How to effectively understand and deal with other people in their relationships with you.–A Quick Guide

Does this apply to you?

You are interacting with another person and their reaction to you leaves you “scratching your head” and wondering what is going on with them or elicits an emotional reaction in you such as anger which isn’t consistent with the situation or your history with this person.

In this post, I will address how to begin to understand others who direct their emotions at you.

There are several issues which you should take into account when you are dealing with an emotional  reaction of another person.

They are (in order of importance):

I. The specific emotion the other person is expressing and the message of that emotion as well as your emotional reaction (if relevant).

II. The situation including the nature of the relationship between you and the other person.

III. The BRR: Giving meaning to their behavior.

IV. How you want to respond or “intervene”

I. The specific emotion and the message of that emotion.

As soon as you become aware that someone is directing a specific emotion at you, your first actions should be to take a deep breath to calm yourself down and take a step back from the situation to initially create some physical space between you and the other person.

You can then become aware of and begin to assess the specific emotion the other person is expressing and the message of that emotion.

The emotion that you observe in the other person is a direct reflection of how they perceive their interaction with you.

The message of the emotion will inform you about how the other person is perceiving you and your situation and their interactions with you..

By attending to the message of the emotion, you gain important insight into how the other person perceives, conceptualizes and understands what is going on between the two of you.

Their perception may or may not conform to what you intend to happen between you.

This information will be critical when you decide how to interact with this person and address the emotion which stems from their perception.

Some examples:

Anger: they perceive a threat in the situation that they want to eliminate.  Anger prepares one for war.

Anxiety: a future based emotion the message of which is that there MAY be a future threat that might be “dangerous”. They are facing a possible threat in their relationship with you.

Shame: the message of shame is that the person believes they are inherently a bad or damaged person. There is something going on between you that is eliciting self-consuming thoughts in them.

Fear: this is a here and now emotion which communicates that they see you as an eminent threat which must be immediately avoided.

The message of your emotional reaction communicates to you how you are perceiving them.  You may need to pay attention to your initial reaction so that you do not overreact, escalate the interaction, and make it more difficult to master what is going on between you and the other person.

II. The situation including the nature of the relationship between you and the other person

Awareness of the emotion is the beginning of the process of responding to that emotion.

The next issue for you is to be aware of the situation as your options may be limited by elements of the situation in which your interactions with this person are occurring.

At least 3 situations come to mind…

1.Are you at risk?

If you need to escape or hide, what are your options.

2. Are you in a position to comfort, advise, or offer assistance to  this person?

If the person is opening up to you about an emotion such as anxiety or sadness, are you in a position to offer assistance?

3.Are there power differentials which impact how you can respond?

  •   Is the other person a superior or boss?
  •   Is the other person someone you want or need to respond to as opposed to “dismissing” them in an appropriate manner?
  • Does your “status” as a woman, a manager, an hourly employee, impact your response options?

III. BRR: What is motivating their behavior

You are aware of the emotion which informs you of how the other person perceives you and their interactions with you and of your situation which gives you additional information regarding your options.

You can now look at the individual and what how they are interacting with you. You do this using the Basic Relationship Rule (BRR).

The BRR tells you that every person in every situation does the best they can (not the best possible) given their Model of the World (how they perceive what is going on) and their Skill Sets (The behavioral tools they can call upon to help them deal with their interaction with you.)

Changing their Model

If you know how they are perceiving their current interaction with you (the message of the emotion) and you know that their perception is elicited by their Model or how they make sense of, understand, or interpret of what is happening, and you can change this Model by asking questions, offering some suggestions, then intervening to change the Model is a good choice.

Dealing with a skill set deficit (They don’t have the right tools for the situation.)

If their inappropriate actions are stemming from a skill set deficit, then they are in a situation in which they don’t really know how to interact with you and are struggling.  In this case, you may have to resort to reassuring them that it will work out, give them some space, avoid confrontations, or use distraction if possible and so forth.

IV. Choose an adaptive response.

Based on all of the above, choose how you want to respond and take action.

Anger as an example…

This is the scenario I used..

You are at _____ (work, home, walking the dog) and someone interacts with you in such a way that it seems clear to you that this person is angry with you.  He (or she) might be yelling at you, talking fast, accusing you of having done something and so forth.  It is not immediately clear why they are angry.

I discussed 7 general issues and 6 steps.

Here are the 7 general issues that I originally addressed in my book Beyond Anger Mastery: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool.

  1. What is the nature of the threat the other person perceives?
  2. Are they telling you that you have done something wrong? If so, what is it? Is is something you did recently, are currently doing, or something you did in the past?
  3. Are they just venting and you just happened to be in the way?
  4. Is the threat, or the implied threat, that they perceive in the present and something you may be able to resolve?
  5. Is the threat they perceive, or the implied threat, in the present but totally unrelated to you?
  6. Are they using their anger to “manipulate” you in some way or get you to do something specific like back-off (anger as a communicator) or give in (instrumental anger)?
  7. If there is no obvious threat, what else might be going on? Could they be using their anger to cover over some other feeling (secondary anger)? Or, if they are attacking you or demeaning your character, could they be attempting to divert attention away from issues you have raised and onto you as an individual?

Here are the 6 Steps…

Step 1:  Prepare to engage.

Sub-steps:  a. Calm yourself by taking a deep breath   b. Take a physical step back if your physical safety is an issue.

Step 2: Insure your safety.

Sub-steps: a. assess personal threat level   b.Assess need for immediate action.

Step 3: Validate their anger.

Sub-steps: a. Assume their anger is valid.  b. Calm them down.

Step 4: Forgiveness.  

Sub-steps: a. understand what forgiveness is. b. Don’t take their anger personally.

Step 5: Empathize with and attempt to understand the other person’s anger.    

Sub-steps: a. Seek first to understand.  b. Address 7 general issues.

Step 6: Decide how to respond.  

Sub-steps: a. If you did something.  b. The issue is in their head.

Here are the links to a series of 3 posts I published in Febuary and March of 2017 which address how to intervene when another person is angry with you. These three posts and the suggestions I made in them are as relevant and valid today as they were in 2017.

You are the target of someone’s anger: Part 1

You are the target of someone’s anger: Part 2

You are the target of someone’s anger: Part 3

 

Blaming Your Emotions (Person or Situation) for Your Behavior is Always Inappropriate.

The Statements:

  1. You make me so MAD!”
  2. I wouldn’t have said (or done) THAT if I hadn’t been so MAD!

Sound familiar?

The Facts:

#1 is completely false.

#2 has an element of truth to it but is basically misleading and incorrect and is, essentially the same as #1.

The Explanation:

In my last post, I talked about the Emotions Cycle,  the perception of threat (in the context of heroic behavior, and the two processes of Assuming and Acting As-if

In this post, I am going to expand on my earlier discussion and take in a different direction and talk about the impact of believing that our anger or the actions of another person control us.

Here is the short form of the Emotions Cycle in 4 steps..

  1. starting from the unconscious scanning  for threat,
  2. proceeding through the  unconscious perception of that threat (based on whatever “definition” you have currently “loaded” into your scanning process regarding the situation you are in),and,
  3. moving  from the subconscious to the conscious by taking a deep breath and a step back and assessing the nature of the threat and
  4. choosing an adaptive response.

Steps #1 and #2 happen very fast.

Based on your subconscious “definition” of threat, your brain constantly scans your situation and when what it perceives matches that definition the Brain (via the amygdala and the thalamus) puts your body on “red alert”.

(anger) If the threat is perceived as one you can eliminate, your brain prepares you for war. You become hyper aware of your surroundings, blood is rerooted to “essential” body parts and so forth.

(anxiety) If the threat is a future possibility, you may begin to catastrophise about everything that could go wrong and act as if it is an inevitability that it will go wrong.

(sadness) If an important element in your life has been lost (spouse, opportunity), your red alert involves wanting to shut down, cry, give up and so forth.

(fear) If the threat is going to “kill” you, your red alert leads you to either freeze or flee.

So, the situation (or your perception of the situation) does elicit the initial emotional response.

The red alert is an evolutionary process that evolved to insure your survival. Thus, if the threat is indeed critical to your survival, you want your brain to act fast and elicit or, indeed, cause the correct response.

For our cave dwelling ancestors, this process worked perfectly.  All threats were real (not based solely on perception) and they had to be dealt with quickly or death would result (survival based).  So, having a brain which would act quickly and (seemingly) autonomously was exactly what was needed.

Note: Because this threat detection process and the resultant physical/ emotional protective reaction happens both automatically and very fast, we tend to make the incorrect assumption that our emotions control us.   Our emotions do control the initial emotional reaction but not (as I will discuss below) our emotional response.

 And, this response is both critical and within our control.

As our cave dwelling ancestors and the  environments in which they lived continued to evolve, the thinking part of their brains (the cerebral cortex) became more prominent and gave them the ability to evaluate those environments and make decisions about what actions they wanted to take.

This is where it gets a bit dicey for us today.

The emotional process is initially the same for us as it was for our cave dwelling ancestors….   perceived threat—red alert.

The problem is that..   most of the threats we face are psychological and not survival based.

Hence, while our perception of threat is critical to the process, our perception of threat (today) could be inaccurate or wrong.

Fortunately, we have a mechanism for making critical decisions about the perceived threat: the cerebral cortex.

Yes, it is true that your brain subconsciously puts your body on red alert. And, in that sense, causes the initial emotional (anger, etc) reaction.

But, it is not correct that your brain makes you angry or sad etc (your emotional response).

And this takes us to step #3 and #4 (the modern upgrade).

In steps #3 and #4, the emotional process moves from subconscious to conscious.

The reason for this move is that your cerebral cortex evolved to allow you to assess and decide whether that original definition of threat even applies to your situation.

And, to choose how you want to respond.

So, whether or not you are initially aware of your (underlying) definition of threat is irrelevant.

In addition, the original source of that definition is also largely irrelevant.

What is important is that..

  • the definition of threat elicits the red alert reaction.  The brain just carries it out.
  • it is you who decides the extent to which the definition of threat is even relevant to your present situation.
  • you, ultimately, have control over and can adjust that definition.
  • you always have control over the actions you take regarding your initial emotional reaction.  This is your emotional response.

Statement #1

So, the claim that “You made me mad.” is always false, is often an excuse to justify one’s actions, and usually is an attempt shift responsibility away from the angerer to another person. It is your definition of threat which set-up the emotional reaction and your decision about your situation which kept the reaction going.

Statement #2

Secondly, the statement that “I wouldn’t have said (or done) THAT if I hadn’t been so MAD!”is partially true in that if there were no anger, there probably would not be  inappropriate or stupid behavior.

But, this statement has a rather insidious  implication.  In many respects, this statement is the same as #1 in that it implies that it is the anger that has caused the behavior not the decision of the one who is angry.

So, yes, you got angry and in your heightened state of emotional arousal, you made a dumb decision and did something you later regret. But, you assumed that your initial perception was both inclusive (the only way to explain everything that was happening) and exclusive (the ONLY way to make sense of your situation), neglected to assess your situation and acted as-if your only option was to lash out.

Failing to assess and choose an adaptive response is always on you.

Your brain informed you of a possible threat (elicited anger) and gave you the option of assessing the validity of your definition of threat  and choosing an adaptive effective response.

If you opted out of that choice, the actions you took (and later regretted) were the result.

or, to put it another way…

It is always your perception (based on your definition) of threat that elicits and leads to your initial emotional reaction and it is always your decision (or lack thereof) that causes your emotional response (inappropriate behavior)!

The same logic, by the way, is expressed by the person who says “If I hadn’t been drunk (high or exhausted), I wouldn’t have (you fill in the action).”

Yes, the alcohol (drugs) blurred your logic but it was you who chose to get drunk so the responsibility for what you did rests, solely, on you.

I think you get the point!

Final thoughts!

I am not saying that your anger (or other emotion) is always inappropriate.  Indeed, if the threat is valid (someone violates your boundaries, a future threat needs to be dealt with, etc), then taking adaptive action is what you should be doing.

Appropriately assigning accountability may be required. Blaming never is.

Taking personal responsibility for both your assessment of the situation and the response you choose to make is the critical issue here.  If you are correct, your actions will be effective in dealing with the threat. If you are incorrect in your assessment, you can apologize and make it right.

The choice is always yours.

 

 

The Power of Words 2: “Divorced” or “Single”? Psychologically, It Makes a Big Difference!

Your marriage was legally dissolved 5 (2,10, 15) years ago.     Do you think of yourself as “divorced” or “single”?

One day as a friend of the family and I were chatting about her “X”, I asked her this question……

“Are you divorced or are you single?”

She looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language that she did not understand and said… “Huh, what does that mean?”

In my last post, I talked about the power a questioner on Quora had given the innocuous word “ok” to elicit anger.

I’m continuing here to discuss the power of words but in a different context.

Context

If you have gone to court to dissolve your marriage, you are legally divorced.

Disclaimer

Now, as a matter of disclosure, I am not an attorney so I can’t address any legal or financial issues that involve the label “divorced”.  I am only addressing the psychological issues.

That said..

Once your marriage is dissolved, you are also  “legally” (in quotes based on the above disclaimer) single.

The power of words…

Divorced

What this word should mean is that you are now legally separated from your “X” and can move on in your life with a fresh start.

However….

As I explained to my friend, as long as she psychologically considered herself “divorced”, there remained a connection to her marriage and her “X”. To the extent that this connection indicates unresolved feelings including anger, guilt, shame, or regret, she was stuck in the past and was not able to grow beyond her marriage and get on with her life.

This is what was going on.

She believed her “failed” marriage was her fault.  This led to feelings of shame and guilt (self-blame) and regret.

She was pissed at her “X” for cheating.  This led to the feeling of anger.

She wasn’t sure she could fully recover.  This led to feelings of anxiety.

While she was aware of her anger and vaguely aware of her shame and guilt (not the same), anxiety and regret, all of these feelings were wrapped up in, and elicited by, the word “divorced”.

She was emotionally attached to, and looking backward at, her (unresolved) dissolved marriage.

Single

If you were never married or single, you would proceed in your relationship with others as an individual without “legal” encumbrances. Your decisions would involve only you, not someone else.

Again, I am talking psychologically here.

So, I said to my friend, you are a single woman, now and can act accordingly as you go forward.

I also explained, that she needed to resolve the “unresolved” issues which connected her to her marriage and that the Emotions as Tools Model would show her way to do this.

Label, validate, and Assess

The emotional process involves labelling your emotions so you know what they are, validating them so that you don’t deny or minimize them and assessing their message so you can decide whether they accurately reflect your initial perception of your situation.

The words she used to describe her situation and the emotions those words elicited….

In describing her “divorce”, my friend asserted (paraphrased)…

  • I screwed up and should have known better. (shame, guilt, regret)
  • He screwed up.m (anger)
  • Marriage sucks and I don’t want to hurt in the future. (anxiety)

We examined each of her assertions (perceptions) in terms of the “facts” including her actions and his actions, her strengths and weaknesses, who she is a person, etc.

Once the “issues” were addressed (resolution would come with time), the emotions subsided, she was able to acknowledge that she is, indeed, single and that moving on with her life now made sense to her.

The bottom line…

The takeaway here is that the words we use to describe the situations in which we find ourselves can be very powerful in their ability to elicit strong emotions which can negatively impact how we view ourselves and our situations as well as our ability to move forward in our lives.

In my next post, I will address the power of the word “stuck”.

Below, I have given some links to past posts which are relevant to this discussion.

It is important to note that you can access all of my past posts by clicking on the Index tab. When you do this, you will get a drop down menu with several categories for my posts.  Click on the category and you get a listing of all the posts in that category. Click on the post you want and the post will appear.

Note:  There are so many posts on anger, I suggest you click the anger category and pick the one that grabs your attention.

What is the difference between guilt and shame?

You Verses Your Anxiety: 3 Secrets and 4 Steps to turn Your Inner “doom sayer” into an inner “motivator”. Part 1

You Verses Your Anxiety: 3 Secrets and 4 Steps to turn Your Inner “doom sayer” into an inner “motivator”. Part 2: The 3 secrets.

You Verses Your Anxiety: 3 Secrets and 4 Steps to turn Your Inner “doom sayer” into an inner “motivator”. Part 3: The 4 steps.

The Power of Words 1: “Why do I get mad when people say “ok” to me?”

Note: The next three posts will focus on the power of words to emotionally impact us.

  • In this post, I will look at the impact of the word “ok” on a questioner from the website Quora.com.  I often contribute to this site.
  • In my next post, I will discuss the difference between being “divorced” and being “single”.  Both words describe a post-divorce individual but they evoke different emotions.
  • Finally, I will discuss the concept of “being stuck” in the context of “How is that (project) going?”

“Why do I get mad when people say “ok” to me?”

When I was asked this question on Quora.com, I found it interesting because of what it implied about all emotions including anger and the power we give to words to impact us.  I’m expanding my answer here.

There are two components in this question..

  1. What the emotion of anger (mad) tells us about our perception of our current situation and
  2. The power we give words to influence us

The Emotion of Anger (mad)

The message of anger (mad) is that ..

  • you perceive the situation as a “threat” and
  • you are ready to go to war to eliminate that threat.

Anger prepares you for war.

So, let’s think about this for a moment..

This writer is saying that he (or she) is ready to go to war because of the threat implied by the word “ok”.

The Power of Words

This  “threat” is interesting for at least three reasons…

  1. The individual with whom the questioner is interacting has done nothing noticeably wrong other than to say “okay”.  Hence, there is no objective or obvious threat.
  2. The questioner has imbued the word “okay” with tremendous power.
  3. That power is clearly influencing the questioner eliciting an angry reaction.

To put it another way, the word seems to have emotionally highjacked the questioner.

On the surface, this seems a bit strange. So, what is going on?

The Emotions as Tools Model dictates the steps you take regarding the emotion you are experiencing when you want to strategically master your own emotions or those with whom you interact.

The first action you need to take is to validate your emotion.

Validating the emotion involves:

Taking your emotion “at face value” and as “true” for you in the moment because it reflects your perception of the situation.

Note: this does not mean that your perception is correct or true for the situation.

Your next step is to assess the nature of the perceived threat and whether or not there actually is a threat.

So, for the author of this question, we must assume that he has placed a great deal of significance and importance on the word “ok”.  As the word, “okay”d is neutral.  It is an acknowledgment of a situation, a statement,  or an interaction.  That’s it.

So, we have to assume that the questioner is viewing the word through the lens of some prior bad experience or that the tone with which the word “ok” was said implied some negativity such as sarcasm, ridicule, belittling, or demeaning. Or both.

It is this “lens” that gives the word “okay” its power to elicit a strong emotion.

For you, my reader, think about times when you have gotten upset about either what someone said to you or the manner in which it was said.

Can you relate to my Quora questioner?

With the above as a starting point, here is how I responded on Quora…

While you will have to figure out what exactly it is about someone saying “ok” to you that elicits (not causes) your anger, I can give you some background information which should help you.

Anger is one of 6 primary emotions (mad, sad, glad, fear, disgust, and surprise) which are found in all human species and some sub-human species. With the exception of glad and surprise, all of the primary emotions are primitive threat detectors which evolved to help humans, as a species, survive in a world filled with dangerous predators (human and animal) and situations which could, and did, easily kill us.

Our emotional system consists of our senses which continuously scan our surroundings for threats, the amygdala and thalamus which unconsciously alert us to and prepare our bodies to deal with the impending threat, and, (in us as more evolved humans) the cerebral cortex. The senses and the amydala/thalamus comprise a primitive system over which we have no control. By the way, if we are facing a threat which will kill us (survival threat), we want the whole emotional process to operate (on its own) and keep us safe.

For you, however, most of the threats you face will be psychological threats. These threats include perceived “assaults” on our self-image, our self-esteem, our views of right and wrong, and so forth. A psychological threat will not kill you although it may leave you feeling vulnerable, inadequate, wronged, or attacked.

Words have power through the “meaning” we give them.

With this knowledge, you can now ask yourself what it is about “ok” which pushes your anger button.

Or, to put it another way..

You have given the word “ok” a great deal of power that it does inherently deserve.

What associations do you have with this word, from your past that gives it this power?

Is it that you feel someone is patronizing, minimizing, or marginalizing you?

Have you experienced being marginalized in the past?

Pay close attention to what you are thinking when someone says this to you and you react with anger. These thoughts should contain the information you need to understand what is eliciting your anger.

Secondly, you need to assess your relationship to the person with whom you are interacting.

Is there something about that person that may lead you to believe that they are not being direct or truthful with you regarding the current topic of discussion?

Once you have figured this out what is going on in the moment, you can engage your cerebral cortex (the thinking part of your brain) to remind yourself that there is no real threat.

  • If you are responding to something that happened to you in your past rather than in the current situation and you can choose not to react.
  • If you suspect that the tone of voice you are reacting to reflects a problem in your relationship with the other person, you can comment on your perception and ask for clarification.
  • You then can choose how you want to respond to what is happening in the moment.

The bottom line.

The takeaway here is that you need to be aware of the power you give to certain words (or situations) to elicit (not cause) an emotional reaction in you.  With this awareness, you will  be able avoid being emotionally highjacked by those words/situations in the future.

In my next post, I will take about the words “divorced” and “single” in the context of a legally separated couple.

Anger Mastery Techniques – 2 Actions and 3 Questions to Ask When Angry to Use Your Anger as a Strategic Tool

We all get angry sometimes.  But, most of us are poorly educated regarding what anger is or how to deploy it as a strategic tool to improve our lives and our relationships.

When you Google “anger management”, you will find a ton of links and lots of suggestions.  The “experts” will tell you that you have two basic choices with many different options within each choice.

The choices suggested by the “experts” are:

  1. Controlling your anger.
  2. Ignoring your anger by distracting yourself through telling jokes, yoga, or relaxation.

The vast majority of these “experts”, however, miss the point when it comes to understanding what anger, as an emotion, is.

They speak of anger as if it is a runaway car or a menacing dog that must be chained up rather than as an important tool that you need to learn how to master..

Or, they minimize anger as an emotion and label it as secondary emotion (as in a substitute for other emotions).

What most “anger” experts FAIL to recognize is that:

a. Anger is a basic emotion that communicates important information.

b. Sometimes, anger IS a secondary emotion that (men mostly) use to avoid experiencing emotions such as anxiety, guilt or sadness.

c. There are times when being angry is both necessary and appropriate.

d. It is the behavior of the angry individual that is always the issue, not the anger itself.

d. The real issue is learning how to master your anger as a tool rather than to control it, reduce it or avoid it.

It may surprise you to know that… You do not “get” angry!

Rather, you experience yourself getting angry.

“Wait a minute, now,” you say “what does that mean?”

Anger originates as a perception which gives rise to a feeling which elicits a reaction which is strengthened by an explanation which might become a response.

So, when you get into a situation which might be a threat to you, your brain unconsciously prepares your body to fight the threat or flee from it. This is a survival mechanism that humans have had from the beginning of time to help us survive.

Anger is a reaction to the perception of a threat that you, subconsciously, believe you can overpower.  Anger prepares you for war.

When you notice the changes in your body that relates to your perceiving this type of threat, you label the emotion you are experiencing as “anger”.

In other words, you experience yourself becoming angry and you label this experience as anger.

“Anger” explained.

  • Anger is one of 6 primary emotions we are born with and which have existed in humans since we lived in caves.
  • Anger evolved to alert us to and prepare us to deal with a threat by going to war.
  • Anger is primarily a threat detector.

There is a better way to approach anger:

Use your anger as a strategic tool to improve your life and your relationships.

Note: A strategic tool is one that is applied in a specific situation to accomplish a specific task unique to that situation.

Two actions to take and three questions to ask when you experience anger.

Taking these actions and asking (and answering ) these questions will help you respond  rather than react to your the situation and doing something you may later regret.

The two actions

  1. Create physical safety by taking a physical step back from the situation.
  2. Create psychological safety by takeing a deep breath (or two).

The three questions.

I. What is at risk?

What does this question do?

When you look at “risk”, you are assessing the nature of the threat. “Survival” threats are unambiguous and involve your life, your primary finances, or your values. “Psychological” threats are ambiguous and easily misunderstood and involve your ego, your goals, your beliefs or your dreams.

The nature of the threat will determine your response and takes you to the next question.

II.  What do I need to protect or accomplish in this situation?

What does this question do?

This question begins to match the situation you face with the actions you will take to deal with it.

Protection involves a “survival” risk. You need to do whatever it takes to protect your assets.

Accomplish addresses “psychological” threats and tells you that you have many options including:

  • Doing nothing if there is no threat.
  • Calming down the situation so you can seek a win-win solution or a compromise,
  • Clearing up any misunderstanding that is being seen as a threat and generating anger,
  • Deciding what actions are needed to insure that…

a. your opinions are heard,

b. your beliefs are expressed,

c. your needs are met,

d .your relationships are maintained or healed,

e. your disagreements are resolved.

III. What is my most effective response?

What does this question do?

This question directs your attention to the RESPONSE you will choose based on reason and away from a REACTION which is an unconscious behavioral outburst.

This question looks at your options and seeks to match your response to the situation and threat you face.

Examples of a response include:

  • Taking physical action against a perpetrator,
  • Talking to a supervisor or filing a formal complaint at work,
  • Engaging in conflict resolution strategies to clear up misunderstandings or disagreements,
  • Walking away so you do not hurt yourself or someone else so thatbboth of you can cool down and come back later to reach a win-win resolution or a compromise.

In learning to master your emotions as tools…

  • taking a physical step back from the situation gives you physical space or safety,
  • taking a deep breath creates psychological space, and
  • asking the right questions informs you about how you can strategically respond to the situation which elicited (did not cause) your anger.

Once you understand what anger, as an emotion, is (a strategic tool that detects threat and prepares you to deal with that threat) and the strategies you need to engage to master it (two actions to take and three questions to ask and answer), you are in a position to deploy your anger strategically to improve your life and your relationships.

Mastering emotions as tools: Anger, and your car’s “smart cruise control”.

There is a widely held belief that our emotions control us and make us do things we may later regret.

The problem is that this is an  emotional myth!

I have attempted to address this myth in my blog posts, my responses to questions on Quora.com and in my podcast appearances because belief in the myth prevents people from taking control of their lives by utilizing their emotions as strategic tools.

In this post I will address this myth in a different way.

I will use your car’s cruise control as a metaphor for mastering your emotions.

Some definitions...

  • Classic or “dumb” cruise control: The traditional mechanism in your car that keeps you traveling at a set speed.
  • Smart cruise control: Technology which both allows you to set a specific speed and gives you additional options by automatically adapting to the surrounding situation and kicking in when an obstacle is present.
  • Set point: This is a specific number or limit which tells the device with a feedback loop that a specific designated action needs to be initiated.  It could involve a thermostat turning on the furnace or air conditioner or the cruise control speeding up the car.
  • Emotional set point:  The degree to which you perceive a specific situation as a threat which initiates an emotional reaction.
  • Your perception: The meaning you give to any situation you observe.
  • Emotional reaction: The subconscious physical changes which your brain (amygdala) initiates in your body when a threat is subconsciously recognized.
  • Emotional response: The action you choose to take to allow you to effectively interact with the perceived threat.

The “Tools” We Use

There are many tools  which you use on a regular basis.

“Task oriented” Tools

Task oriented tools are designed to complete a specific task.

Sometimes this “task” is simple. A screwdriver is just a screwdriver unless you don’t know the difference between a flathead and a Phillips.

At other times the “task” is very complicated. Your cell phone can do many things very well but it won’t replace a screw in your cabinet.

Examples of task oriented tools include your cell phone, your computer, your car, your TV remote, your sewing machine and a screwdriver.

While you may not think of your cell phone and computer as “devices”, they are also “tools”.

“Set point” tools.

Devises with set points make your life easier by automatically maintaining whatever “status quo” or set point you choose.

Examples of set point tools include:

  • The thermostat in your home or car that controls the temperature.
  • The spell checker on your word processor that monitors your document as you type.
  • The cruise control on your car that keeps you going on the freeway.
  • Your brain which encourages you to keep doing the same habits in the same way.

Everything is fine…Until it isn’t!

In most cases, our tools work fine and there is no problem.

  • (Thermostat)…The house/car stays warm (or cool) and comfy.
  • (Spell Checker)…The correction that is made is appropriate.
  • (Cruise Control)…We merrily move along on the road at a chosen speed and get to our destination.
  • (Brain)… The actions we take fit the situation, are appropriate, and lead to a desirable outcome.

The tool does what it is programmed to do.

It is not able to make adjustments for unique situations. In other words, it does not typically think about or take into consideration “exceptions” to the norm.

It is these “exceptions” that are often problematic.

The spell checker that changes the name of an important client in an email or changes a word that gives the sentence a totally different focus than what you intended.  You missed the changes in the overview before you hit “send”.

Your brain elicits an angry outburst which is hurtful, inappropriate and    unnecessary  because you misread the situation.

You get the idea.

Emotions as Tools

Emotions are hardwired tools..

  • Your emotions  unconsciously perceive threats
  • They unconsciously prepare your body to react and insure your survival.

You are hardwired to perceive threat in your surroundings.  This has been the case since humans lived in caves and this “ability” helped us survive as a species.

This is the first part of the emotions cycle and is mitigated by the Amygdala in our brain.

Each emotion has a set point at which it recognizes a significant event such as a “threat”.  This is the message of the emotion.

Your definition of threat is your set point and when that set point is reached, your emotional “cruise control” kicks in.

Below this set point, or threshold, there is no experienced emotion.

The characteristics of this process are that it is automatic, out of our awareness, and quick. This is our emotional reaction.

The characteristics which comprise your emotional reaction are critical if your survival is at stake. But, they are also the foundation for the myth that our emotions control us.

The critical difference is that when the emotional process “originally” appeared in our cave  dwelling ancestors, all threats were survival based and this fast emotional reaction saved lives. Today, most threats are psychological and our brains have evolved so that we now can evaluate the threat and choose our emotional response.

When the emotion is compelling, uncomfortable, or debilitating, this automatic process is viewed as undesirable.

Let me break it down….

compelling

The emotion seems to “take over” and “compel” one to act in a particular way.  Examples include anger (aggression) and jealousy (driven to take back what you believe is yours).

uncomfortable

The emotion just doesn’t feel good.  We call this its hedonic quality.  Examples include sadness, anxiety, guilt, and  jealousy.

debilitating

The emotion seems to sap us of energy and leave us feeling unable to take effective action.  Examples include anxiety (an inability to take action) and guilt (a sense of unworthiness).

But, this automatic process is only part of the story and this is where the concept of a smart cruise control becomes important.

So, you may ask:

“What does the concept of cruise control have to do with emotions?”

The short answer is that people believe their emotions function the same way their classic (dumb) cruise control operates.

  • They get into a situation in which the emotion is automatically triggered.

(Set point is reached.)

  • The emotion engages and elicits physical and psychological events

(The brain and body are engaged just like the car speeds up.)

  • The emotion is experienced as acting autonomously and without conscious  input.

(The cruise control, once set, functions without additional input.)

The implication is that the emotion reaches some set point after which it takes over and the individual has no choice but to give in to the feeling and either act out or do nothing.

This is the Myth…but, there is more to the story.

Most people relate to their emotions from a classical (or dumb) cruise control model.

I am suggesting that it is much more adapative to adopt a smart cruise control approach.

Your Cruise Control

Classic, or “dumb”, cruise control

This technology enables you so you to set a desired speed.  This is the “set point” for speed. The tech monitors your speed and, if the car falls below this set point, the automatic system engages and you speed up.

I call this accessory “dumb” not because I want to put down the technology but because it is blind to changing road conditions.   Once set, it does its job and maintains a certain speed.

As long as you are in an unchanging situation such as a stretch of road with limited or consistent traffic, you are golden.  The car stays at speed.

But, if traffic should slow and you are not alert, the car in front of you may have slowed or stopped, you remain at speed and plow into the stopped car in front of you!

Your “tool” is happy to keep you going at 69 mph. It is doing its job.

In order to avoid an accident, however, you will need to remain constantly vigilant, continue to assess your driving environment, and override or disconnect the cruise control as needed.

Smart Cruise Control

Your smart cruise control has a set point which it maintains. This tech, however, is designed to monitor your surroundings and when there is a car stopped in front of you, it slows you down. Once the obstruction is removed, you go back to your set point.

Our emotions CAN function the same way.

Indeed, the second part of the emotions cycle involves the cerebral cortex and gives us the option to assess our situation and choose our response.

Just like your smart cruise control monitors your speed and your surroundings, kicks in to both slow you down and give you a choice about what you want to do, and then defaults to your set point once the obstruction is dealt with, your cerebral cortex can automatically kick it and give you choices about how you want to deal with a threat.

Emotional mastery involves experiencing the emotion, slowing down, assessing the situation and choosing a response.

Emotional mastery is NOT automatic and must be learned!

Anger as a Tool and an Example.

Your anger is a tool that is designed to help you survive.

Your anger cruise control kicks in when you experience a threat that you believe you can handle if you throw enough power at it.

When you get angry:

  • You have perceived a threat to your life, your goals, your ego, your values.
  • Your brain has sent chemicals all through your body telling it to prepare for battle.
  • You are ready to go to war with the threat.

When all threats were survival based, your emotional cruise control worked perfectly.

The problem is that nearly all of the threats we face today are psychological and not survival based.

Consequently, what may seem to be a threat may, in fact, only be a misunderstanding.

Unfortunately, your anger does not know the difference between a survival based and a psychological threat and you automatically go into self-protection or go-to-war mode.

If you lash out and say, or do, something you later regret, it is just like plowing into the car in front of you at high speed.

This is where the smart cruise control metaphor, the Emotions as Tools model and anger mastery come in.

Just as you should constantly monitor the traffic when your cruise control is on, you should constantly monitor your surroundings when you become aware that your anger (or any other emotion) has been engaged.

Once you become aware that you are angry, you should manage your anger by lowering your arousal and master your anger by assessing the threat and deciding whether to let your anger move you forward to take action (if the threat is real) or override the anger and shut it down.

The same idea works for other human emotions such as anxiety, sadness, guilt and shame.

The point, here, is that your smart emotional “cruise control” should always be set on automatic. This will let your emotions alert you to possible threats. When a threat is perceived, your “smart tech” will kick in and, before you react, you can evaluate what is going on  and decide what you want to do.

This is called mastering your emotions:

  • You accept and validate the automatic nature of your emotions.
  • You monitor your emotions and assess the situation.
  • You choose an adaptive response and initiate it.

The bottom line is that you want to approach your emotions from a smart cruise control model to get the most out of them as strategic tools.

 

 

Emotional Empowerment. Your Emotions are always Valid. But, They May Not be Appropriate! Anger as an example.

This is the first of two posts designed to help you own your emotions so that you can use them to empower yourself in your interactions with others.

This post looks at the issue of owning your emotions by validating them and whether you should express or discard an emotion based on how appropriate it is.

The bottom line is that all emotions are always valid but might not be appropriate.

I will use anger as an example.

Let’s look at some definitions. (from dictionary.com)…

valid: having force, weight, or cogency; authoritative.

appropriate: suitable or fitting for a particular purpose, person, occasion, etc.:

In the Emotions as Tools Model, all emotions are adaptive and, therefore, valid.

The reason all emotions are valid is that your emotions reflect and are a direct result of how you (subconsciously, at first) perceive your situation.  Because they are a reflection of you, your emotions have cogency and are authoritative in that they reflect your initial “analysis” of your situation.

Your brain constantly scans your surroundings for any possible threat and, when a threat is detected it subconsciously and quickly formulates a fast analysis of the threat. The function of your emotions is to alert you to the threat prepare your body to act quickly to help you survive.

The words threat and survive are italicized because they are highly subjective and are based on you, your current situation, your past, and so forth.

Your emotions inform you about a possible threat based on this initial, very quick, scan of your situation. This means that your emotions start out being highly idiosyncratic (or unique to you).

The emotion, per se, is the same for everyone.

My anger is the same as yours and conveys the same message that there is a perceived threat and that this threat can be eliminated or overpowered.

How the emotion reflects your perception of threat, however, is unique to you.

In other words, there are three “reasons” why there is a distinct possibility that your initial assessment could be inaccurate…

  • your emotions reflect your initial assessment
  • your initial assessment is based both your past and present experiences and
  • the actions of another person may be ambiguous,

Your perception may not be accurate to the extent that you have…

  • misunderstood your situation (the other person’s actions are ambiguous)

or

  • misinterpreted your situation (you have viewed their actions through a filter clouded by  your idiosyncrasies).

Therefore, your emotion, which reflects that perception, may not fit the situation and may not be appropriate to what is going on.

The emotion of anger informs you that you perceive a threat that you can eliminate if you throw enough force at it.  Anger prepares you for war.  The threat can be physical and involve your personal safety or it can be psychological in that it reflects an “attack” on your ego, your values, your sense of right and wrong and so forth.

The perception of a psychological threat can be very subjective.

It is, however, important to note that just because your perception is subjective does not mean it is inaccurate, incorrect, or inappropriate.

You may be very subjective and you might be very accurate in that you are being “attacked”.

The task, then, is to acknowledge your emotion as real  and valid and then to assess each emotion as soon as you become aware that you are experiencing it and determine the extent to which that emotion accurately reflects the situation in which you find yourself.

In other words, the appropriateness of the emotion.

A visit to the Index tab, above, will give you access to many posts which will help you learn to do this.

In my next post, I will address the issue of reclaiming your emotions.

 

 

A New Podcast-Different Topics

These are links to my recent podcast on PositiveTalkRadio. In this interview, I discuss topics which were not addressed in the podcast I noted in my last post.

I’ve included these podcasts because some of you may prefer to get your information in a video or audio format rather than reading it.  If this is your preference, click on the Contact Me button above and leave me a message.

Video

https://www.positivetalkradio.net/videos/ptr-ed-daube-phd-the-emotions-doctor/

Here are some specific issues which might interest you:

11:47 The problem with asking “why” questions and how “what” may be better.                                                                                                                                          19:10 The value of apologizing                                                                                          20:28 Personal responsibility and the challenge of believing that emotions control us.                                                                                                                                                 23:42 Jealousy
24:34 Hate
28:23 Fear and anxiety
32:10 Emotions gone astray and two issues… immigrants and the lady who called police on a black man walking his dog
37:34 Healthy disagreements with a spouse.

How to master your anger when someone lies to you.

Someone on Quora.com asked me:

How do I control my anger when someone lies to me? (emphasis added).

While my original response to this question prompted this post, my response below is more updated, more detailed and more adequately addresses the important issues.

Anger Myths and  Controlling Your Emotions

There are two operative myths regarding one’s emotions (or feeling) and the  concept of control.  Both myths have some truth to them.  They are myths because they don’t tell the whole story.

The first myth is that emotions such as anger (and others) control you.

The second myth is that it is important (even beneficial) that you control your emotions.  While the idea of controlling your emotions is probably more frequently applied to anger because of the inappropriate actions take while angry (and blame the emotion for those actions), people believe they should control any emotion that doesn’t feel “good” to them like anxiety, guilt, hurt, sadness.

Let me address both these myths in the context of the Anger Mastery Cycle (AMC).

Note: By the way, you can download a free PDF of the anger mastery cycle by clicking here  or on the tab above.

Myth #1: This myth is partly true.  It is a myth because it doesn’t take into consideration the entire AMC.

Your emotions don’t control you.  The perception of control happens because of the unconscious part of the Anger Mastery Cycle.  You are hard wired to constantly scan your surroundings for threat.  Humans have done this since we lived in caves. Our ancestors depended on their emotions to both alert them to and prepare them to deal with threats that would kill them.  This unconscious process still operates today as it did back then.  Because the process is fast and unconscious, people believe that their emotions control them.  And, at this early stage of the EMC, that is true.

The issue of control and emotions is a myth because it fails to consider that evolved humans (you and me) have developed the ability to assess our emotions and choose how we want to respond to them.  This gives us control of our situation and allows us to utilize our emotions as tools.

We don’t control our cell phones (an important tool). We learn how to. master it and make it work for us.  It is the same with all emotions (including anger). The ultimate goal in dealing with any feeling is to use the information your emotions, including anger, give you to improve your life and your relationships.  I discuss this below.

Myth #2: This myth is also partially true and it also fails to consider the whole anger mastery cycle.

The first part of the anger mastery cycle is anger management. This is the “control” issue that most people refer to when they say you should “control your anger”.

Yes, you need to lower your arousal and control your behavior to prevent yourself from reacting to the other person and possibly doing something you later regret. But, this is only a step to mastering your anger. You control your anger at this point by taking a deep breath, “forcing” yourself not to react to the person, and taking a second or two to assess the situation as described below and choosing how you want to respond.

Please note that while it is easy for me to tell you what you need to do and it is doable, it will take some practice on your part to put it into action.

Anger, lies and you.

Anger as a primary emotion is a primitive threat detector. I discuss anger as a primary emotion and a threat detector in my book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool . You can also access all of my posts on Anger by clicking on the Index  tab above and the anger category.  Access to all of my posts on anger is then one click away.

The message of anger is that you perceive the lie and, possibly the individual who lied to you, as a threat. This is where anger mastery comes in.

Mastering anger in the context of being lied to.

As I have said, anger is a tool. To master anger as a tool involves assessing the validity of the threat you have perceived.

Your anger informs you that you perceive the act of being lied to as a threat.

Well, there are several possibilities here:

  • There is no lie.  You have misunderstood what was said to you.
  • You are being lied to and that act is a threat to something that is important to you such as your goals, your trust, your values, your expectations and so forth.
  • You are being lied to but there really is no threat to you.  The lie is the problem of the lier.

Given multiple possibilities, you have to assess the nature of the threat.

Your first choice should be to clarify what you believe to be a lie.

You start here, by the way, because if there is no lie, you avoid later complications and, if there is a lie, you still have all of your options available to you.

You do this by asking for clarification of the issue.  This involves stating your own understanding of the “facts” and giving them an opportunity to clarify as needed.

Secondly, if convinced that a lie has been told, you need to decide what is it about this particular lie from this particular person that you perceive as a threat?

This is a critical question in addressing your question for this reason. You can’t decide how you want to respond to this person (another step in the anger mastery cycle) until you decide the nature of the threat.

For example, if the “liar” is your kid, the threat you perceive might involve issues of trust, insuring that your kid understands certain values or develops a moral compass and so forth. If this is the first time he (or she) lied to you, you might choose to approach it as a teaching moment. Or, suppose that your kid lied to protect another kid from being beaten up? Again, you might have initially perceived a threat to your sense of right and wrong when you found out about the “lie” but, once you understand the reason for lie, your response to your kid could change.

If the liar is your spouse, or significant other, and this is reflective of a pattern, the threat might be not only to your sense of right and wrong but to the very foundation of your relationship.

If the liar is a co-worker, again, you would need to assess the nature of the threat.

I think you get the idea.

Thirdly, you might decide, for whatever reason, that there is no threat, you would move down one fork of the anger mastery cycle which involves:

  • choosing to do nothing
  • letting the anger dissipate, and
  • moving on.

Finally, if you decide there is indeed a threat, you move down the other fork of the cycle, which involves:

  • deciding what action you need to take (noting that you are angry, disappointed, etc and assertively questioning the person, questioning what result the individual expected to achieve by lying, seeing a counselor or a lawyer, and so forth
  • making a plan, and
  • taking action on that plan.

In order to implement some of my suggestions you may need to assertively respond to the person who lied to you.  If you are not familiar with the concept of interpersonal assertion, I suggest you Google “interpersonal assertion” (or click on the link) for more information as this topic is beyond the scope of this post.

 

The Anger Mastery Cycle Explained

This is a detailed explanation of the Anger Mastery Cycle.  If you just want a quick overview, click here for the “Cliff Notes” version.

In my Amazon bestselling book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool, I published a chart titled The Anger Mastery Cycle (AMC) which visually lays out the process by which anger is initially experienced and adaptively mastered.

You can download a PDF of the Anger Mastery Cycle by going to the “Pages” section on the right hand side of this page and clicking on The Anger Mastery Cycle PDF.

The Anger Mastery Cycle (AMC).

The AMC can be  broken down into three parts:

I: Subconscious Reaction.

II: Conscious Assessment.

III: Choosing a Response

I: Subconscious Reaction.

The first part  of the AMC involves the “built-in” process of scanning your surroundings and reacting to what you perceive.  This process happens automatically and continuously without you having to initiate or think about it.

Because this initial reaction happens both quickly and “subconsciously” as we would want it to if we were facing an actual life-endangering threat, it is experienced as beyond our control. Problems arise when people overgeneralize the experience and incorrectly  assume that anger controls them.

Yes, the initial emotional reaction is beyond our control.

And, no, anger does not control us as the most important aspects of the AMC are definitely within our control.  Indeed, the ability to strategically deploy our anger to improve our lives and our relationships is the essence of the AMC.

All humans are hardwired to continuously scan their surroundings for any perceived threat.  This unconscious process helped Mr. and Mrs. Caveman survive in a world which was populated by “threats” including animals and other humans that would kill them.  Most primitive emotions were, and are, primitive threat detectors the purpose of which was to both alert us to and prepare us to deal with a threat before it could kill us.

Early humans evolved 6 primary emotions which we experience today just as our cave dwelling ancestors did.  In other words, while humans have continued to evolve, as reflected in parts 2 and 3 of the AMC, the primary emotions, per se, have not.

These emotions are mad, sad, fear, disgust, surprise and glad.  The function of all of these emotions is to facilitate our engagement with our surroundings. Each primary emotion, working through the Amygdala in the brain, reacts to a different environmental stimulus and elicits an physical correlate in our bodies.  This is the initial emotional reaction which, if you are to become effective in mastering your emotions, you will need to learn to recognize.

It is also the “message” of the emotion.

I have discussed the message of all of the primary emotions in other posts.

The message of anger is that your initial perception of the threat is that you are more powerful than it is and that you can eliminate it if you throw enough force at it.  This is your initial thought about the threat.

Anger physically prepares you for war.

Your muscles tighten and your vision narrows and focuses on the threat.  This is the fight part of the fight, flight, or freeze reaction you have probably heard about.

As soon as you become aware of your physical reactions to the perceived threat, you are ready to enter the second part of the AMC.

II: Conscious Assessment.

Now that you’ve become aware of the threat that you have subconsciously perceived and you are “prepared” to engage with the threat, emotional mastery calls for you to consciously assess the threat to determine whether or not a threat actually exists.

As an example of how this process works, think about your smoke detector.

You are sitting at your kitchen table and the smoke detector blares.  It constantly scans your house and is alerting you to a possible threat.

Do you jump up and call the fire department? Of course not. No, you assess the situation and notice that the toast is burning and you pop it out of the toaster.

The blaring of the smoke detector is equivalent to the unconscious reaction of your anger and your conscious decision about the nature of the threat is what the second part of the AMC is all about.

Following your awareness of a physical emotional reaction, you begin to clarify the emotion you are experiencing by giving it a label.  If you are tuned into your body, you know what the initial reaction indicative of anger feels like and you can now apply the label of anger as in “I’m angry.”

Once you have labelled, or acknowledged, your emotion as anger, the next step is Anger Management.

The term “anger management” is generically used to describe any treatment for issues involving anger.

The concern I have with the term “anger management” is that it perpetuates the misconception that all that is needed to effectively deal with anger, as an emotion, is to control, or manage, it.

Two points are important here…

The first is that one of the biggest myths about anger is that it is a dangerous emotion that causes people to do inappropriate things and must be tightly controlled or it will take over. This widely believed conceptualization of anger is not correct, misrepresents anger, and misleads people whose involvement with anger is problematic.

Anger is just a tool.

Which is the second point I want to make.

You don’t control your cell phone, the tv remote, or a sewing machine.  You learn to master these tools in order to get the most out of them.  It is the same with anger, as a tool.

You need to learn to master it in order to get it to work for you.

That being said, anger mastery does begin with anger management (or control).

As I noted above, the function of anger, as a tool, is to both alert you and prepare you to deal with a perceived threat.

When we lived in caves, this unconscious process worked flawlessly, reliably and consistently because all threats were survival based and would kill us if not eliminated.  War was what was needed to insure our survival. The only assessments that were required were how many of us were needed and what weapons would we use.

While the emotion of anger has not changed, the environment in which you live, and get angry, has changed significantly!

Indeed, most of the threats you face are psychological and do not require you to go to war.

So, in order for you to get the most out of your anger as a threat detector and engage the thinking part of your brain, you need to lower the initial arousal of your primitive anger cycle. If your involvement/arousal level is too high, it will be difficult to think clearly and objectively.

Managing your anger by lowering your arousal level is what you need to do.

In the AMC, the process represented by S.T.O.P. enables you to do this.

S stands for stopping the unconscious anger process by creating both a physical and a psychological safe place.

T involves taking a step back physically and taking a deep breath.

The step back is physical.

The deep breath both relaxes you a bit and shifts  your focus. This is the psychological space. Your goal is to associate a deep breath with the initial experience of anger.  You are still angry but less aroused.

This shift in focus gives you the space to both observe what is actually going on and practice emotional intelligence which involves engaging the thinking part of your brain.

The process of anger mastery involves assessing the nature of the threat so you can decide what actions are needed to effectively deal with the threat.

In the world you live in, your anger, as a tool, alerts you to the possibility  of a threat and gives you the energy to deal with a threat, if it exists.

But, for you, it is necessary to determine whether there is a genuine threat or something else (other in the AMC) is going on.

As you can see in the AMC, there are three possibilities that could explain one’s anger when no real threat exists.

  • There is no actual threat and you have misunderstood or misinterpreted the situation you are facing.
  • You are using your anger as a secondary emotion to cover over other feelings such as shame, hurt or anxiety.  Anger is a powerful energizing emotion while these other feelings may sap your energy or leave you feeling somewhat helpless.
  • You are using your anger as an instrumental emotion to manipulate others into doing what you want because they are intimidated by your anger.

Once you have assessed the nature of the threat, you enter the third part of the AMC which involves choosing a response.

III: Choose a Response

There are two basic possibilities here.

The threat is genuine or it isn’t.

If the threat is genuine, you stay with your original thoughts about the threat, you remain angry and you use the energy of your anger to execute whatever is needed to eliminate the threat.

If there is no threat, you need to change your thoughts about the situation you are facing and how you are responding to it.  You have many options here but it boils down to doing nothing or choosing a more effective method of resolving whatever is going on.

Summary

To summarize, the AMC begins with anger functioning as it has always done as a primitive threat detector and motivator. The emotion alerts you to a possible threat  by eliciting an unconscious physical response.

The AMC then progresses through anger management, or S.T.O.P., which lowers the initial unconscious reaction just enough to allow you to engage in anger mastery which involves assessing the nature of the threat and choosing an effective response which either matches and  dispatches a genuine threat or moves beyond the emotion of anger which isn’t really appropriate.