Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned — Buddha

Long ago, I felt trapped during one of the project meetings when I couldn’t control myself. I poured my anger on the people who were working very hard for a critical project.

After the conversation, I felt very guilty and wondered why the hell I couldn’t control myself. There were many people on the call, now what they will think of me.

This feeling was daunting to me.

This specific incident has made me think of doing something about it; otherwise, it will damage my professional growth. Not only this, I had several incidents on the road when my behavior was outrageous.

Then I started to search for a solution like why this happens when it happens.

I was desperate to find a permanent solution to it.

After accumulating a lot of knowledge on anger management, I figured out and applied the following four techniques. It immensely helped me with continuous practice.

Analyze the primary cause

I began with self-reflection and asked different questions like

• What causes my anger, usually?
• At whom am I typically bursting?

With repeated inquiry, I started getting a sense of it. It was an enlightening moment when I found the primary root cause of my sporadic reactions.

It was mainly because of my command and control type behavior. I reacted when the situation was not as I expected. In other words, it was my ego that has triggered the rage in most cases.

It can also get triggered in many cases because of the other underlying emotions like fear, hurt, shame, etc.

What can you do about it?

• You can introspect deeply on the past events where you were not in control, and your behavior was not normal.
• While self-reflecting, figure out what was the real issue. Don’t fall in the trap of judging others.
• Check what has triggered it? Was it your ego, fear, hurt, or something else?

This type of inquiry will make you aware of the problems and their primary cause. It’s a significant mental shift activity. With this, you will prepare yourself to fight against this battle.

Mindful of the current state

I also started observing my inner response to current situations.

During my day to day work, whenever I felt uneasy, I asked simple questions like why am I reacting at this moment.

This inquiry has alerted me of any irritation or frustration I was carrying.

Because of this awareness, I could make a quick decision to pause my current activity. It helped me to reduce the unnoticed mental suffering.

Most times, the origin of the anger starts from the irritation, and we don’t realize it because it’s so subtle. It doesn’t show up evidently in the body. Then the state of irritation starts crawling and turns up as frustration. Subsequently, in no time, we burst it out.

The behavior is evident, the symptom appears in the body like rapid heartbeat, sweating, shivering, and we can’t stop ourselves anymore.

Once the chemical reaction and sensation stops, we feel normal. We start wondering why the heck I reacted so badly.

This process is sometimes super-fast, and we don’t get the time to recognize in the early stages. James Pierce once said:

“Everyone asks how to deal with anger when it arises. No one asks how to prevent anger from arising”.

What can you do about it?

• Find out if you are not at ease. Without finding, you are not even aware you need to work on yourself. You require the practice to become mindful of uneasiness. You can also put an alarm to remind this daily self-check.
• After finding it avoid working with a feeling of irritation or frustration. You may prefer to take a quick walk. It helps me a lot.
• Then askwhy you are not at ease. It may trigger uncomfortable emotions. You can skip this question if you feel like recalling the incident is sucking you again.
• Address when the state of discomfort is of micro size, not when it’s macro.

Visualize a better you

I was into a crucial conversation in many situations and couldn’t take a break to settle myself.

Hence, I proactively thought about situations where I got trapped with unusual sensations due to my bad temper.

I started visualizing a past outburst situation. But here I envisioned a different scene like how patiently I’m behaving. I imagined myself in full control, and within a few minutes, I felt empowered.

What can you do about it?

• Play a video in your mind of any of the recent incidents, where you were not at ease.
• Be careful with this step and do not enter into the drama; otherwise, you may recreate uncomfortable sensations.
• You need to focus on visualizing a better version of yourself. This approach will re-program the encoded anger in the subconscious. During the visualization, try to add colors and make the movie vivid.

This approach has helped me a lot, especially for repeated incidents.

By now, I had realized two things:

• Situations will not move as per my wish.It’s my problem, and I need to change myself.
• I’m hurting myself, which is not good for my health. I need to work on it.

Do you know as per the study (from the source apa.org):

13K adults having normal blood pressure but carrying high anger traits found 2 to 3 times with an increased risk of coronary events.

This deep awareness has changed my beliefs and helped e-program my mind to see a better version of myself.

But I still had a few other instances of bad reactions.

Identify your practice ground

In real-time, your reaction to an unwanted situation is quick. You don’t get time to think and respond, so I thought of dealing it offline.

Then I chose to practice anger management every day on a battleground. Yes, road traffic in Bangalore city is insanely high. So I decided to use that time to see how am I behaving now? Have I improved now?

My daily driving time between home and office was at least two and a half hours.

By the time I was reaching the office, I felt depleted. In my case, mental exhaustion was more than the physical because of the so-called anger.

If there is a bus ahead of you on a busy road, no matter how much you honk, you will not get a pass. And suddenly, if a two-wheeler changes its lane and cuts you sharply, what will be your reaction?

So, I prepared myself with a daily morning mantra (affirmation): “During my driving to the office today, I will not be angry anymore. By doing it, I will only hurt myself. I can’t control the traffic. I can’t lift and shift the bus to move on. If someone shows an angry look, I will pass the smile and move on”.

This type of pre-programming has prepared me to become a better version of myself on the roads. It also helped me manage any unfavorable future situations.

What can you do?

• Identify a practice ground for yourself. Find out what works for you.
• Find and repeat your daily mantra just before the trip.

Driving became my practice ground for anger management, and no one was there to judge me.

Look, these tips and techniques will only work when you know there is a pressing desire to solve a problem, and you are well aware of the root causes. If not, you may use the first technique outlined at the beginning of this article.

Take Away

“Anger is one letter away from danger — letter ‘d’ in front.The coolant of anger is also letter ‘d’ because ‘d’elay is the ‘d’efeat of anger.”
― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu

• The root causes of the anger are often deep-rooted and inherited from the past, so find it and challenge your own beliefs. With this, half of the issues will get resolved quickly.
• Start observing the issues which irritate you and work on them using the above-explained four techniques.
• Visualize a better version of yourself with your past situations.
• You require a practice ground where you can find small opportunities to manage your anger.

These simple techniques have massively improved the quality of my life.

Why not yours?