I don’t know about you, but when I am caught up in traffic, or someone does something that I think is untoward, I can quickly become very angry. Perhaps you have had instances where better anger management would have been helpful. Instead you got yourself into an unpleasant or uncomfortable situation and said or did something you later regretted. Is there a cure to not losing your temper?
More recently when I have faced these anger testing moments, I have actively sought to re-frame and re-phrase this tension with a different emotion. Instead of being angry I CHOOSE to be disappointed or discouraged.
Reframing anger to being disappointed, discouraged, displeasured or dis-anything starts with a conscious and deliberate choice of pausing. This breaks the almost instantaneous cycle of fight or flight into a recess and lets us step back and reflect for a moment. Then, by changing the lens that I use to see the situation, my temperament also changes. I move from an external desire to lash out to an internal examination of what is really troubling me. Yes, someone wronged me, but rather than venting outwardly I just absorb the blow and process the event as impersonal, letting go of as much of the negative energy as possible. At the end of the day wasn’t my anger really disappointment? I was discouraged and frustrated by the situation.
The wonderful thing about being disappointed or discouraged is that it allows me to question the WHY behind my tension. After all, anger at its root started as an offensive survival skill when times were very dangerous and hostile. Hopefully, I begin to recognize that much of my frustration is not related to my assumptions about the situation. Often if there is a cause to my anxiety it is based in myself. The best thing to do is move along and ask what can I learn from what just happened.
Pausing and challenging my beliefs and reframing the angry moments as disappoints certainly has reduced the sting when things go pear-shaped. These discouragements encourage me to learn and accept increased responsibility for my own circumstances and my reactions thereto.
Reflection Source: www.Smallercup.org
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