Archives for posts with tag: manage your anger

Temper, Temper

August 17, 2023 //
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I opened my news feed by mistake, and the headlines… damn. This may not be “about you” or useful at all… it’s just on my mind.

Damn, People. What’s with the anger all the g’damned time?

What’s with behaving as if your anger, all by itself, justifies your shitty behavior, your tantrums, your unreasonable demands and expectations, and your very peculiar air of entitlement that the whole world (or at least some specific fraction of it) make changes to soothe you? I’m just saying… there’s a whole lot of strange bullshit and bad behavior associated with unmanaged anger. It’s… ugly. Domestic violence? Ugly. Child abuse? Ugly. Exes killing exes? Ugly. People screaming at other people who are just doing… people things? Ugly. Late flight tantrums? Ugly. Long line tantrums? Ugly. Parking disputes? Ugly. Bad neighbor bullshit? Ugly. Just fucking stop it – how about that? How about accepting that you’re angry about something, giving yourself a minute to reflect before you “deal with it” (at least as far as discussing it with some other hapless human), and (maybe breathe) then take a wise, measured, well-considered approach to resolving whatever fly is in your ointment today? I mean, for real? Stand down, you hostile belligerent badly behaved seething entitled rage-monkey – no one has time for your bullshit, and um, also? No one deserves to die over it. Anger is just an emotion. Check yourself.

Just saying. Why the fuck are you leading with your anger, or letting your anger call your shots in life? You’re a human being (I mean, most likely, if you’re reading this, you’re a human being). One of the big “features” of being human is the ability to reflect on our experience and manage our emotions. So… maybe do some of that. Like… all the time, please. It’s a practice. We become what we practice. If you practice being an angry reactive shithead, guess what you become? Something to think about. Anger management takes practice. Developing resilience takes practice. Becoming calm and reasonable takes practice. Having perspective takes practice. Making good use of wise perspective once developed takes more practice. Thinking before you speak takes practice.

…No, I’m not saying it’s “easy”, and yes, it does take work. “Practice” is a verb. You’re probably frustrated with this too, finding yourself feeling regretful after saying or doing some terrible thing to (or at) someone you care about. You can change.

I sigh out loud over my coffee. I’m generally in an exceedingly bad mood when I first wake up in the morning. It’s pretty reliably true that I do not want to talk to people before I’m “all the way awake”, which is generally after the first cup of coffee is gone, and the second one started. (This isn’t unique to me, there are a lot of folks who are less than approachable first thing in the morning, my Traveling Partner included.) I don’t always have the luxury of avoiding all human contact in the morning, though, particularly on work days, so I’ve had to learn to manage my temper, my words, my reactions to other people, how I hear things being said to me, and how I respond to both strangers and those close to me, until I have my shit together for the day. It’s been ages since I acted in anger first thing in the morning, or reacted unpleasantly to having to interact with people before I feel ready for all that – I’m proud of that progress, because the basic truth that I’m seriously all thorns and sharp edges first thing in the morning hasn’t changed at all. How I behave has changed a lot. Practice.

Change is within reach. Who do you want to be? What do you need to practice to be that person? Get started making that change – one small detail at a time is enough to get going, and then… just keep practicing. Fail? You will. You totally will. (I know I do.) Begin again. Do your best. Practice more. Practice something new or a bit different. Keep at it. Fail again? Yeah, that’s a thing – incremental change over time takes… time. Keep at it. We become what we practice. Practice being the person you most want to be. Every day. Yes, and after every failure. Reflect on that reflection looking back from your mirror – what does that person do and say at their best, in one situation or another? What could you have done differently to get a better result? Practice that.

But wait… what if you’re “legitimately provoked”, you may ask? You’re not going to like my thinking on this one, perhaps, but… that’s precisely when and why it matters to practice. Provocation is not an excuse for bad behavior in any real way. Just sort of makes it seem explainable in some understandable way that one might behave badly, but it doesn’t make it okay. It doesn’t justify bad acts. It doesn’t justify killing someone. It doesn’t justify saying terrible things. Nothing really does – because we absolutely have it within our power to do better than that, being what we are. Can’t manage to do better on your own? Get help. Do better.

(If that paragraph caused you to go down some extreme-scenario rabbit hole about self-defense or something, just stop it. Take a minute to hear me and think about what I’m actually saying, please.)

I’m sipping my coffee on a quiet Thursday morning. There’s nothing much going on, but I’m in pain and I am in a seriously bad mood – but I’m also enjoying the morning in spite of my emotional weather (because that will pass, and I have choices). I’m enjoying being able to choose to be pleasant and understanding, in spite of feeling cranky and out of sorts. I’m enjoying this good cup of coffee. I’m enjoying the outcome of taking steps to manage my temper this morning; I get to be part of a peaceful household characterized by pleasant conversation and love. Worth the effort.

I woke up ahead of my Traveling Partner. His son was already up. I took time to water the lawn and front garden before the sun heats up the day. When my partner woke, I took my coffee into the studio to “give him time to wake up”. This works for me; I get time to write, he has time to make his coffee and start his day with quiet thoughts. No conflict (real or imagined). No stress. Just a chill morning. He’ll let me know in some sweet way that he’s ready for the day by telling me he misses me, or inviting me to join him watching some short video that made him laugh, or coming in to see what I’m up to. When he does? We begin again. 😀

Practice being the person you most want to be.
(Painting by an unknown artist seen hanging in a local restaurant.)
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Categories anger, Anxiety, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

How Is That Okay?

January 3, 2021 //
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Too many holiday reports of violence against family members, loved ones, children, partners… fucking hell, where did people ever get the notion that it is acceptable to act with violence upon those that are dear to them?? It sickens me.

…I’ve been angry, even enraged, even felt “righteously” so, such that my own actions seemed to me to be both inevitable & necessary, and also wholly justified (which did not and does not make it true, ever). I also managed not to kill anyone. Just saying. Don’t kill people. Don’t even raise your hand against them in anger.

Notice I haven’t said anything about men killing women, women killing men, etc; violence is not a gendered issue. You can say what you’d like about who kills more of whom, but the simplest of truths is that the life of another human being is not yours to take. Doesn’t matter what your gender is. I don’t seem room to argue with that axiom, myself, and I embrace it. (Don’t talk to me about war, or military force, or the justification for violence under some conditions – unless you, yourself, have been both soldier delivering that military force, and also a civilian experiencing having that force delivered upon you, please; without both perspectives what do you even “know”?)

I’m fairly over violence, generally. I respond poorly even to milder forms of emotional violence (raised voices, a nasty tone, guilt trips, manipulation), particularly after living without it for a while. I don’t mean to say I “never” raise my voice – I sincerely attempt to avoid doing so, and feel incredibly disappointed in myself when I fail to control my volume and my tone adequately well. There’s work involved. It’s work I find worth doing, so I keep at it.

…Then I read another news story that fills me with real horror; an angry parent kills their kids, takes their own life, in the midst of a messy angry divorce, or a partner slays their mate, or someone kills a parent… horrifying. What gave any of them the sense that this was an acceptable choice? How was this okay to do? Why haven’t we “made it stop”?

I sigh. Sip my coffee with a feeling of sadness for a moment. A pause to honor lives lost to the shittiest of excuses; anger. So not okay. There have already been dozens of lives lost in 2021, to familial violence, partner violence, and hate crimes. It’s the fucking 3rd of January. Maybe 2021 can be a year we finally get a grip on our anger and do better – as a species? As a planet? As a global community? Yes, I’d love to see humanity put the brakes on warfare, but more than that? I’d very much love to see humanity stop killing those most dear. I mean, seriously? It seems like a pretty obvious improvement, generally.

We’ll need to begin again, particularly if we hope to change the world…

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Categories anger, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, Healthy Living, Love, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Big 5, War and News of War, winter, women

Hate Isn’t a Good Look for You

March 27, 2018 //
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Don’t hate. I mean it. What a huge start down the path of being the person you most want to be (probably). Just don’t fucking hate people. Don’t say hateful things. Don’t undertake hateful actions. Don’t enable hate. Don’t support hate. Don’t become the embodiment of hate through your words or commerce. Fuck. How god damned hard is that, really??

I’m rather angry this morning at the horrible way some obviously grown adults have been treating the Parkland survivors… over the choice to protest what those survivors see as the pivotal issue in the attack on their school. Let’s get past the rather obvious fact that we live in a country that says it values freedom of speech – if that were really the case, we’d all shut the fuck up and listen once in a while. (When was the last time you politely and earnestly listened to the entire monologue of an associate’s views without interrupting to object or counter them, and did so without a rebuttal?) What I’m most angry about is that, even in that freedom of speech context, there are actual grown ass adults attacking recently traumatized young people – because they are offended by the opinions being expressed (that are subjective, personal, and informed by recent violence)! What the fuck? When did we become monsters?

I just don’t have anything nice to say to someone who thinks their right to fondle a firearm takes a priority over comforting the victims of violence. That’s some clueless douche-baggery right there. That “right to bear arms”? Not a bigger deal that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Get some fucking perspective.

I take a deep breath. Pull up out of the slime of the depths of the internet. I finish my coffee quickly, still awash in anger – and there it is. The secret sauce of a great many of our most horrible human moments; our anger. I pause quietly and look at my own. It’s often these moments of disappointment with humanity generally, in which I come face-to-face with the things I am still working on myself. Anger is definitely one of those. Few things fuel shitty behavior and vile invective like impotent frustrated rage.

Another deep breath. Anger has a certain intoxicating visceral feel that surges like a drug through my bloodstream. People “high” on anger lose sight of what matters most to them. People suffering from acute anger poisoning aren’t just capable of killing – they become, also, quite capable of feeling righteous and justified in doing so. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” isn’t something a person reacting to anger still gives a crap about – at least not anyone else’s, and sometimes not even their own. That’s something to contemplate. Is your anger worth killing for? If you think so, how do you reconcile that with that other human being’s right to live their life?

It’s hard to even think about anger without becoming, at some point, angry. Weird. Well, frankly, I have issues. lol You know that; you’re reading this. I’m working on them, though, and even my relationship with anger gets thoroughly scrutinized. I can’t say I have what I consider a healthy relationship with anger – my own or anyone else’s. The experience of extreme anger or rage expressed by other people is highly likely to trigger my PTSD – not helpful, I promise you that. My own anger? I’m not “better than” anyone else; it’s capable of driving some really shitty behavior that I am not content to permit from myself. So. I put in the time and study and practice required to better myself, in some small measure, day-by-day, moment-by-moment, provocation-by-provocation – even on the internet. There are verbs involved. Right now, there’s also a book involved. It’s on my reading list.

Frankly, deep-diving emotion and working to develop and improve emotional intelligence, have seemed to be quite critical on this journey – but it is complicated work, and requires a great deal of practice. Worthwhile. Maybe even the entire purpose of existing as a human being is somehow tangled up in becoming emotionally intelligent, learning to balance emotion and reason, and learning to treat others truly well. I don’t know. I rarely ask the question “what is the meaning of life”. lol Not my question. Doesn’t need my answer.

I do need to begin again. 🙂

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Categories anger, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Big 5, War and News of War, women, Words