How to Control Your Anger in the Household

Raising a family is a job which elevates the stress levels to a new meaning. Not to even mention raising a family with just one parent, which should be a job noteworthy of a Nobel peace prize.

Being a parent 24/7 requires the patience of a well seasoned monk. Even God himself had trouble in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, so what makes anyone think they can walk through this "parenting" thing unscathed.

Not enough money, too many tasks to be done, and a lack of time or sleep in the day are just a few things which can help the average person become short tempered. Learning how to deal with anger is just a part of the problem, solving it is a whole different matter.

Patience

Children are "little people" who have short attention spans, and can be rather abrupt when it comes to their needs and wishes. Being a parent means to be able to function as an adult, and also come up with good decisions in a quick decisive manner. These "constant" quick decisions are what usually helps the patience to wear thin, and gets the blood starting to boil.

Patience begins to wear thin when things sometimes begin to go sour; not as we had planned. Our ego is now hurt, and anger soon follows. What happens next is observed by those (our children) who are virtually "young sponges" watching everything we do. After the situation has passed we go over and over the situation in our mind, twisting it and turning it around and around until we're blue in the face. Now we've lost more "mental" ground trying to solve the situation, than we had when we began.

Baby steps

You've seen this situation I'm sure. The key to stopping this from happening is being able to evaluate "one" situation at a time in a calm manner. With children everything has to be fixed now. As an adult, it's our "wisdom" that should understand this situation. Everything should be taken in "baby steps" in order to keep our sanity.

Baby steps comes from a movie in which Bill Murray is a mental patient who has trouble dealing with "any" situation. His Psychologist (Richard Dreyfuss) tells him to take each situation in a baby step: slow and steady, one step at a time. This theory is actually quite ingenious when it comes to dealing with impatience and anger.

Anger is a fear based emotion which is caused by the ego. When the mind is overloaded and feels threatened, the ego kicks in and rationality goes out the proverbial window. Taking baby steps gives the mind time to calm down and think more effectively. Trying to rationalize out multiple situations or thoughts at a moments notice can change the outcome to a very "undesirable" situation.

Sense of self

In order to do this you have to understand what creates this destructive emotion of anger. The lack of self-esteem (the ego) and loss of control is what creates anger in most cases. Our image of self is threatened so we strive to do everything we can to preserve this image.

In order to defuse anger you have to be able to recognize a fear based emotion when it enters the mind before you start to feel threatened. When it enters the mind slow down, and take baby steps until the emotion has slowed down or ceased.

Most of the thoughts which dominate the mind are usually regrets from the past, or worries from the future; useless thoughts which are mostly out of our immediate control. Analyzing these thoughts and why they continue to dominate the mind is another story.

Acceptance

Always be aware that every situation will not always come out as you perceive. Letting the situation work its way out is better than endlessly striving for an impossible feat. Loss of control is another fear based emotion brought on by the ego which threatens our sense of self again. When fear is repressed anger slowly builds and shows its ugly head. Patience is a virtue which helps to fight the emotion of anger, and acceptance is the key to letting go of "control" which dominates the worried mind.

This reasoning took me twenty years to understand, which enabled me to nip my short fused temper in the bud. The useless thoughts which dominate the mind sometimes block out the positive thoughts which live there also. When a destructive thought arises take a breath and be conscious that it's there. Sometimes just being aware of the emotion seems to pull back the covers of disguise in which the emotion hides.

If you follow these simple thoughts of "mental awareness" anger will soon find your mind a rather hard place to occupy. After a while the ego begins to realize that your image of self is no longer threatened. Now you can use the strongest muscle you have (the mind) to show your children love and compassion like a true parent.