Anger Management for Dummies

Anger, we all have it to a certain degree. But it seems that the world is getting angrier. As someone who taught and developed a Anger Management curriculum for parolee's I found that most anger can be solved by doing certain things. Sure counting to ten works but what if you are angry for the sake of anger. Anger is a powerful emotion triggering all kinds of neat chemicals that feel good. Some people choose to be angry because it motivates them to be better at what they do. Some people are angry because it is all they know. Our response to anger comes from a lot of places, social upbringing environment, perceptions of events. The fact is that 80 of anger is not necessary if we change our thinking patterns. So what causes anger? Write your own list it will usually include a lot of things such as the government the woman at Starbucks who orders a chemical equation rather then a coffee, Brittany Spears whatever. The reality is only two things cause most of our anger and they are unmet expectations and lack of acceptance. By changing our expectations and learning acceptance we can reduce our anger and gain a lot of serenity in our lives. But how to do that. It takes a few changes in our thought process and a reduction in out Ego's. For whatever social or environmental reasons we believe we are the center of the universe and that if everyone thought like us things would be OK. Another problem we have is that we expect perfection in a less then perfect world. In a perfect world all the buses would run on time. That is not possible. Then we will put limits on our expectations which when not met cause anger. In San Francisco the Board of Supervisors put a expectation of 90% on MUNI.. Completely and totally unreasonable even if they took all the cars off the streets the buses would still be held up.

Reality is not something we want to face because it creates chaos in our world view. The first thing we have to do is get over the idea of fairness and justice. They are noble idea's but very rarely happen due to the vast ideas of fairness and justice. In some countries a thief has his hand cut off, in other countries thieves are given probation. Which is true fairness and justice? It depends on our beliefs and morals. Looking at our beliefs and morals we will see that most people are not on the same page. It is why democracy is so great and so terrible. Everyone has there own beliefs they try to force unto others. Religions are famous for this from the Crusades to the current Extremist Islamic s who blow themselves up. Live and let live is not in there lexicon. Now when we examine reality and find that some of our beliefs may be misplaced our anger will go down. When we accept things as they are we find that we can cope with our emotions and feelings a little better. Acceptance is not agreement it is a tool that allows us to function in a world we don't agree with and keep some sanity. Alcoholics and Addicts are famous for this. We use because the world does not cater to us and until we get some acceptance we will never go forward. How else can we get some serenity and acceptance. Try to change something that makes you angry. Are you mad today because some Dictator is oppressing his people? Do something to stop him. Go over and talk to him explain your views to him and see what happens. Are you mad it is raining? Make it stop. Learning that the most we can do is influence events rather then change them gives us a measure of acceptance. Figuring out that the only thing in this world we can change is ourselves allows us a measure of acceptance.

Now on to expectations which I believe is the biggest cause of useless anger. We tend to expect way to much of the world. Habits become ingrained and when they are disrupted no excuse is likely to cause us to feel better. Every morning when I wake up I expect my coffee maker and computer to work because they are connected to a electrical grid. I used to not think of all the things that go wrong by products made by human beings run by machines. That is not reality. Everything is flawed and those flaws will eventually come out, and it is usually at the exact wrong time. So what can we do to avoid the normal malfunctions of human existence? In the example I used I keep a jar of instant coffee and a extra battery. Every night I make sure I back up anything I may need on to a storage device. Preparation for others failures go along way toward managing our anger. So to finish this. Accept things as they are and lower your expectation of others. You will find that a lot of your anger will go away and you will find yourself more serene and happy.