How to release your anger
In almost all aspects of personal development, the main thing you want overall is to be happy. Sure you might want money, success, relationships but at the end of the day, all of those things are just paths to the end goal: Being Happy.
What usually stands in the way are “negative” emotions that you feel daily. There are a lot of these emotions, regret, depression etc. but the one we are going to deail with today is Anger.
Anger is crippling
I used to suffer from massively pent-up emotions; while I was often described as a quite good humoured person, I had massively pent-up anger and to a lesser extent, sadness. When I lost my temper, I really lost it. I became irrational, not nice to be around and would hurt people close to me verbally. This led to depression and deteriorating physical health.
So trust me; be honest with yourself, and find out if you have anger issues. If you do, take steps to fix it – for yourself and those who love you.
Besides being a major step towards happiness, there are other benefits to dropping all that emotional baggage you are carrying. Self-esteem, confidence, and courage are other parts that develop as you deal with anger.
Understanding Anger and Sadness
The first step to dealing with anger is to understand your anger and why it happens. Anger is not “negative”. It is simply an emotion. It serves as a protection system. When you get angry, it is a sign that something or someone is infringing on you or your rights and you may need to defend yourself.
It is not to be confused with blind rage; blind rage is when you start being abusive; when you start being violent towards inanimate objects, or worse, other people. That is not healthy.
I heard a great analogy once; emotions are like vegetables. When they are fresh, they are good for you, when you hold it in for a long time, that’s when they become rotten and can poison you or at the very least make you sick. Unhealthy emotions like anger explode to the surface and manifest themselves in unhealthy ways. It could also lead to cancer, stress, and several other nasty conditions.
How to deal with Your Temper
There are exercises for releasing anger across all the different sorts of methodologies and therapies I’ve researched. I’ve captured the essence here.
Often times you need to do this a few times. Angry feelings come and go and often one such exercise won’t be enough to release all that pent-up energy.
There are many causes of anger or sadness; personal problem, things that happened in your past or just having a really bad day. Try to trace it back to the roots, understand it, and try to give it a voice. As you’ll see below, this is vital, as the vocal component is the most important.
Note: If it is something that you cannot handle, please do not feel ashamed to seek out professional help. And avoid self-destruction; numbing of the pain with alcohol, drugs, or other risky behaviour. I went through a whole year of this and paid for this behaviour physically and emotionally for nearly a year after. And I’m one of the luckier ones.
Once you have that, find a safe location. Somewhere you can scream and act out your anger and sadness – either alone, or with an understanding person. With each one of the following options, remember you need to scream out – all the words you’ve always wanted to say – while you are doing it. Even if it’s just a string of vulgarities, do it!
Let it all out. You might feel weird and self-conscious doing this, it’s normal. Don’t give up. Just do it over and over again until you feel that all your repressed anger is gone. You’ll know when this happens, instinctively. It might take weeks, it might take days, it’s different for everyone.
The three steps to controlling your anger and your temper
1) Do this in a safe location. Kneel on your bed like you’re praying. Find a large pillow. Make a hammer fist with your hands. Not a boxing style fist, you might your wrist. And pound the pillows, with all your might until you can’t go any more.
2) Sometimes twisting is better. Find a towel, and twist it like you are trying to wring out every last drop of water.
3) Sometimes just screaming is good enough. Go somewhere abandoned, with some loud music put on maximum and scream with your whole body. Become the yell. Yell until your whole body trembles.
What’s next?
Usually what follows the release of anger is sadness.
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