Anger

Have you ever seen someone kicking a tire of his/her car because the tire got flat? I have, and even might have done it myself. What kind of reaction is that? In situations like that, I mean having a flat tire, what kind of feelings do we experience? It is obvious that the emotional experience very strong otherwise we wouldn't have kicked the poor tire and hurt our toes too.

You might say that we get angry when we have a flat tire because we will be late for work or whatever our destination may be. Plus the trouble that we have to go through to change the tire, to find a shop to fix the tire, replace the spare tire again, etc.

I think you were right in saying that" we get angry". So, what is anger? Well, anger is a very powerful emotion. It makes some parents not to speak to their nonconforming child; it makes neighbors stop talking to each other; it even makes powerful governments to fight each other for years.

But anger can be used constructively too!

Probably no other emotion leads to so much change (positive and negative). Unfortunately, anger is often destructive, primarily because people wait too long to express it, communicate it in an attacking way, or fail to recognize the underlying feelings.

Where does anger come from?

The answer is that ANGER IS A RESULT OF HAVING BEEN HURT (or expectations not being met). If you had not been hurt, you would have no reason to be angry.

What are the obstacles to constructive expression of anger? There are two primary obstacles. They are:

1) Feeling that the hurt is childish or silly.

2) Blaming instead of trying to find solutions. Let us now look at the constructive and destructive aspects of anger.

CONSTRUCTIVE anger is:

1) Does not do further harm

2) Relieves tensions.

3)helps solve a problem or relieve or prevent hurt. For example, you can express your feelings like this, "I am angry that you don't have my tire fixed as you promised and would like you to make up for my inconvenience by bringing it to me later."

DESTRUCTIVE anger is:

1) Is intended to hurt the other person.

2) maintains tension.

3) Perpetuates the problem. For example, in tire situation, destructive anger may go like this: "You sorry jerk!!" You promised me that you would have my tire ready by .... I am not going to pay you." Much anger can be just as well dealt with by addressing the hurt which underlies it.

For example, "You have cost me valuable time and I have also lost much of my confidence that I had in you. Will you help me get my time and confidence back?" Since "choice making" is currently a big theme in our society,

We will use the same terminology Therefore, ANGER (and how it is used)?. IS A CHOICE??. If you are angry, acknowledge the anger ("I am choosing to be angry") and recognize what you want for all that energy expenditure.

When I get angry, sometimes people do as I want!.

Stupid site....

Still does not support this standard BB codes.......

Sigh?..

But I am not angry?frustrated— Yes? but what the hell.
🙂

Hi Qbone,

I've used standard HTML tags here and it works. Use the tags instead of [].

And thanks for the post! We all get angry sometimes, it is useless to deny that (and unhealthy to try) - it is how we deal with it that is important.

Scorpgal

Oops - that is supposed to be: use the > and < tags...

Thank you my lady...

Being online 24/7 and being messenger for over 50 different message boards.. along with my own blog...its kind of difficult to keep up with all those stuff and tags...

I?ll try to remember?. But moderator said? they use standard tags?..

Who knows—

Again?? thank you

Tell me about anger... I've got a broken windshield. I felt awful... for my car of course because we have such a bond (sigh) and I hurt him... all thanx to that horrible emotion.

But you ever try working out angry? I don't mean literally angry but getting yourself all pumped up like you're super angry or while hiking. You'll never know your body's full potential until you try it 🙂 Ouch!