How to control anger?

Before understanding how to control anger, we should understand why to control it. It is said that do not fix something which is not broken. So, if it is not needed to control anger, do not control it. The reason to control anger should be very clear to you and you should feel that it is really a necessity to control your anger and you are not able to do so. Then only the following advice will apply. So please do not read further and waste your and other’s time if you are not sure or not clear why controlling / managing anger is necessary.

If someone will ask me, what is the reason to manage anger, then I will say that anger has such an amount of potential that it can destroy you, people around you and even this world. People who have understood this very dangerous potential of anger, can understand the reasons to control / manage it. In my opinion, it needs to be controlled if it is excessive and if it is channelized in a wrong direction.

The direction of self-destruction is surely a wrong direction. So, if you feel that your anger can destroy you, read on. I will try to share some ideas to control / manage / channelize it.

Many a times we are not able to understand if we are angry. There is this confusion many a times because people may think we are angry and we might think that we are not or vice a versa. So, identifying the physical signs of anger are very necessary. So, we might not share it with others if not needed but we can be true to ourselves that yes, we are angry now.

One of the signs of anger is increased breathing. Some people might feel headache or they may feel like crying or shouting or throwing things around. Some might not be able to think something else. Some might not be able to concentrate on their normal work. It is true that sometime there is this kind of strange happiness one feels when they are angry. Maybe it is the ability to control the surrounding. One feels that they are in charge of the situation and can do a lot of work and can turn the situation at any side by will. This kind of happiness is also a sign of anger in my opinion.

Anger has something to do with your ego as well. After understanding some of the physical signs of the anger, lets try to understand the seat of anger. The place from where anger emerges. I am trying to share this based on my understanding and based on my learning in Chinmay Yuva Kendra and my own contemplation. I do not remember now the places from which I have collected this knowledge / wisdom hence I must thank all those sources who helped me to understand this. So, I was saying that anger has something to do with our ego. If we understand that ego reduction is the aim of Indian philosophy, (one need not share it with others because otherwise they may take undue advantage of this if they know that you are trying to reduce your ego) then it becomes very easy for us to understand the need of anger reduction.

Now I am going to share an idea shared by Naidu sir as how to deal when something is making you angry and you should get angry by normal cultural norms but your aim is ego reduction and hence you are in a dilemma. In that case we need to get angry but not angry for real. It should be like when we get angry on a child. We have to make the child aware that what he is doing is not appreciated but at the same time we do not wish to harm the child. In that case we have to just show that we are angry and then have to leave the topic. Getting angry for longer time or being in the emotion of anger for longer time is not a good thing. So sometimes we might have to get angry just to threaten someone but as the work is done, we should leave the hand of anger and start walking on the path of our work.

Still there are possibilities that you will get angry. You must be aware that there are people around you who can understand your behaviour and can provoke the anger. Some people can really manipulate you and can make you angry for real though you decide not to get angry. I am not saying that these people are bad people always. Nor are they with bad intent always. Nor they understand themselves that they are provoking you. But as I said earlier, as there is a kind of fun in getting angry, there is also a kind of fun in making someone angry. After getting angry, you feel that the situation is under your control sometimes and after making you angry, some people feel that they can control you so they find it funny. It is true that it is not a good thing to have this kind of fun but most of the time people are not aware that they are doing it, they are not aware of the fuller consequences of it and also, they do not do it with bad intention many a times. They might simply do it because they are innocent or because they are just bored. As Prasoon Joshi mentioned in one of his articles, that cruelty goes with innocence. Culture is teaching rules of dos and don’ts. So, some people simply might be aware of these rules and some are not or they have not taken efforts to learn these rules because learning is a resource consuming activity.

So, whatever you try to do, some people might annoy you at any time. They have potential to annoy you any time. The question is not why they behave so. They behave so because they feel like and they will have to face the consequences in some cases at least. But that is their lookout. The thing important for us is how we should behave when we are provoked for anger? How to refuse to get angry in these situations? How to not to destroy our relations with them and others in the rage of anger? How not to cross boundaries of anger and how not to anger let overpower you? Yes, that can happen and that is the most dangerous thing which can happen to anyone while dealing with anger. That we might give the control of our life in the hands of anger and we are simply drifting away. What happens when that happens? Well, you might not be alive next time to read this if you allow that to happen.

Anger, when gone out of control only causes pain. It only causes losses and shame and guilt. All the negative emotions are associated with anger when it subsides and if it had taken your charge even for a fraction of second. Because you don’t remain you at that time. You don’t understand who you are and what is happening around you and you do not understand anything which a normal person can understand in that state of mind. You just keep feeling the pleasure in that emotion and you remain unaware what damages you are doing to you, to people around you or to the community at large.

But then, does it mean that we should accept whatever comes to us? Should nothing make us angry at all? Should we remove this emotion of anger from our mind forever if it is possible? First of all, it is not possible to do so. It is not possible to remove the emotion of anger from our mind because it has something to do with our survival. So, thinking to remove the anger is a kind of dream which can never get fulfilled. But then what we are expected to do when anger still comes?

Let me tell you honestly that there is no fixed answer for this question. There are certain tricks which may work at certain times and they may fail at certain times. We can just try to reduce the magnitude of damages when anger takes over by applying these tricks so that anger never crosses a certain level of limit.

That brings me to the point of defining our limits. We need to define the limits of maximum damages we can do or the maximum extent to which we can go if we get most angry. It can vary from person to person and for the same person at different situations.

Some of the tricks to deal with anger when you find that there are signs of anger in you as mentioned above are as follows – You can cut the communication when you have made your point. An angry person may feel that he is not able to make his point and hence he tries to make his point and makes repeated efforts. But once we are angry, we have to understand that we have made enough efforts so it is time to reduce / stop the efforts. It might sound very unattractive thing to do when we are in the situation. The thing we feel like doing at that time is to put in more efforts but if we have already made our point and if the person is not ready to understand it, the efforts are to be done by the other person and not you. Think how close the person is to you. If the person is not much close to you, then put the burden of understanding the point on him / her. If there is possibility that he might forget the point and you also might forget the point, then simply document the point somewhere and send the message to him / her. I would suggest to write a mail which clearly mentions your point and send it.

But do not communicate much in writing too when you are angry. Why? Why not? I will try to explain it sometime later. So, we have learned at least one trick now to deal with anger and that is to stop the communication after you have made your point. Remember, this hurts us inwards. Not communicating hurts. It is painful. But we need to understand that explaining our position further is a waste of time at that time and it might hurt more if we get angry and give our control in the hands of the anger. Hence stop communication and communicate the point in a different way other than talking. Communicate it once and then again do not react to the response which will come back in reaction to your action. Anger management is all about breaking this action reaction chain.

Please note that I have not mentioned to forgive or to forget. I have just mentioned to stop communicating about that particular thing when you are sure that you have made your point.