Don't Keep It Bottled Up: Here's a Way to Handle Anger

Khryss | Published 2017-04-06 06:50
As human beings, we all have the capacity to feel angry. Unpleasant as it may seem, research shows that increasing your self-awareness can stop you from acting on your emotions. This, in turn, may help you naturally feel more compassionate toward yourself and the other people involved in the situation. So, here are 4 tips to manage your anger with compassion:
  1. Accept all emotions, limit actions.
Human as we are, experiencing a broad range of emotions isn't weird or bad at all. The point is to allow yourself to feel all of these but to limit what you act in response. Stepping back and putting these into words can help you understand more and integrate your emotions to prevent you from acting on them immediately.
  1. Release self-judgements.
Again, we have been conditioned to believe that feeling these unpleasant emotions is somehow bad or wrong. Thing is, it's not. WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS. We are capable of feeling these. Just because you're angry at the moment doesn't make you  “a bad person,” or even “an angry person" in general. Let yourself be able to understand and experience this without self-judgment and over-identification.
  1. Respect the signal.
Anger can also be a sign of deeper emotions like fear, hurt, or sadness. Simply getting rid of it or suppressing it won't do for it'll keep coming back until you take a good look and delve deeper on why it's happening. Finally accepting that you're truly feeling angry can make you move onto understanding better and going deeper on the underlying cause of it. This can help you recognize what it truly is that needs your attention.
  1. Stay connected.
We (myself included) may isolate ourselves when feeling angry. We tend to keep our distance so that we can avoid saying or something we'll regret soon. However, one should never forget that our humanity and that we're all in this together. Being angry actually makes us more human, more vulnerable and not less. Unpleasant as an anger may sound, this connects you to others more simply because this means that you care. So, next time you get angry, try making a video journal. Say whatever you want, shout if you have to and remember not to show it to anybody. Watch yourself as you talk about your emotions and be aware of your body sensations as you do it. You may discover some of your untouched parts. Now don't keep it bottled up and go try watching yourself without any judgement! See what happens next.
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