Best therapy for anger management – psychological techniques

I remember breaking my phone in half with my hands and doing ugly stuff in anger.

Once my mom locked the almirah without letting me know and there are 5-6 different types of keys and their numbers were erased.

So I used brute force in anger and the next thing was that the door knob with lock came out to my hand.

Later I fixed it myself but realized that it was not necessary and unconstructive.

And found some techniques which involve psychology + awareness and found complete control over anger.

But before we tackle a powerful thing which is anger we need to fully understand it on experiential level.

What is anger on the experiential level?

First, we need to understand there are two things here first the word “Anger ” and the actual anger .

For example, the word ocean is different from the actual ocean out there.

In the same way, that thing we call anger is a sensation in our body that cause our body to burn.

This is not just humans it’s a defense mechanism that every living animal have in order to protect themselves.

But right now we humans don’t live in that kill-or-be-killed time and we need calm and intelligent thoughts to find solutions.

Whatever we do is in response to that irritable sensation in our body, not the external factors.

This is the science that Gautama Budha had found and you can too experience it yourself.

How to experience this fact myself

Next time when you got into a situation where you feel irritated, be aware of the sensations in your body at that time.

Dont say anger is bad or react to it immediately, see it flowering through your body.

And by that observation, you have created a gap between sensations in your body and the reaction which was automatic before.

Now you have created a choice in that gap to either let the anger flower and disappear in the body or choose to react and cause destruction.

And I have found that 95 percent of the time the anger causes destruction because it is immense energy.

Anger is Energy

We all have reservoirs of energy inside us, and it expresses itself in form of anger.

You may be the laziest person in the room but during anger, you have the energy of an athlete.

And anger is just an energy or expression nothing else but the reaction and how we use this changes the whole game.

If we become more aware and channel this great energy into something creative then it will be beneficial for you.

You see in anger your logical thinking gets to 0 and you do something that you regret later.

But if you learn to create a gap between sensation and reaction then you can harness this power.

Art of managing anger

From the earlier discussion, we have learned about the whole nature of anger and what it is on an experiential level.

So I am giving you some methods now that I have used to channel this energy into constructive work.

Step 1: Start observation of incoming and outgoing breath and then move to emotions.

If you directly try to observe your reactions then it will be very difficult since reactions are so quick to maintain awareness.

So start by sitting in a quiet room, and observe the sensation of your incoming and outgoing breath.

And remember to not control your breath but just be aware as it comes and goes naturally like passing clouds.

While doing so your mind will run away to somewhere else, this is the nature of the mind.

So you just need to pull your awareness to your breath.

Then you can try it on emotions like anger at the time of anger outburst and be aware of the sensation.

While doing so you are creating a gap between sensation and reaction.

Step 2: Stop justifying your behavior in anger

One nature of the mind is to make excuses for the excessive reaction outburst and make itself feel better about the situation.

If you really want to understand and manage anger don’t ever try to justify or condemn your reactions.

Just be aware fully of the destruction and problems you have caused and next time sensations of anger come just observe the sensations in your body let it flower in your body and disappear,

and then with your calm mind find the best solution for the problem

Step 3: People and situations can not be in your control but your reaction is

There are many people and situations that we don’t want in our life.

But most people don’t have the luxury to do so, inspite of that we have full control over our reactions and moods.

As a Sanskrit stanza says “What is in your control is happiness & what is in other’s control is unhappiness or sorrow” .

Step 4: Dont become a prisoner of the situation and people

If you let other people and situations decide your moods then your whole life will be doomed.

for example – your mood was excellent in the morning and suddenly some stupid person comes and says you look stupid, 

How do you feel? , If you let that person or any person decides your mood then you will always be in pain.

People or situations will always create sensations in your body either pleasant or unpleasant but these both are the same thing as the observer is the same.

So it is best to manage your reactions by creating a gap between the sensation of anger and the reaction you do in response of that.

Takeaway

Some personal insight-

@From being a reactor to an observer is a big thing that can change your life and prevent you from doing damage to yourself

@ Always be careful of the abuse and also flattering because a person is trying to control your emotion by doing that.

You are not a kid anymore so you don’t need anyone’s approval or appraisal to be who you are

@ Transformation comes by observation and being aware.