It's important to quickly emphasize one of the key points about anger management: You don't have to let your emotions drive your actions or words. You can use your emotions to sense things and feel, but you don't have to (and shouldn't allow yourself to be) controlled by them.
My hope is that you can avoid being an "angry young man" (see Epilogue below) and, instead, become a "cooler head" who is calmer, steadier, happier, and can turn bad situations into opportunities and success.
While "angry" might seem a little extreme for you if you generally handle things fairly well, this article also applies to upset, miffed, peeved, mad, unhappy, perturbed and similar emotions.
If you can relate to any of this, you should probably keep reading.
Here are the things that will be covered here:
What should I do about it when I am angry?
Why am I so angry?
Logically, we should first look at "why am I so angry about this event or issue?", but, because the focus of this article is to provide quick help in times of need, let's first address what you should do when feeling angry.
Here is a checklist of bullet points because, when you are angry, you need something quick and clear. It applies to actions, words, texts, posts, Tweets, and emails:
Escape and Don't Act/Hit/Yell: Get away to buy time and space so you can approach things most rationally. When you are surprised or attacked, the initiator or attacker has the element of surprise in their favor. Reacting quickly and forcefully will generally make things worse. Don't hit anyone or anything -- or yell. Generally, try to buy yourself some time to cool off and come up with a better response. Take 5 deep breaths, count to ten, walk away, etc.
Decide: Decide to decide (long before the heat of the moment) that you will use the anger signal intelligently and never let anger decide for you. In advance, decide to be aware of your anger but to not allow your decisions, words, and/or actions to be determined by the emotion. Feelings of anger are signals, but you need to use them vs letting them use you.
Accept: Acknowledge and be OK with your anger as a useful signal. This is the opposite of suppressing, repressing or trying to ignore this feeling. Your anger is providing a helpful signal that something is being perceived (rightly or wrongly) and processed (rightly or wrongly) as a threat to your well-being or the well-being of someone or something you value deeply.
Understand: Ask yourself why your consider the situation or person to be such a significant threat. What values are you trying to protect? Personally, I would say this as a prayer and ask God, Jesus, and the Holy spirit to help me understand — but asking this in a secular form will still be very helpful to you. Ask yourself why this has upset you so much -- and write out the answers. Then ask yourself if these things are truly important to you. Put them in perspective.
Burn off Steam: If you are still worked up, engage in strenuous constructive physical exercise or physical work until you are no longer "steamed". Keep it up long enough until you are somewhat "spent" and think about your situation while exercising or working. Pick something that is positive as opposed to hurting yourself or others. Don't just sit and brood or stomp around in a circle. Do something positive and do it long enough that the steam is no longer coming out of your ears.
Plan: Think of ways this can become a positive. There is almost always a bright side or opportunity -- even if it is only a "character building" opportunity for you. Have an opportunity mindset. Think about how this situation can be turned into a positive. Think "win/win" -- creative out-of-the-box solutions where both parties win. Think "Golden Rule" -- doing unto others as you would have them do to you. Think "love" -- what is the most loving thing to do?
Respond vs. react. Once you have calmed down and have a good plan -- take appropriate action.
Anticipate: After the fact, spend some time thinking about how this situation can be avoided in the future and, possibly, turned into a future blessing or foundation for success. At the very least, you should chalk this up as a positive example of your growing maturity. The experience can leave you better prepared to face similar challenges in the future. The situation that you have encountered may have taught you a lesson that will launch you to greater success than you ever anticipated before.
Regardless of your situation, you really shouldn’t skip the first step. You definitely don’t want to “act” first and, then, try to recover.
So, let's say that you find out that your girlfriend has accepted an invitation to the Prom with your best friend. First, Escape (excuse yourself) if possible so you can get away to clear your head. This may simply mean postponing an impulse to immediately respond to a text/post or voice an opinion about the issue when you find out about it in the bathroom/dorm/fraternity. Decide that you aren't going to let your anger drive your actions. Accept that the feeling you are having is anger and that it is a signal that something is bothering you. The exact nature of the “something” that is really bothering you may be obvious or a little bit of an enigma at first. Understand why this bothers you so much. Burn off steam by raking some leaves or running a mile or two until you calm down. Plan how you can handle this positively. Respond per your "cool headed" plan. Finally, anticipate how you are going to handle or avoid this situation for your benefit in the future if it happens again.
Whether an event (real or from a memory or dream) supports or threatens your values, standards, goals, and beliefs is key to whether the emotion of anger is triggered -- and to what extent.
Emotions are automatic reactions (pre-programmed algorithms) to events or thoughts. If something is perceived to be a threat, there will probably be a "fight or flight" emotional response. Anger would be the "fight" reaction and here are some "threats" you might be handling in your mind depending on your worldview and values:
Negative: Not great or good for me, a problem/issue, threat.
Injury: Emergency, life threatening?
Unfair: Something "should have" turned out _________ if life was fair.
Envy: Got less than the next guy or very little compared to "them".
Success: Setback, failure, disaster?
Magnitude: Blowing a small issue out of proportion -- existential.
Permanence: Imagining that something temporary is "forever".
It boils down to something being considered to be a negative or a threat relative to your fundamental beliefs in your life.
Consider this:
What are some of your key potential anger-triggering beliefs?
Are they reasonable and rational -- or are they far to to the right on the "perfect" scale? In which areas?
Do you have a super-extensive list of relationship-breaker, 'take this job and shove it', 'I give up', and 'I'll quit if' all-or-nothing, my way or the highway, absolute, ultimatum-type items in your "standards"? Are they realistic? Are they necessary? Do they look at things from the other person's perspective?
Deep down inside, or possibly right on the surface (that you voice to anyone within earshot), how many "should be" and "this is a really big deal" beliefs are you holding that "trigger" your anger?
Make yourself a four-column list of, "I get angry when __________ because I believe or value __________ . This belief or value is ___________ (correct/flawed) and it would be better if I changed the belief or value to ______________. "
If you think about your beliefs or values (which you should do from time to time), you may want to change some of them if they don't pass the reality test. Everyone is talking about "following the science" these days -- so how reasonable is it to assume that "everyone", "all", "never", "always", "forever", "absolute", "proven", and "perfect" can be included in our standards on many important life or societal issues? If your standards and values regarding the behavior of others, yourself, or situations include too many of these absolutist descriptors, you may find yourself constantly and unnecessarily angry.
As was stated above, whether, and to what extent, an event (real or from a memory or dream) supports or threatens your values, standards, goals, and beliefs is key to whether the emotion of anger is triggered.
You, however, may think through your beliefs in certain key areas and decide that, yes, you are right to hold these beliefs and standards. Having high standards can be a mark of high character and can keep you on the right path when tempted. They can help you stick to a critically important principle vs. wandering into dangerous "grey areas". If this is the case, then don't make changes in your beliefs just to try to avoid feeling angry. Standing strong against tough odds can be energized by righteous indignation.
As a final note, remember that you don't have to let your emotions drive your actions or words. You can use your emotions to sense things and feel, but you don't have to (and shouldn't allow yourself to be) controlled by them. Hopefully, "I was so angry that I couldn't help myself and just had to..." can become a thing of your past in almost all cases.
Just in case you are feeling bad about yourself because you get angry often: I have to admit that I have always had a "temper" relative to many of my more easy-going friends. It has always been something I need to "watch" and something I regret having to deal with. I have never considered this to be a positive, but my experience at least puts me in a position to provide some advice from a real "been there done that" standpoint.
My "very own mother" used to tell me I was an "angry young man" at certain times. She would send me out to chop wood to get it out of my system. Looking back on it, I know she wasn't too worried about what her "angry young man" would actually do to hurt anyone because being out there chopping wood involved wielding a full-size axe -- or sometimes a large chainsaw.
Unfortunately, I've never been one of the "cool heads" who just naturally lets things go and puts everything in proper perspective relative to the big picture. I have a strong sense of how things "should be" as opposed to accepting them as they are. The gap between the way things "should be" and the way things actually are would, frankly, often make me mad.
Sometimes I would get angry when my well-being (physical, emotional, relationship-wise, career, or financial) was being threatened. Some situations were immediate and obvious. Some of these threats were long term and/or subtle -- and it was harder to actually put my finger on why I was upset. In perspective, some weren't really even that important. Some didn't even turn out to be real because I had just blown the situation up in my imagination about what "could" or "might" happen.
There have also been many situations where things (some important and some just minor -- like not getting an award for "Best Actor" or getting cut from the basketball team in High School) didn't go well (didn't go my way) -- to say the least. Adding to this, I sometimes (often?) felt that life or some specific outcome wasn't fair -- or I envied the good fortunes of someone else who had been blessed more than me for a promotion, raise, victory, etc. Blaming others or, even, a perfect and omnipotent God, wasn't always beyond me.
I'll admit that I sometimes blew things way out of proportion, held a grudge, or ascribed evil motives to others' actions without solid evidence. I even expected myself or others to be "perfect" in some (or all) areas of life if I (or they) were going to measure up to my standards -- but I don't really do that one very often anymore.
I hope you will be very successful with your anger management and know that you aren't alone!