Anger is the most unpredictable of our emotions. Just a second ago you wanted to cry from despair or irritation, and now your mind is blurred, sparks fly from your eyes from anger, your tongue says unpleasant things, and your palms clench into fists. Let’s find out whether it is always worth expressing your anger and how to live it without harm to yourself and others.
WHAT ANGER IS
Anger is a basic emotion. Everyone experiences it in one situation or another. Anger comes in two types.
- Healthy (good). In the first, we seek to destroy any obstacles in our path to improve our lives. We feel the energy that helps us achieve our goals.
- Unhealthy (bad). Bad anger is expressed in the desire to show others our ‘coolness’ and make them understand our rightness and superiority. Very often it turns against ourselves, and is certainly not a healthy emotion.
WHETHER YOU SHOULD ALWAYS EXPRESS YOUR ANGER
Recently, many people say that anger and negative emotions should be expressed, you can not keep them in yourself. Experts often recommend to follow the path of constructive dialogue and calmly tell the offender about your feelings. Undoubtedly, this is good advice that can and should be used.
But is this way of solving the problem always justified and useful for living with your negative emotions?
There are situations when anger should not be vented on your partner, colleague or boss. For example, if you do not want to upset the other half or do not have the right to be rude to the head. The only thing you have to do when faced with anger is to live it correctly, without harming yourself or others.
HOW TO LIVE ANGER CORRECTLY
The first and most important thing to do in a stressful situation is to help yourself. If it seems to you that now it is inappropriate to vent your anger, – it is possible not to express it. But you should definitely live this state correctly so as not to harm your own health.
1. Legalisation
Stop for a couple of seconds and realise that it is anger, anger and irritation that you are feeling right now. Say to yourself, ‘Right now I am angry. Right now I am irritated. Right now I am angry.’ After saying these words, your brain will realise exactly what you are experiencing and the emotional tension will begin to subside.
2. Healthy accommodation of the feeling
Learn to live through anger without harming yourself or others. When we store up negativity and don’t release that energy – we destroy ourselves from the inside out. Emotions always generate movement. If you hold back from expressing anger, this movement will happen inside the body, not in the external environment: the skin will turn red or pale, the eyes will darken, the voice will start to break, the temples will pound, the fists will clench… Each person has his or her own individual reaction.
3. Harmonising the emotion with the body
Listen to yourself and try to understand where anger lives in your body, what sensations you are experiencing: perhaps you have a tightening of the chest or discomfort in the stomach? What is this feeling doing to your body? By identifying it for yourself, you will improve your emotional state.
4. Breath Control
Stop and breathe. Take deep breaths in and out. It is enough to ‘breathe’ your emotion for a few minutes – and it will let you go completely. In the head will come enlightenment. You will lose the desire to be angry and irritated. It is likely that you will even be able to find a solution to the problem that caused the aggressive reaction. Breathing technique helps to calm down and come to your senses. Sometimes your significant other or colleague is not ready to hear that their behaviour offends and angers you.