Anger management or the ability to constructively process our emotional state is key to our well being. Everyone gets angry, but not everyone knows how to manage it. The problem is not about getting angry, but rather what we do with the anger. The meaning we attached to the anger and taking the appropriate action is the key to managing anger.

When our view of life comes from a position of entitlement and/or high level of expectations, then when don’t get what we want or our expectations are not met, we become angry. When we require life, relationship or our partner to be an ideal, without imperfections, faults or inconsistencies, we cannot avoid of being angry. If we expect life to be fair, we cannot avoid of being angry when we are treated unfairly, or when we don’t like the situation. When we adapt a victim mentality or attitude, and see the “others” as bad or negative (the “enemy”) that want to hurt us, we feel that we are entitled to be angry since we think as a victim and need to protect ourselves.

In addition, when we suffer from lack of self esteem, poor self-image, low self respect or a negative self image, we are having difficulties in tolerating conflict or accept criticism from others. This is why healthy self esteem is important element in managing anger. The ability to resolve conflict, negotiate or collaborate is based on increased awareness, realistic perspective, self respect and empathy as well as assertive behavior.

Many people who experience anger problems do not take responsibility for their anger and refuse to see their contribution to the negative situation. They avoid seeing how their perspective effect their behavior and what is their part in the negative relationship. Every time that they insist of being right and having attachment to such unhealthy view, they take the position that being right is more important than the relationship. As a result, a vicious cycle of reactivity and anger is amplify and the relationship suffers.

To manage anger in a healthy way, we need to be able to accept responsibility to our anger and emotion, to calm down and then to express our anger assertively. Accordingly, it is crucial to express ourselves from the perspective of what is hurting us and what we need. This attitude, focus on the “I” rather than the “YOU.” It express personal needs rather than blame the other and done so in a constructive communication style. If we are able to pause, stop and think before acting rather than impulsively react on our anger, we can process our feelings, understand what is causing it, then we can better understand what stimulate our anger and express our needs in a healthy way.

We must understand that our anger emotion is the result of our own subjective perception and response to reality. Once we understand and accept that our anger belongs exclusively to us and that it is created as a result of our view of the situation, we are moving toward a positive direction of managing our anger. Accordingly, the ability to develop realistic expectations for oneself and others will help to eliminate anger problems.

This is why being responsible to our anger is the cornerstone of all healthy relationships. Accepting responsibility to our anger, being able to process it constructively increases our ability to resolve anger and conflict and develop more healthy and happy relationships.

You need to feel good about yourself in order to cope with any problems and to have honest relationships with yourself and others. Anger can get in the way of feeling good and in times when anger is not manage properly and has no place to go, it may be turned into self-anger. This means that anger is directed against you and can lead to self-destructive behaviors like excessive drinking, drug use, gambling or even anxiety, depression, physical illnesses and suicide attempts. Self-anger makes you feel like you cannot stand yourself.

The antidote for self-anger is to feel good about yourself by developing your character and building yourself esteem. The first step in improving your self-esteem is to try to recognize the things make you angry with yourself. Try completing the following sentence, “I get angry at myself when . . .“ I don’t do as well as I should; I eat too much; I lose my temper; I don’t speak as I should; When I say stupid things etc.. These self-provocations are things that make you angry and are usually things where you have no one to blame but yourself. You need to learn how to work out these self-provocations. Failure to do this can lead to anger overload that can result in self-destructive patterns of behavior.

Once you identify your self-provocations, the next step is to develop strategies to overcome them. For Example, if your self-provocation is that you eat too much, resolve that next time you will eat more nutritionally and eat less. Secondly, do not kick yourself too hard when you are not successful. Allow yourself to be human (which you are). If your problem is that you get angry, you may need to exercise some relaxation techniques. When you encounter something that makes you angry with yourself, use the following statement, “What is the best thing for me to do now?” Remember to BE WISE, NOT RIGHT, which mean engage yourself in healthy and productive thoughts and actions. Your acknowledgment of the problem, and at the same time, focusing on improving the situation and getting better is the road to overcome anger. Merely sitting and belittling yourself over what has happened is not productive and even make anger worse.

In case of situations that are beyond our control or when we cannot make changes, we can develop the strategy of either learning to live with it or leaving the situation. Once you accept the fact that the source of the problem is not within you, it is easier to accept the provocation without developing self-anger.

Anger is a strong emotion and an integral part of our lives. Like any other emotion, we have to accept the fact that we are going to feel angry. Yet, we can control the degree of anger we feel, and how we act and response to anger. The main strategy in managing anger starts by viewing provoking situations in a realistic, non-judgmental, non-personal and with sense of proportion. Then, responding in effective, constructive and assertive manner to the situation, which means neither overlooking the problem (being passive), nor overreacting (being aggressive).

The main challenge in controlling anger is to avoid acting impulsively despite the strong urge to react. The fight and flight response to protect and keep us safe is automatically triggered and is immediately ready to act like a soldier in a combat zone. The key is to deeply understand that we are not in a life and death situation and the alarm (anger) we experience is as a result of our emotional (animalistic) brain. The way to control our emotional brain is to give power to our relatively new cognitive mind. This can be done by not giving up to our emotions and immediately react. It requires patience and slowing down the anger response cycle. It is simply means doing the opposite of what we used to do for so many years and for many generations. In other words, rather than reacting and immediately protecting ourselves, we need to stop, take TIME-OUT to cool down ourselves while getting back to the situation ONLY when we can re-examine the issue in a realistic, non-judgmental, non-personal with sense of proportion. This process is clearly easier said than done, but by being aware of it and practicing it daily while developing our anger management skills, we can gradually improve our anger management and improve our habit to become emotionally strong. This process strengthens our cognitive mind to effectively bring us to a better emotional state and durable fulfillment.