S1 - E2 : Anger And Frustration

Anger, which is a very normal, and is typically a healthy and completely valid emotion for us to feel. The issues arise when our anger goes from a mild irritation becomes an out of control feeling, perhaps a feeling of rage, or potentially even destructive.

When the emotion of anger becomes so overwhelming and can lead to many problems impacting our work life, personal relationships, and even our entire quality of life. Anger can be suppressed, and then converted or redirected. This happens when you hold in your anger, you stop thinking about it, and then re-focus on something positive. The idea is to inhibit or suppress your anger and in return convert it into something more constructive. The danger with this type of response is that if it isn't turned into an outward expression, your anger can turn inward—on yourself.

Anger turned inward may cause hypertension, high blood pressure, or depression.

Anger is actually one emotion that I have the most difficulty with handling. Simple things become huge angering annoyances, which means, big incidents become massive angering annoyances for me.

Just the other day, I was simply waiting in line at a Starbucks and the customer in front of me placed his order and paid for his coffee. It was about 9 in the morning so it was a bit busy, but there were 5 other Starbucks employees working. The customer proceeded to walk away to where the drinks are served when they are completed. I was ready to place my order as I was next and the transaction between the cashier and customer was complete.

WELL, WRONG!! The cashier felt so inclined to start working on the customers drink. She began talking to the customer and I realized he must either be a regular or a friend of hers. A good 30 minutes passed by, (well, it was only about 3 minutes of time but my patience was growing thin, because i wanted to place my order to get my coffee started) . I'm watching as the cashier is preparing the coffee for the customer and the line is getting longer and longer as more people are arriving for the morning caffeine fix.

By now i´m expected some type of acknowledgement, a simple¨i´ll be right with you¨ comment to me. But no, nothing. I'm simply left waiting for her to finish what her other coworkers would be completely capable of doing.

I'm at the point where I am feeling like ´THAT´ customer. Who asks for a manager for having to wait due to favoriting a customer, and causing delay to me. I´ve reached a level that I know I'm about to get my coffee for free and I will be raising my voice to display my level of anger.

Then I realize, why am I so mad for waiting. This world does not need to be instant. Patience is a virtue, and this cashier wanted to be nice to this regular customer of hers. There is nothing wrong with that, she was actually making a choice to be pretty nice to that person, so why do I need to twist such a beautiful interaction for another person around into anger for myself.

My blood was boiling and my heart was racing so I could feel physical symptoms of anger starting. I decided to take deep breaths to calm myself down and let it go. The world doesn't revolve around me and I can wait. I recall times where a cashier at a coffee shop did a little extra for me, and I did not think of the potential angering impact of the people waiting behind me, I thought ¨how nice of this worker¨

I was able to calm myself down over the process of these short 3 minutes. I ordered my coffee, and began to write and go over a podcast episode and sipped on my americano.

Everyone has scenarios each day which fuel anger, and everyone's fuses are longer or shorter. The trick is to recognize the signs before we go over the edge into a rant of overwhelming anger. SO let's go over 9 ways to successfully help deal with anger.

1.When you start feeling angry, try deep breathing, positive self-talk, or stopping your angry thoughts. Breathe deeply and completely fill your lungs with air. Slowly repeat a calm word or phrase such as "relax" or "take it easy." Repeat it to yourself while breathing deeply until the anger subsides.

These two are essentially exactly what I did during my Starbucks visit, and for me it worked with ease. I became level headed with a calm mindset and the anger subsided. This is usually my go to method when I feel anger building up inside of me.

2. Although expressing anger is better than keeping it in, anger should be expressed in an appropriate way. Frequent outbursts of anger are often counterproductive and cause problems in relationships with others. Anger outbursts are also stressful to your nervous and cardiovascular systems and can make health problems worse.

Learning how to use assertiveness is the healthy way to express your feelings, needs, and preferences. Being assertive can be used in place of using anger in these situations.

Unexpressed anger can create an array of problems. It can lead to pathological expressions of anger, such as passive-aggressive behavior (getting back at people indirectly, without telling them why, rather than confronting them head-on) or a personality that seems perpetually cynical and hostile. People who are constantly either putting others down, criticizing everything, or making cynical comments have yet to learn how to constructively express their anger though assertiveness. Typically, they aren't likely to have many successful relationships.

3. Seek out the support of others. Talk through your feelings and try to work on changing your behaviors.

This one can sometimes seem to be the scariest because many people do not like to talk about their feelings. We live in a world where it's better not to express feelings and keep them hidden. The problem is the only way to get through something, is to express your feelings and in doing so you can make changes to help yourself manage emotions or manage triggers of emotions!

4. If you have trouble realizing when you are having angry thoughts, keep a log of when you feel angry and try to find the triggers.

I have personally done this before. I would have days I would be mad the whole day, and it would just progressively get worse as the day continued on. I thought it was just because I woke up on the wrong side of the bed´ and at that point everything was bound to annoy me and anger me. But upon wanting to log my day, and understand my feelings better, i realized, that was NOT why I was feeling anger. Some days it stemmed simply from not eating breakfast, and that created micro-aggression responses of anger, I would get snappy with people and in return anger myself even more because I was annoyed with a comment or action of someone else.

5. Try to gain a different perspective by putting yourself in another's place.

You may have heard the saying to imagine walking in someone else's shoes before you make judgement against them. Well, this is a great practice to gain perspective. The key to this though, is you have to have a completely open mind, when no personal bias against anything.

Imagine you are looking at the point of view of a situation from someone else's mindset but still within the limits of what makes you mad and happy. You´re not fulfilling the task of seeing it from a different perspective. You´ll still only get justification of your anger because you´re not looking at the scenario with an open mind. You have to have a clear and open mindset because something that seems like a big deal to you may seem minuscule when looking at it from an open mindset.

I recently was so frustrated when someone reorganized a whole bunch of items at a store I like to frequent. I became angry because I would not find things I usually buy each week. I was searching and slowly finding things in other locations and kept saying to myself that NONE OF THIS MAKES SENSE. It was taking me forever to find the products I like.

I decided to take a moment and think for the workers' perspective. Perhaps they wanted to rearrange items because products were not delivered, or it was simply time for a reset before new things were coming in. Looking at it in this perspective and got a potential understanding of reasons it could have taken place. I didn't end up finding everything I needed, but I was able to handle my anger and frustration better seeing it from a different perspective. And of course, it was not the end of the world, I´m still here sharing this with you.

6. Learn how to laugh at yourself and see humor in situations.

Have you ever lost your cool and just blown up and gone overboard, only to realize later after you´ve cooled down that there was simply to reason for anything you did.

Typically we feel embarrassed or ashamed for the way we acted after and incident as such.

I had one time when I was in a very toxic relationship and I had plans with the person I was dating to go on a movie and dinner date. We had a pretty argumentative day, but i was looking for a nice enjoyable time together for the afternoon and evening to make up for the day. I had to drive him to his car because for whatever reason he had a habit of leaving his car at a friends house and being dropped off (still does not make any sense to me to this very day).

So I drove him to get his car and he was going to meet me back at the house, and we would spend the rest of the day together. Upon dropping him off as his car, and I started to drive back home, this detective type feeling came over me and I just knew he was just going to go to his friend's house and not entertain any communication with me. So I called him once, no answer, call him again, still no answer. By physic type detective abilities are in full force now, and my anger level is close to going through the roof!

I circle back to where i dropped him off as his car and WHOA to my superior crazy anger psychic abilities, his car is still parked there and he is no where in the car. Did he REALLY just go to his friends house and purposely avoid my calls when we just had plans for movies and dinner after? I went into a full force rage because my anger was SO great. I parked my car and knocked on friends door, no answer. I knock again and very loud, essentially banging on the door. NO ANSWER STILL! So I decided to knock on the friend's bedroom window since he only rented a room out at that house. The knock was more like banging on the window. I was in a rage of fury! A good 10 or 15 seconds later, WHAT IN THE HECK, my boyfriend and his friend come walking out of the house and his friend simply states that they are going to go smoke. I have no interest in communicating with the friend and I'm talking to the guy I was dating. No reply, simply looking through me with no acknowledgement, and this only adds to my answer and episode. There´s yelling and screaming, and they get into the friend's car and drive off. My goodness was I in a state of anger fueled fury. I looked like a fool who was out of control of his emotions.

When I finally cooled down, I was able to look at what took place and laugh at myself for allowing me to stoop to such a state of losing control. I was literally laughing at myself while I replayed the whole scenario over in my head. It didn't help that I had all this anger bottled up in my overtime that all came out in that state of fury, but it sure makes for what heck of a story.

One thing I make sure to understand though, is I am NOT ashamed of my actions and how I handled myself because I did not do anything that would hurt anyone or damage anything. AND in the moment I felt what I was doing was the right thing to do, and it did allow me to express my anger. Not the best or healthiest way of expressing it, but in the moment that is what I needed in order to get rid of that anger and feel better.

Just remember to be able to laugh at yourself and see the humor within the lines of your anger and situations.

7.Practice good listening skills. Listening can help improve communication and can facilitate trusting feelings between people. This trust can help you deal with potentially hostile emotions.

Communication is very important, having the listening skills to hear out someone else is vital, because if we can keep our anger at bay and we are able to listen to someone else, that can actually help resolve a potential conflict and misunderstanding all together. What if what is angering you about someone doing or not doing something is out of the control, and they´re simply trying to tell you that, all you have to do is LISTEN so you can understand, and move through the potential conflict.

8. EXERCISE!!!

You can do something Non-strenuous, slow yoga-like exercises can relax your muscles and make you feel much calmer. Or even the opposite and have a full intense cardio or weightlifting session in order to use that anger inside of you and turn it into fuel to burn and express in a healthy physical way.

I have had some of my best workouts when being angry. I use the heightened feelings of anger to go a bit harder at the gym, or run a bit further on the treadmill than I usually do. Working out creates endorphins which in return help calm you down, and you get your exercise in for the day at the same time. I´ve done the opposite as well, and I´ve simply gone for a nice walk at the beach or a walk circling my neighborhood a few times. Whichever physical activity that may interest you in the moment, utilize that anger as an emotion to fuel yourself.

9. Learn to assert yourself, expressing your feelings calmly and directly without becoming defensive, hostile, or emotionally charged.

Consult self-help books on assertiveness or seek help from a professional therapist to learn how to use assertiveness and anger management skills.

Communicating your own feelings comes back to being able to be assertive, and calmly expressing yourself without and anger. Stay calm and collective with potential breathing techniques, or by stating a mantra to yourself. Read books for more self-help ways of controlling anger that may be even more self beneficial to you, or if you need to seek professional help if you need help to process, understand, and share your anger.

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#anger #frustration #control #happiness #behappy #happy