3 Easy Ways to Take Control of Your Anger
Have you ever lost control of your temper and regretted it?
You can learn how to control your emotions, to react with love and compassion. To learn how you need to discover what fear or past wounds trigger your emotions.
Learning how to heal your emotions and controlling your temper is possible. It takes patience, curiosity, and practice. Give yourself grace and love on your journey. I promise you the benefits of healing old wounds and finding peace will help you be a better parent, spouse, boss, and human being. You will be able to focus on helping solve the problem versus becoming part of the problem.
Learn how to heal your emotional triggers
Brene Brown has a personal mantra, "Don't shrink down and don't puff up just stand your sacred ground." I love the idea of standing on my sacred ground. One that is built out of love for yourself, your personal boundaries while staying compassionate, kind, and curious for the other person.
To stand on our sacred ground, you have to look deep and start by asking yourselves, "what is triggering my emotions in the first place.?"
Here are a few questions to help you dig deeper
#1 What do you think about when you lose your temper? Are childhood memories triggered? Are you fearful about a future event that may not even happen? Is what's being said triggering your internal insecurity?
Anger is fear-based, and it starts inside of us, asking ourselves these hard questions. Being honest with yourself will allow you to learn about the fear, address it, and start the healing process. Dear friend, I kindly encourage you to give yourself this gift of healing wounds. It may feel painful initially, but on the opposite side is peace, confidence, and joy. If you find that you have already taken the important first step on your journey today, you are not ready.
#2 What can you do to calm down? Count backward, take three slow breaths, say a
mantra, "don't shrink, don't puff just stand your sacred ground," or even call a time out.
You are learning how to pull yourself back from a situation that is slipping out of control. Think how beneficial controlling your temper can be when you help a toddler through a tantrum, deal with a teenager testing a boundary, or an upset customer. Learning how to stay calm will allow you to help solve problems and find solutions. The other party wants to feel heard more often than not, so staying calm and present can be a gift, and it feels so much better in the aftermath than losing your cool!
#3 What can you do next time to change the outcome? Maybe the situation did not go well. You said some hurtful things, or you walked away. No matter what, you have a GREAT opportunity to learn from this situation. It may not have played out how you liked it in real life, but that does not mean that you can not re-write the story and try again. This re-write will also help you practice the tools to control your emotional triggers better next time.
Own your part in the situation
What could you have said or not said to make the other person feel heard and understood?
What can you do TODAY to apologize for the part that you own?
Let the other person own their part too. But practicing empathy and understanding can help you create a loving connection and forgive each other.
Why do you think they reacted that way?
What internal triggers were set off for them?
We move from being the victim to our own hero when identifying what is triggering our tempers.
Here is a secret, 80% of the time, when we lose control of our temper, it's an internal fear that is setting us off, not the situation itself. 15% of the time, it’s because we are tired, hungry, or overloaded. 5% of the time because we needed to make a point. The % may not be true, but it helps look at what your emotional triggers are linked to. Far too often, we say that the person cutting us off on the freeway deserved to be honked at and given the finger. However, looking deeper, you reacted that way because you are still frustrated by the lack of respect you get at work and look even further, and it's not the lack of respect from work. It's because, at some point in your life, some told you that you were not important. That wound hurts and is still triggered. Lean-to heals the wound, learn to trust that you are important, and you will be amazed at how your bosses' lack of respect does not bother you anymore. Follow the bread crumbs, my friends.
When you control your thoughts, you can control your actions and re-write your stories and the outcomes.
Why is it important to look at your actions in an argument? Because you only have control over yourself. You can’t change the other person, how they react, what they saw, or how they think. If you walk away from a fight, only focusing on how the other person should change, you have given up all power in the situation. Whereas if you focus on what you can control, yourself, you can regain control.
My goal, and hopefully, your goal, is that we can be in uncomfortable situations and be able to stay calm, stay in the present moment, and act out of love.
Am I saying that I am perfect and always fight fair? God, hell no.
I strive to practice standing my sacred ground, which means I will make mistakes, but I am committing to myself and being a role model to my children to fight fair, stay curious, and lean into this uncomfortable feeling. Because I know on the other side, I will strengthen relationships with those around me, feel more confident within my skin, and embrace these growth moments.
Be Brave, Stay Curious, and always act with love.
Xoxo
Sabline
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