My philosophy for Sanity when struggling with anger management issues

An important tool in anger management is basically a CBT principal that I have adapted into my own philosophy. I believe that when we allow anger to take hold it can gradually destroy us inside and then move outwards to those around us, even to those who we love.

I believe the facts as follows :

  1. You cannot alter people around you.
  2. You cannot alter situations around you.
  3. The only thing that you can ever alter is your reaction to them.

Just to qualify those remarks :

  1. You can influence some people some of the time.
  2. You can influence some situations some of the time.
  3. The only thing you can totally influence all of the time is your reaction to them.

If your happiness relies on people and situations being a certain way then . . .

  1. You will only be happy when people behave in a way that you have decided that they should behave.
  2. You will only be happy when situations turn out in a way that you have decided that they should turn out.

Therefore you are limiting your happiness purely to chance, meaning only during those times when your rules for the world are adhered to by others or circumstances.

The solution begins with
If you decide instead to have preferences rather than absolute demands and choose to accept life as it is, especially when you have no control over the situation, then you are choosing to protect your sanity.

You don’t have to like it but if you cannot calmly influence it or change it, then I believe that you are left with only two choices.

  1. Accept it, even if that means just for now and maybe you can influence it later.
  2. Or you can decide to get angry, shout, scream, have a tantrum, hold a grudge, moan about it or get an ulcer.

But if none of that is going to actually change the situation, what is the point ?

Ask yourself this, in the end what is more important ? . . .

  1. Still trying to get your own way when it’s out of your control, and it’s obvious that all your anger-filled efforts are futile.  or
  2. Maintaining your health and sanity and being as happy as life allows at that time and reserving the right to still influence what we can in the future.

 

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Anger management Counselling Sutton- understanding anger

Anger itself is not always a destructive emotion, indeed righteous anger can be considered very productive when it motivates us to react positively to it, and therefore that can result in resolving or improving our situation. However when we react disproportionately to people or events happening around us compared to other people, or if we find ourselves too frequently experiencing and expressing anger, or even if we are just constantly feeling angry, then it is likely that we have a much more deep-rooted problem that appears to be driving us.

With the right kind of anger management counselling, you can quickly come to understand your anger. By learning how the mind works you can then get it working for you rather than against you. The fact is, that it is not always the events themselves necessarily that causes the anger but more likely to do with some deep rooted belief that is distorting the way we feel. So by challenging some of those deeply held beliefs that can so often be hidden from our conscious awareness, through counselling, we can gain mastery over our anger and can then start to use it beneficially. Once you appreciate that change is definitely possible and also come to realise that it is much easier than a lot of people believe is possible, then that destructive process can be quickly reversed and dealt with more productively.

In order to enhance the counselling sessions I believe that by incorporating hypnotherapy techniques as part of that process, it will not only speed up the therapy but also make it so much easier. My suggestion to include hypnosis would be to provide an instant relaxation technique to utilise whenever the need arises. My logic for this is because whenever we become emotionally aroused we shut out the higher cortex (which is just a posh way of saying we close off our clear thinking brain). The emotional arousal that results from the anger-inducing event is usually caused by entering into a panic attack that has been triggered off by a misinterpretation of that event. Panic attacks are a perfectly natural response to the feeling of being in danger or feeling threatened in some way, the danger or threat does not have to be real to kick-start a panic attack, we just have to perceive it that way. So even if those negative feelings are simply an emotional response that is linked to some past event that we are unable to make a conscious connection to, then that could account for the resulting panic attack. Therefore for those who are experiencing some kind of explosive rage, they may well be unaware of the origins of that anger but can only respond to what they feel in that moment. It is not unusual when the moment has past that people may then question themselves about the way they behaved and not really fully understand it. That is because when we are calm we have full access to our thinking brain and can make good decisions about how to react more appropriately to each situation, something that evades us in moments of rage.

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