Self Help

Did anyone ever teach you how to deal with anger? I’ll bet you that the only time you had any type of anger management education is after you have already caused emotional harm and maybe even physical harm to yourself or another person from betting very upset.

Learning how to deal with anger is one of many valuable ’self help’ subjects that you will not find in your high school classes or even in most college and career institutions. Although one of the most important practices to learn in order to have a more fulfilling and less stressful life, we likely end up teaching anger management to ourselves.

And so, if you want to be happier then doesn’t it make sense to understand, manage, and express you anger before something negative comes out of a negative situation?

As a society we are conditioned to keep a lot of feelings buried inside, even on a casual contact basis. To give you an idea of what I mean, think about your knee-jerk response to anyone whenever they ask you “How are you doing?” The socially acceptable answer and one that is hard-coded into your head to say is: “I’m fine, thanks.”

Now let’s say that something is indeed bothering you, and it is quite obvious, what if the person asks you next: “Is there something wrong?” Of course you will say “Nothing” and not even think twice about it, because that is your knee-jerk reaction. You have been programmed to “keep your cool” by not showing any emotions that may make you vulnerable.

Trust me, living life by constantly hiding your emotions does not work. If it did, then we would not have nearly the amount of problems today that we do as far as domestic, school, and workplace violence is concerned. In fact, if we did not subscribe to that “programmed” line of thought, then in our society would spawn healthier people, more attentive and nurturing parents, and of course, better spouses.

If people would just stop keeping their feelings bottled up inside and letting everyone else think how their emotions “should be”, then life would be so much easier to deal with. We can create happy and healthy relationships and share more positive experiences.

Sure the standard line of going about our emotions may work for a little while, but sooner or later those buried emotions come out, especially as adults, and manifest themselves through mediums like spouse abuse, alcoholism, negative thinking, lack of motivation, etc.