People get angry every single day. Well, not everyone, but being angry is so common we just forgot to learn how to actually deal with it efficiently. If we're not mature enough to take care of our own anger, that means we have a lot of maturing to do. Here's how. Know what causes anger, and how to deal with it by knowing what are the possible options available for us each time we get into the angry zone.
Causes of Anger - Hurts and Losses
Anger is theoretically caused by two reasons:
1) Hurt
2) Loss
Hurt happens when we got hurt emotionally by the surrounding. When other people is acting cruel towards us, or when they treat us bad enough, it causes hurt. I'm not really sure about physical injury if it'll also trigger hurt (but of course we will scream out loud "ouch, it hurts!") which will then lead to anger, but that's something for us to think of.
Loss, in the meantime, is when you lack what you need, or when your well being isn't taken care of properly. When you just can't get the things that you want, when you didn't see the outcome that you're looking for, or the response that you're anticipating from someone else, when you're short of money and can't buy anything from the grocery stores, or even when you can't achieve what you wanted. It's not surprising to know that we could also get angry towards ourselves when we can't make certain complex decisions especially when we're lacking time.
Solutions for Anger
We have three solutions, with only one being the recommended one:
1) No decision / Keeping quiet / Acting cool
2) Make a decision, in a destructive way
3) Make a decision, contstructively
First solution, not good. Why? Acting like you're cool while you're not, needs a lot of effort and drains so much energy it hurts you so bad your anger now turns into what we call depression. Now, imagine. Depression is like a pot of anger. As your anger accumulates everytime you get angry and not do a thing about it, you become depressed more and more. Finally, this pot will explode and that's the last thing you want to see.
So, if you don't keep quiet, what do you do? Yes, make a DECISION. But what kind of decision? There are two types of decision. Constructive (Win-Lose) or Destructive (Win-Win):
Destructive decisions for anger means that you practice aggression. This is BAD. When you become aggressive, it is for sure a Win-Lose deal. People hate win-lose deals, especially when there is always option of a win-win deal. Agression necessitates that someone loses. Notice how you won't feel like winning until the other person loses or surrenders. This is not being respectful, and childish. You're just acting like a little boy, or a little girl. When we were young, we become angry at our parents when we don't get the toy car that we asked for, so we become so aggressive insisting that we want it until our parents had to eventually 'lose' and buy it for us - then only we feel like winning the deal. Come on guys, it looks SO CUTE when we were small, but now, we're like, in the 20's. It's horrible and not cute AT ALL. Nobody respects you for being aggressive and all emotional whenever you get angry. Just stop it, will you? It's immature - in every sense of the word. (I'm also reminding myself here)
Instead, what should we do? Yes, a constructive decision. A win-win deal. But how?
Here's how..
Be assertive. If you're angry, tell the other person assertively. Communicate strictly of how you don't like the things that are happening, but keep your level of respect towards the other person. This means talking like a gentleman. Guess what? The other person will listen to you and then give you so much respect in return. And what do we get out of being assertive? Like how it's mentioned above, a win-win situation - the other person learns their mistake without being patronized and at the same time, we're respected by doing that while they have now stopped doing it.
By doing this, we actually are filling our well-being tanks with more and more "motherly energy". We nurture our own self and when our well-being tank is almost full, almost nothing can get us angry. Take note that a huge "motherly energy" can come from God. It is just a feeling of having all of your needs met and you don't need anything else in this world. That's why people with 'iman' find their life fulfilled and happy.
However, here's an exception regarding aggression. It IS accepted in the name of justice, so we have to realize that it exists just in case we need to use it. But it is only used when we have been assertive but they just won't listen. Another thing to keep in mind; aggression should not last forever. It's only used to tell the other person that we're not kidding about our stand.
So, before we end, here's a reminder. Being able to control our anger is something that we have to practice. It's not easy, and it takes a lot of time. I am myself working hard on it now. It's a maturing process, and it's one of the first vital things that we have to learn from the real world if we wanna be responsible for ourselves. And this is just a theoretical explanation which will become your crutch / tool in your learning process.
Next up is a topic on Anxiety.
Reference: Dr Paul's "Mind OS"
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