Do you ever experience your anger going from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds? Maybe you experience a toddler rage of your own?
I wanted to share some thoughts with you about it as a way to help you all.
One of the most useful ways to actually understand anger and how it erupts is this image which I’ve borrowed from the Gottman Institute.
I don’t think this image covers every single emotion or feeling we might be experiencing, and sometimes we do not know how we’re feeling – we just know we don’t like it. It’s such a helpful illustration, however, to understand how all those things we are feeling leads us to explode into anger.
Anger is an emotion. It’s often very valid. Yet it can be very scary both to ourselves and those around us.
Often we ignore it. We don’t like it. It maybe feels uncomfortable, horrid, not like us, masculine energy, we feel embarrassed to be angry.
But have you ever realised that the more you ignore anger, the louder it becomes? Sometimes we have a merry dance with it – go backwards and forwards until suddenly it just takes over.
Whether you want to use EFT or not, a brilliant way to work with anger is to actually have a chat with it. Talk to it. Accept it’s there. Be compassionate to it and you. And see what happens….
I personally find a regular dialogue ‘anger and me’ goes along the lines of…
ah hello anger… I see you… I hear you… I know you’re here because I’m feeling exhausted. I know you’re trying to help me by taking control of everything and everyone. And I can completely understand why you are here. Thank you. What do you need?
Sometimes I might do some tapping – Even though I’m feeling angry because I’m completely exhausted, I accept this feeling and all my feelings and right now, in this moment, I am ok
Sometimes I do some breathing (I love square breathing).
Sometimes I sit with it until it passes.
And sometimes, because I am human and I accept myself for all my imperfections, it still boils over. Thankfully it’s so much better than it used to be. I fully understand when it has why it has. And I don’t have those temper tantrums I might have once had because I can fully work with this emotion.
We need to accept these emotions show them compassion and understanding. And when we do… we see change. Transformation happens when we work at this.
If you want to know if overwhelm is taking over your life so you can start to feel better – check out my new Overwhelm Screening Tool where you can assess exactly how overwhelm is impacting on your physical and mental wellbeing.
Much love, Tricia xxx
