3 September 2008 15 Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

Photo Courtesy Of Arturo J Paniaqua

Anger Management Series provides self help material to deal with anger. It raises and answers questions like – how to control anger, how to become anger-free etc. It attempts to do so by understanding anger, putting together varied anger management strategies and reviewing books on the same subject.

[Click Here for Part I - Decoding Anger]

How Did You Form Your Current Anger Management Style

If you did stay with the questions asked in the previous part – Decoding Anger – Anger Management Series Part I, you must have already begun your journey to understand anger in specific to you. As much important it is to understand anger, equally important it is to understand how you choose to deal with anger.

Your First Anger Management Style
If you go back in time when you first got angry, you had multitude of options on how to deal with this emotion. You picked up one option and dealt with your anger through it. Why you picked that option, we don’t know.

Could be that’s how you have seen someone you know deal with anger, could be you were inspired from some movie or book you had read, could be this style suited your personality then and hence came easily to you, could be you picked this at random as well. If you think you are going to benefit questioning why you picked the first anger management style the way you did, by all means ask why, go back to past, go to the roots to get your answer. However, this line of questioning is not always needed.

So let us simply go ahead with what happened when you picked up an anger management style. Two outcomes were possible:
1. Negative – Your anger management style was ineffective and gave you a lot of pain.
2. Positive – Your anger management style was effective that is, things went the way you wanted.

If Result Was Not Satisfactory, You Picked Another Style
If the outcome was negative, you knew that this is one anger management style you don’t want to use in future. The next time you got angry, you made it a point to avoid this style, and pick up some other style to deal with anger. This style again gave you a positive or negative feedback. And the process continued till you got a positive feedback …

If Result Was Satisfactory, You Stayed With The Style
If the outcome was positive, you knew what worked. Because of this, the next time you got angry, this probably would be the first anger management style you pick up to deal with anger; which is logical and very intelligent of you. If you already know what works, why break head trying out other ways.

Your Anger Management Style Got Programmed
Over a period of time, as you kept implementing the same style, it became second nature to you. And now, whenever you get angry, you don’t think of options you have, you simply react with what is your second nature. The entire part where you could see options and you chose your way to deal with anger goes out of picture. You have unknowingly programmed yourself to deal with anger in a specific way.

While I am not against programming self to deal with anger, I sure have concerns if we are still working the way a child (our younger self) had programmed us. Inspite of having power to choose how to deal with anger, we react in an automated fashion like robots – programmed without giving a thought to whether the style that we use to deal with anger is right or not; programmed without thinking that even though the style gives desired result in the short term, is it sensible and effective way to manage anger in the long run. Being programmed without thinking whether the style is healthy and suitable for us is one scary thought.

If You Can Do It Once, You Can Do It Again. This Time, The Right Way.
If you try to remember the times when you formed your current way of dealing with anger, chances are, you won’t remember any incident. For you, your current style is the only style of dealing with anger that you know of. It seems as if you were born with this style of anger management, it’s ingrained within you to react to anger the way you do.

However, this is not true. The entire purpose of understanding how you formed your current anger management style is exactly this. That even though you don’t remember how you came up with this style, it is something you learned. And with practice, it became your habitual way of dealing with anger. What is learned, can be unlearned, habits can be replaced with better habits. And hence, surely, you too can learn or improve your ways of dealing with anger.

I don’t need to mention, but to state the obvious, the biggest question over here of course is that if you do plan to change your way of dealing with anger, what would you like your new anger management style to be?

This is Part II of Anger Management Series. Stay Tuned for Part III.
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Update: Kaizen Way Of Managing Anger – Anger Management Series Part III