How to Calm Your Own Anger in 60 Seconds or Less.

#Anger #Calm #EmotionalIntelligence #Emotions #Thoughts #Mindfulness

Do you ever get really angry? And when it happens, especially at work, are the consequences good or bad? I'm not talking about the competitive zeal you might get when a competitor beats you out for a lucrative sale and you feel determined to beat them out next time. I'm talking about the rage that can take over when someone treats you unfairly, insults you, or even cuts you off in traffic.

That kind of anger can leave you feeling helpless, useless, self-pitying, and unable to focus on the tasks. Wouldn't it be great if you could somehow quiet that anger when it first arises, so you could think logically about how to respond? There is a way that comes from recognizing the truth about anger. Although it is a feeling, it results directly from what you're thinking and from the meaning, you derive from the words or acts that have ticked you off.

To prove it, psychologist Jeffrey Nevid, Ph.D., proposes a simple experiment: Spend 60 seconds making yourself feel really angry while keeping your mind completely blank. Sure, you can summon that awful thing your spouse said or how your boss never gives you the information you need and feel real red-hot anger in a second or two. But try and feel it while not thinking about anything. If you're like most people, Nevid says, you can't do it, not really.

What that means, he writes, is that our anger is always the result of thoughts. The thing is, those thoughts can be completely wrong. Once when I was around ten years old, I flew into a sorrowful rage because in the middle of an argument, my mother had called me a "sickening child." At least, that's what I heard. I later found out that she'd said, "I'm sick and tired."

Not every burst of anger results from mishearing what someone else said. But it often arises from placing your own interpretation and understanding of someone else's words and behavior rather than trying to figure out what that person is actually feeling and thinking. With that in mind, Nevid also offers a one-minute exercise for managing anger and regaining calm.

1. Allow yourself to feel angry. Trying to tell yourself you aren't angry when you are won't help you get past your anger, it will just make your anger stronger, as happens to every emotion we try to deny or ignore. So don't ignore or deny it. Admit to yourself that you feel angry; if it's appropriate, don't conceal your anger from others either.

2. But don't allow yourself to feel helpless. Ever notice that whenever we get angry, we think of it as something that was done to us? People and events "make" us angry, suggesting that we are innocent victims of that emotion. This is exemplified by the comic book character Bruce Banner, who pleads, "Don't make me angry," because if you do, against his will, he will transform into the Incredible Hulk.

I don't mean to suggest that your anger is completely voluntary. Something does usually set it off. But, as Nevid's 60-second experiment shows, anger cannot exist, separated from your thoughts about whatever it is that made you feel that way. So the story you tell yourself about whatever made you angry can inflame that anger more or allow it to slowly dissipate. It really is up to you.

3. Apply emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence or EQ, is generally defined as the ability to understand and manage our own emotions and to understand and influence the emotions of others. You need EQ to manage your own anger, both to understand and acknowledge your own feelings and also to understand and empathize with others. That person who just cut you off in traffic may be hurrying to the hospital because a loved one is ill. The colleague who just insulted you may not have intended the comment as an insult. Or, he or she may be having a very bad day and reacting badly as a result. Or maybe you're taking something that wasn't directed at you personally.

As Nevid writes, "When you approach the other person with empathy (accurate understanding of the other person's feelings), you quell the tendency to respond to inappropriate anger with anger of your own." If you can do that, you can stop a conflict from escalating out of control. You may get to understand the people who make you angry better. They might even understand you better too.

By Minda Zetlin --inc.com

Coping With Moods: The Challenge of the Turbulent Mind

#Mood #Impulses #selfregulate #selfsoothe #Triple5LightTherapy #BlackMaleTherapist #Psychotherapy The power of moods and impulses can be overwhelming, but we can learn to self-regulate and self-soothe through awareness practices like meditation and mindfulness. By developing a healthy dialogue with our emotional nature, we can access deeper parts of ourselves and become more resilient in the face of stress and pressure. Rather than being swept away by our ever-shifting moods, we can learn to pause and reflect before acting. by Gillian McCann, Ph.D., and Gitte Bechsgaard, RP

4 Strategies for practicing Radical Self-Acceptance

Radical Self-Acceptance Painting by Jennifer Mazzucco #mindfulness #self-judgment #RadicalSelfAcceptance #negativethinkingpatterns #thoughts Radical acceptance involves acknowledging how life unfolds without resistance, even if we don't like things at any given moment. It can take effort to apply this principle. How can we begin to accept our situation and ourselves despite experiencing anxiety, uncertainty, and fear? Why self-acceptance is not the same as complacency. It is essential now, more than ever, to practice radical self-acceptance. This means training ourselves to find inner stability despite unpredictable external circumstances. Ultimately, we are responsible for acknowledging our hidden wounds, which can lead to personal and collective growth. Radical self-acceptance is the opposite of avoiding responsibility or giving up in self-defeat. It requires pushing against old ways of being to open the door to deep healing. Embracing radical self-acceptance allows us to int...

Psychologists Have Created A League Table Of Scary And Revolting Animals Phobias

#Psychology #MentalHealth #Phobias #Animalphobias #Spider #Snake #Dog You may be best advised not to read this article late at night or before you eat. Psychologists at the National Institute of Mental Health and Charles University in the Czech Republic have surveyed a large sample of non-clinical volunteers to gauge their reaction to 24 creatures that are commonly the source of specific animals phobias. The results, published in the British Journal of Psychology, contribute to our understanding of animal phobias and could prove incredibly useful to horror writers. Among the key findings is that spiders were unique in being both intensely fear- and disgust-inducing in equal measure. The researchers said this may be due to their mix of disgusting properties – including their “quirky ‘too-many-legs’ body plan” – combined with the fact they are “…omnipresent in our homes, often lurking in the hidden dark places and capable of fast unpredictable movement.” In other words, the intense ...

Kate Bush's "50 Words for Snow"

#50WordsforSnow #KateBush #RunningUpThatHill From up on that hill, perhaps wearing a capelet over a flowy Victorian gown, Kate Bush has been regarded as a spirit saint of fearless individuality by a generation of musicians such as Björk and Tori Amos as well as younger mystics-in-training such as Florence Welch, Leslie Feist and Bat for Lashes. All that adoration in the ether must’ve stirred the reclusive British singer-songwriter to create not just one album this year — “Director’s Cut,” a reinterpretation of songs from “The Sensual World” and “The Red Shoes” — but also a second one, “50 Words for Snow,” an art-song cycle that veers from delicate to blustery but always with a sheen of elegance. Bush grounds her songs in the permafrost of winter, with her piano work sounding like the first stirrings after a cold snap. “Among Angels” could be the soundtrack for plants stretching toward the new spring sun, but as much as it’s connected to the natural world, the s...

Triple5Light Therapy

Search This Blog