can’t address Yoda’s universe, using the emotions as tools model, we can unpack and gain a better understanding of what this quote means in our universe.

Fear and anger are two of 6 primary emots which helped us survive as a species when we lived on the savannah and it was “eat or be eaten”.

Fear prepares us to freeze or flee. The message of fear is that the threat we face is dangerous and our life is at stake. The reaction to fear is immediate and taken without a whole lot of thot. This is how we were hardwired and was “designed” to keep us alive just as the same process may have kept a deer pursuer by a predator alive. Fear works today the same way it did so many eons ago.

Anger prepares us for battle. The message of anger is that we are more powerful than our attacker. Our body girds for war, our attention narrows on the opponent, and “it’s on”.

We’ll get to hate shortly.

So, with all due respect to YODA, fear is separate from and would not lead to anger. Run and attack are mutually exclusive.
You could, however, decide that you’ve had enough of being fearful and become angry.
As a domestic abuse victim, with nothing  more to lose, you might decide to go “all in” and attack. Or, the community ravished by gang violence picks up hammers, tire irons and “pitchforks” and says “enough is enough”.
The important point here is that fear did not lead to, elicit, or morph to become anger. Anger was expressed because the victims changed the way they chose to view their situation. They redefined themselves as survivors and thrivers rather than as helpless victims.
The Emotions as Tools model tells us that after we react emotionally to our perception, we choose our emotional response by the thoughts we have.
When you change your thoughts, you change your feelings.
This process is what happens in therapy when cognitive restructuring is used to treat maladaptive thinking and the psychological pain that follows from it.
YODA says that anger leads to hate.
Well,maybe.
As I noted in a previous post, the message of hate is that you both detest
(and are obsessed) another person or his (or her) actions of another.  At the extreme, you may think of nothing else but that which is the object of your hate.
While hate and anger share some characteristics including the perception of threat and a desire to eliminate that threat, hate is all consuming! Anger can become chronic and all consuming.  When this happens, anger, as a primary emotion, has morphed and become a maladaptive anger.  This cancerous form of anger is not only unhealthy psychologically but can also lead to sometimes fatal physical illnesses.
So, getting back to YODA, in the case of anger and hate, he may be right but not necessarily for the reasons you might think.
Here is the progression from anger to hate.
If you are angry with someone and the perceived threat is indeed valid, your anger could become chronic or you could begin to hate the other person if you chose to avoid dealing with the because, perhaps you perceived an insurmountable power difference between you and the other person and you were concerned about your own well-being.
In this example, anger has not led to hate but has morphed into hate.
Not exactly what YODA is implying.
YODA seems to be saying that we should not get angry.
This is very similar to those who say “Anger is one letter away from danger.” and “Anger is a negative emotion.”
While it is true that anger energizes us for battle and that people, when angry, can do things they later regret, anger is ONLY (emphasis added) a tool, does not cause you to do anything, and is not to be blamed for the poor decisions you might make while angry.
The goal is to acknowledge that anger is just a tool and learn how to master it to improve your life and your relationships.
My most recent Amazon bestselling book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool shows you how to do this.
You can download the first two chapters of my book without opt-in by scrolling up to the Welcome post above.
Finally, YODA notes that hate leads to suffering.  In this observation, he is absolutely correct.
When you hate, you become obsessed with the object of your hate.  This obsession can cloud your thinking and result in actions you might later come to regret.  Doing something that might get you locked up or destroy a relationship could easily be seen as causing “suffering”.
This does not mean that you eliminate the emotion of hate.
Again, hate, like all emotions, is just a tool.  When you understand and master your hate, your validate the emotion, assess the information that emotion is communicating to you, and choose how you want to respond to the emotion and the situation about which the emotion is informing you.
In the case of hate, the message of obsession and loss of objectivity could be enough to move you away from hate and back to anger and lead you to formulate an effective plan to deal with the perceived threat.
I welcome your comments.

Emotions and disagreements.

In a recent LI post, an article is cited in which the author writes about an interaction between a woman and her spouse. She has been thinking about a romantic trip to Paris and, as she goes into the living room to tell her husband about the trip, she is thinking to herself “I hope he agrees.”

When she tells her spouse about the trip, he says, “I disagree.”

The article breaks down the origins of the words “agree” and “disagree”.

The focus of the article is the the word “disagree”. As far as the author of the article is concerned the words “I disagree.” really mean (my interpretation) that the spouse has no intention of going to Paris.

“Disagree” is a ‘stop’ word.

In other words, the spouse has thrown cold water on his wife’s dreams and is prepared to go to battle with her using his logic about all the reasons that a trip to Paris is a non-starter.

By the way, this same scenario could occur if he approaches her with an idea which is of importance to him and she says, “I disagree.”

It is an interesting article and I recommend reading it.

But, I have a different take from an emotions as tools/anger mastery perspective.

While briefly acknowledging that “disagree” might have some other, less draconian, meaning, the author doesn’t spend much time on this possibility. Nor, does he talk about the woman’s feelings.

Let’s explore some options.

She goes into the living room and shares her dreams with her spouse. When he says he disagrees, she may feel (at least one of the following):

  1. disappointment
  2.  anger
  3. anticipation.

All emotions alert us to how we perceive our surroundings and prepare us to deal with the situations we encounter. This is the message of the emotion. How we choose to respond to the message is what mastering the emotion is all about.

Note: This italicized comments are intended to communicate a general idea rather than a specific dialog.

The message of disappointment  is that an anticipated event has not gone the way you would like. It is focusing on the implied reaction to the event rather than on the motives of the person with whom she is interacting. If she is disappointed, she has interpreted the words, “I disagree.” as meaning… Well, perhaps this trip was not a good idea at this time as my husband’s clear head usually prevails in these type of situations.

The message of anger is that she perceives a threat and is prepared to go to war to overcome the threat. Here the focus is on both the actions and the motives of her spouse. If she is angry, she may perceive him as being oblivious to her needs by thinking only of the cost of the trip, his own desire not to go to Paris, or his too quick reaction to find fault with the idea rather than explore options. She has interpreted the words, “I disagree.” as meaning.. I don’t care what you say, the answer is ‘no’ and that’s final!

The message of anticipation is that there is a future event coming which could have significant beneficial outcomes and which one is looking forward to. If she feels anticipation, than she has interpreted his words, “I disagree.” as meaning… I can’t really see Paris as a possibility now but let’s discuss it and see where it goes.

If she has learned to master her emotions as tools, her feelings will give her some guidance about how she wants to interact with her spouse. Once she identifies and validates the feeling, she can assess whether her perceptions are accurate by interacting with her spouse, expressing her perceptions and getting feedback from him. Based on this interaction, she can choose how she wants to respond.

I welcome your comments.

The Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High are Mastering Their Anger. Are You Mastering Yours?

The recent shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland Florida is still fresh in our minds for at least two reasons.

The first reason is that the event was horrific, didn’t occur that long ago, and no other shooting has occurred which could grab our attention and replace the MSD shooting.

Other shootings have taken place, grabbed our attention, and then faded away.

The second reason is the impact that this event had on the students who lived through it and the response of those students to the event.

In the interest of transparency, I need to say that I own a gun, I believe in the 2nd amendment, I think the NRA has way too much influence, and I believe (along with a majority of Americans) that a compromise on gun control can be reached which both adds to the safety of Americans and protects the legitimate rights of Americans to own firearms if only Congress had the fortitude to get the job done.

This post, however, is not about gun control.

It is about mastering anger.

In my second Amazon best selling book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool,  I discuss what anger is, what emotional mastery is, and where the focus of anger management groups often fall short. I also include individual chapters designed to help the reader understand and master their anger. You can download the first two chapters of my book with no opt-in from my blog TheEmotionsDoctor.com

Anger is one of 6 primary emotions (mad, sad, glad, fear, disgust and surprise).

Four of these primary emotions are threat detectors just like the smoke detector in your house. The primary threat detectors alert us to an impending threat (This is the message of the emotion.) and help us stay alive by preparing our bodies to take action regarding that threat.

Emotions can be understood as tools and each tool has a specific function for which it was designed…

  • Your smoke detector alerts you to an impending fire.
  • Your TV remote enables you to wirelessly control, program, and interact with your TV, your Blueray player, and so forth.
  • Your cell phone…

Well, you get the idea.

Anger is a primary threat detector. The message of anger is that we perceive a threat we believe we can eliminate. Anger energizes us to go to war.

By contrast, fear, as a primary threat detector, alerts us to a threat which will “terminate” us and prepares us to escape (flee) or freeze in place.

Very few tools are so self-evident that they do not require a learning curve to master them and get the most out of them.

While this may be obvious with the cell phone, your computer, and the remote, think about the last time your smoke detector went off in the middle of the night alerting you to a weak battery or you burnt some toast and you nearly broke the detector because you weren’t sure how to turn the damn thing off.

Emotions are the same way. They are just just tools which we need to learn to master in order to strategically use them to improve your life.

So, back to the MSD teens.

These teens felt helplessness and vulnerability during and following the event.

The feelings of helplessness and vulnerability are easy to understand just by thinking about what the MSD students experienced.

The MSD teens then transformed the feelings of vulnerability and helplessness into anger.

Up to this point, the MSD shooting is no different from the Vegas shooting, Columbine or any other of the numerous shootings which we have seen on the news, felt vulnerable concerning, and angry about.

For the most part, however, the anger in these other shootings just sort of faded away and was not mastered.

And, nothing changed.

The difference with the MSD shooting and the reason it is still holding our attention is that the “victims” stopped feeling victimized and mastered their anger.

Anger mastery involves assessing the validity of both the anger and the perceived threat and then using the energy anger provides to take effective action to nullify a valid threat.

The MSD teens clearly realized that the threat from guns was valid and decided to go to war to deal with the threat. They then made a plan to facilitate their battle and executed their plan. This plan was critical if they wanted their message to be heard.

This is anger mastery.

They have come forward and appeared on both public and pay (Netflix) TV. They articulately discussed both the impact the event had on them, the feelings the event elicited (not caused) in them and their proposed solutions. They have mobilized public support, publicly taken their concerns and the solutions they are recommending to lawmakers, and organized public events.

They have raised public awareness and it appears that they won’t stop until corrective action has taken place.

You can see the anger in their voices as they speak and their anger continues to motivate them. We have already seen an impact in Florida where some changes have been made in the law.

This is the heart of anger mastery. How you feel about the MSD teens and gun control is not the issue here.

If you have ever experienced anger and either done something you later regretted or done nothing, you have not mastered your anger.

You now have the choice the next time you experience anger.

Accept the message of anger as valid. Your anger is always valid though the perception of threat may or may not be valid.

Then use your anger as an opportunity to assess the situation in which you find yourself.

If your anger accurately reflects a threat that requires an intervention, then take some time to determine the best and most effective action to take, make a plan, and use the energy your anger provides to implement the plan you have devised.

If you decide that you have misunderstood your situation or “created” the threat by some action you have taken, then you can choose a different course of action and the anger will dissipate.

This is mastering your anger.

I welcome your comments and if you think this blog could benefit someone else, please send them the link.

 

My 100th post, the INDEX, two (no opt-in) downloads, and a very interesting question from a reader.

How I would “explain” a school shooting to my teens, if I had teenagers.

Recent events including the shooting in a High School in Florida led me to wonder about how I would help my own teenager (my own kids are adults now) if I had one who experienced an “active shooter” situation with fatalities. I have years of training so I have a sense of how to intervene and the necessary skills to do so.

Disclaimer:  This post is meant to stimulate a discussion of the issues and to provide some guidelines.  It is not meant as a tutorial or as a complete “how-to” regarding talking to a teen.  If you find yourself in the aftermath of an active shooter incident and feel that you are “in over your head”, seek professional help.

I am making some basic assumptions..

First of all, I am assuming that the teen is old enough and engaged enough to be able to discuss their feelings and their concerns.  This does not mean that there are no emotional reactions such as bad dreams, crying, a sense of vulnerability and so forth.

Secondly, I am assuming that the emotional reaction to the event has not prompted PTSD level symptoms which are so disruptive that a professional intervention is required.

Thirdly, I am assuming that the adult interacting with the teen is not so overwhelmed by their own feelings that they really can’t assure their teen about anything.

That being said, before I made any attempt to help my teen deal with this type of event, I would take whatever time it took to make it clear that whatever he (or she) was feeling, it was okay to feel it and that I would do whatever was necessary to help them get through it.  Along these same lines, I would let my child know that I also was impacted by the event.

I would, at the appropriate time, ask the teen  what they were feeling. I would expect feelings including anger, anxiety, and guilt.

While I would get to the anger eventually, as anger is easily understood in this context,  I would first attempt to address the guilt and the anxiety.

The message of guilt is that the person has done something wrong.

With this in mind, I would ask what it was that the teen felt guilty about.  What do they believe they should have done that they did not.  This is survivor guilt. I would do this before I reassured them that it wasn’t their fault.  They already know this on some level but the guilt suggests that there is some doubt that must be addressed.

After they expressed themselves, I would attempt to address the issues they brought up. I would not argue with them but would, through questions, help them begin to see that there was nothing more they could have done to prevent the shooting. Finally, if appropriate, I would share that it appeared to me that there was nothing they could have done differently.

The message of anxiety is that there may be a future event which might cause severe harm.

Anxiety is understandable under these circumstances as these events occur without warning and with fatal consequences. Adults have difficulty with these types of events as well.

Because the event is unpredictable, the teen can become consumed with worrying that it could happen again. This reality, while highly unlikely, is always  possible.

Thinking about future possible events can lead to bad dreams, a desire to avoid going back to school, feelings of vulnerability and so forth.

Here are two possible interventions I might try.

The first would be to explain what dreams are.

All of our brains are at work 24/7.  At night, when we sleep, the activities of the day stop and the brain continues to “process” whatever issue we might have been struggling with during the day.  These issues can appear in our dreams.

Dreams can be experienced as very real.

I would explain dreams to my teen and go on to say that when these dreams happen, we should acknowledge them, accept that they reflect our very real feelings, and then attempt to move past them by not allowing them to have power over us.  This takes time and must be practiced.  But, we can learn to defang our dreams.

I would then attempt to explain that while we can’t always prepare, or avoid, bad things which happen, we can do a lot to help us cope with an event which might happen in the future.

The example I would use is that of a fatal traffic accident.

Whenever we get behind the wheel of a car, we are aware that a drunk driver, an errant nail in a tire, or some unforeseen situation could result in a fatal accident which could kill us.

While we are aware of this, we still get in the car.

This is possible because we believe we are both prepared for the unforseen and are good drivers (We are prepared, alert, and attentive to other drivers.)

At some point, and I would choose very carefully when, I would explain that even if we do everything right, sometimes bad things happen including fatal accidents.

The analogy of a traffic accident can be used in the case of a school shooting.

I would explain that teachers are being trained to deal with these type of situations.

I would also tell my teen to talk about what they might look for in other students which might indicate that this person is troubled and needs to be helped.  If they see something about which they are concerned, they need to tell a teacher.  Also, if there is an active shooter in a school, then they need to be prepared to remain “calm”, lock the classroom door and shelter in place or do whatever the school has suggested they do in these situations. All of this is preparation.

Lastly, I would address the anger by validating it, explaining that the message of anger is that we perceive a threat we believe we can eliminate.  From this perspective, I would suggest that my teen use the energy of the anger to organize with their friends to impact legislators to change the laws regarding gun ownership, background checks, and so forth.

Two caveats are important here.

The first is that this is not a complete discussion of dealing with the aftermath of an active shooter situation. It is only intended as a guide to help if you find yourself having to help a teen begin to deal with the emotions that follow from a traumatic event.

Secondly, while it may look easy in black and white, this process is not easy, can take a lot of time, patience and multiple attempts.  While not easy, however, it is doable and worth the effort to implement.

As always, in these situations, professional help is always available and should be utilized.

 

 

What are the tips for increasing anger? Part 2

In my last post, I discussed the person who gets angry but does not express it and I gave some suggestions this individual might use to express (or increase) his (or her) anger.

In this post, I will talk about the person who does not recognize that they are angry. This individual gets mad but does not identify the emotion as anger.

What might account for someone developing in this manner?

Upbringing, lessons learned, and indirect anger.

Well, suppose you grew up in a family where anger was either strongly denied or egregiously displayed?  In response to these messages, you might have decided that you would never allow yourself to get angry.

Well, the unfortunate truth is that the emotion of anger, while it may lie dormant or be indirectly expressed, is a part of you and has been with you since birth.

Some people express their anger indirectly through passive-aggressive behavior.  Through a process of delay, making excuses, not completing goals, procrastination, sarcasm and so forth, one can “get back” at a potential threat without acknowledging anger.

If this applies to you, it might be in your best interest to explore how you avoid interpersonal threat and, with help, learn to acknowledge the threat directly, allow yourself to get angry, and interact more directly with others.

Anger by a different name.

There are emotions which you might feel comfortable expressing which, while not identified as anger, actually are elicited by a perceived threat. Examples include annoyance, frustration, bitterness.

To the extent that these emotions are a reaction to a perceived threat and motivate action to deal with the threat, what you are experiencing could very well be anger.  You just are not labeling it as anger.

Think about it for a moment. The message of anger is that the angry person perceives a threat he believes he can eliminate.

The message of annoyance and frustration is that an event has occurred that is perceived as an unexpected obstacle that needs to be handled, bypassed, or worked through. In either case, the event is perceived as an inconvenience rather than a threat.

If you have been taught that you should never get angry because your anger will make you act out and hurt others, then you may have chosen to “eliminate” this emotion from your emotional toolkit. It’s okay for you to be annoyed but not angry.

It is important to note that sometimes, frustration and annoyance just reflect being frustrated or annoyed. Your goal has been blocked and you don’t like it.  There is no threat, just an obstacle that needs to be  overcome.

No threat— no anger.

The good news and the bad news.

If you are substituting anger with indirect behavior or other feelings, your anger is still a part of you.

You may see this as bad news if your goal is to eliminate your anger.

It is good news because you have a tool you can learn to use to improve your life and your relationships.

Maybe this will help. Let’s say you are not familiar with power tools and you have always used a screwdriver when needed.  You are about to build a fence and you are dreading all the screws you will need to use.  Someone introduces you to an power screwdriver and your job has been transformed.

Now I am not saying that you have to get angry.

What I am saying is that you were born with a very good threat detector…your anger.

While it is important to recognize that while some people may do harmful things when angry, their behavior is ALWAYS the result of the choices they make. Anger alerts you to and prepares you to deal with a perceived threat. Anger NEVER causes or forces you to do anything.

You can learn to both recognize and master your anger.  In fact, my book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool will help you do that.  You can download the first two chapters by scrolling up to the Welcome Post above.

I welcome your comments.

 

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What are the tips for increasing anger? Part 1

This is an interesting question that I was asked on Quora.  At the time, it raised an issue I had not previously thought about.

Indeed, usually, people question how to reduce anger.

As I thought about it, there are people who claim that they do not get angry.

Indeed, I can think of at least three types of people who do not get angry.

  1. The person who, for whatever reason, never perceives any injustice in the world.  As even the Dalai Lama has said that he gets angry, this type of person would be very rare.
  2. The person who does not recognize that they are angry.  I will discuss this person in the next post.
  3. There is the person who gets angry but does not express it.  I believe that this is the individual to whom this question applies.

Anger is one of the five basic emotions (mad, sad, glad, fear and disgust). Everyone develops these emotions. Some are present at birth and others develop over time. The message of anger is that we are facing a threat that we believe we can eliminate if we throw enough force at it.

The word threat is in italics because each of us defines and perceives situations as threatening in different ways.

The word force is in italics because some people overreact and become unnecessarily aggressive when angry, others use just enough force and assertively handle the situation, and still others do not use enough, or no, force to handle a genuine threat. (They know a threat exists but choose to do nothing.) This is called passive, or non-assertive behavior.

Looked at another way, anger is a self-protective mechanism that automatically turns on when you believe you need to take action to prevent some sort of harm from taking place and you have the capacity to take that action.

As I noted in my last post, anger is both a messenger and a motivator.

There are two components to anger which are relevant here…

1. the perception of threat

(This is the messenger component.)

2. the belief that you have the ability to overpower and eliminate the threat and the physical preparedness to take action

(This is the motivator component.)

If you perceive a threat that will harm you and which you can’t eliminate, you will feel fear NOT anger.

Getting back to the question…

Your anger will increase in direct proportion to…

1. the level of threat you perceive in a situation

(The more threat you perceive, the greater will be your anger if you believe you can do something about the threat.)

2. the extent to which you believe your values, goals, plans, finances, family,self-worth, etc are important enough to protect and defend

(You must believe that you are, important. If what you are, do, or believe have no value, there can be no threat and, therefore, no anger.)

3. the extent to which you believe you have the knowledge, skills, and ability to defend yourself against the threat you perceive.

If you want to increase your anger, you will need to examine two aspects of your life.

1. How important or significant do you believe your values, your possessions, your beliefs, your self-image, your friendships, your sense of right and wrong, etc are?

This question may expose you to issues involving self-doubt, low self-esteem, or personal self-worth you may not have been aware of.  If this happens, you can seek  professional help to sort out the issues that arise.

2. How capable do you believe you are to assertively handle challenges to your beliefs, your values, etc?

This question will alert you to any deficits you may have regarding interpersonal assertion and self-expression.  These are specific skill sets which can be learned and there may be a need to get some outside advice/training specific to you and your situation.

When you believe you have something to defend and you have the skills to do what is necessary, your anger will be proportionate to the threat and will energize you to take action.

I welcome your comments.

The “Me-to” movement and Anger Mastery

As I am writing this, the “Me-to” movement seems to be gaining momentum.

Following the revelations of sexual indiscretions and the abuse of power by males in the entertainment industry toward “subordinate” females, many women and men have come forward in different industries to both acknowledge the abuse of power that exists and support those who have been victimized and have chosen to share their stories.

When I thought about the “Me-to” movement, I realized that these individuals not only were angry (understandably so) but were also mastering their anger (using the energy of their anger to accomplish a goal).

Let me set the stage for you.

Anger is one of 6 primary emotions (mad, sad, glad, fear, disgust, and surprise) which appear in all human cultures and some subhuman species.

With the exception of glad and surprise, the primary emotions evolved, through the emotional process, to keep our ancestors alive so that we, as a species, could survive.

While there are many ways to conceptualize what emotions (or feelings) are, I choose to think of all emotions as tools. I will elaborate below.

Here is the short version of how the emotional process  worked when we lived in caves and continues to work now.

You are hardwired to scan your surroundings for possible threat and to REACT to it.  This was very useful to our ancestors who faced threats that would literally kill them.

Once a threat is subconsciously detected, the Amygdala (part of the brain) sends a fast track message to the Thalamus to prepare the body for fight (battle) or flight (escape).  This is our emotional reaction. Again, all of this is outside your awareness.  And, if your life is at stake, this is exactly what you want.

The Amygdala perceives all threats as survival based.

The challenge, today, is that the threats we face are more psychological than survival based.

As our brain continued to develop and we evolved beyond our cave ancestors, the thinking part of the brain, the Cerebral Cortex, began to take on a more significant role in our lives.  So, while the fast track message went to the thalamus, a slower track message was now sent to the Cortex.

It is this message that gives us the opportunity to think about and assess the nature of the threat (survival or psychological) and choose how we want to respond to the perceived threat. This is our emotional response.

Emotional Mastery and emotions as tools

Think about your cell phone (or computer) for a minute.

While you now may have mastered it so that you can rapidly send a text, download a song, or watch a You Tube video with relative ease, you probably were not so proficient when you first encountered the phone.  While you may think of it as your lifeline, your  phone is just a tool.  Your proficient manipulation of your phone is merely proof that you have mastered it as a tool.

The same process applies to other tools such as a car, a table saw, your smart TV, a sewing machine, or your anger.

Anger

The emotion of anger is a tool which informs you that you have perceived a threat that you believe you can eliminate if you throw enough force at it and prepares you to go to war.

Let me repeat this: Anger PREPARES you to go to war.

It is important to emphasize that anger does not CAUSE (or force) you to do anything.

Anger Mastery involves understanding what anger is and what it does (the emotional mastery cycle) and then using the energy of one’s anger to effectively do what is necessary to eliminate the threat.

Let’s go back to the “Me-to” movement.

Clearly a threat has been identified. While the short term “threat” is the men who have abused their power, the longer term threat is to change the climate which empowers and perpetuates this abuse.

People who get angry and lash out at others are reacting to their anger. We saw some of this when the revelations of sexual transgressions first began.

The “Me-to” movement, while still encouraging victims to come forward, is focusing its angry energy on bringing about cultural changes.  This involves an approach other than direct attacks.  Choosing how one can most effectively respond to the threat is what anger mastery is all about.

I discuss in much greater depth the whole topic of mastering anger in my most recent Amazon best selling book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool.  You can download the first two chapters of this book by scrolling up to the “Welcome” post above and clicking on the link provided.

To get a broader understanding of emotions as tools, I recommend my first book Emotions as Tools: Control Your Life not Your Feelings in which I discuss the emotions as tools model and specific emotions of anger, sadness, fear, anxiety, guilt and shame.  You can download the first two chapters of this book by scrolling up to the “Welcome” post above and clicking on the link provided.

I welcome your comments.

 

 

 

Responsibility and Accountability: A different approach

Announcement:

Before I begin the New Year with an article I think you will find interesting, I want to let you, my readers, know that starting with today’s post, I will be posting new articles every other week rather than every week.

While there are a number of reasons for this which I won’t go into, what I would like you to know is that I am still very interested in providing content which is relevant to you.  With this in mind, I hope you will continue to leave comments (We review all of them.) about both the content I provide and any new content you would like me to address.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

-The Emotions Doctor-

Happy 2018!

I want to start the New Year with an article on responsibility and accountability because I am suggesting you begin 2018 with a different approach to how you interact with others.

And, by the way, the principles I discuss below can also be applied to yourself.  This can improve your self-esteem and your self-respect.

Someone with whom you have a “relationship” at some point will either do something “wrong” or fail to do something “right”.

That person could be a child, a spouse, or, maybe, an employee.

Perhaps you are angry because their actions are perceived as a “threat”.

Here are some possible threats:

  • to your view of right verses wrong,
  • they have negatively impacted your goals or your business,
  • or you are convinced that they just “should” not have done what they did.

You want to hold them accountable for their actions in order to:

  • make things right,
  • get justice,
  • or teach them a lesson.

Okay, while each of the above makes sense, I suggest that you avoid being too quick to rush to judgement.

Here is something to think about.

Your anger tells you that you perceive a threat in what this person has done.

Let’s agree that their behavior is a threat (whether or not it actually is).

When you move to the next step about what to do to deal with the threat, the issue becomes a bit more complicated.

If your desire is to “hold them accountable”, then you are assuming that the actions they took (or failed to take) were intentional.

If they chose to do something wrong or chose to avoid doing what was expected, then your assumption is correct and corrective action, or punishment is appropriate.

Notice the words I have italicized above.

But, what if something else is going on?

Let me explain.

When we hold someone accountable for their actions, we assume that they are capable of doing what is expected.

To be accountable is to be held RESPONSIBLE.  

If one is capable of doing what is expected, then they are RESPONSE ABLE.

I am making a distinction between Response Ibility vs Response Ability.

Before you decide how to deal with the behavior of another person, it is important to determine:

1) if they could have done what you expected and either chose not to (or just screwed up) or

2) they could not do what was expected either because they lacked a specific skillset or tool or because they completely misunderstood what was expected.

To hold a person accountable when they lacked the ability to do what was expected will elicit anger because the imposed consequence is viewed as unfair and, therefore, as a threat to their view of right and wrong.

Anger will lead to resistance which will interfere with learning.

If the goal is to change the undesired behavior, then it is important to determine that the individual was indeed response able before we hold them respons(e) sible.

In a business context, it may be your responsibility as an employer to help them secure the training they need.

As a friend (or parent), it is your responsibility to do what is necessary to make your expectations (and the reasons behind them) clear and appropriate and to  facilitate the relationship moving forward.

I welcome your comments.