‘You make me angry.’ ‘You’re annoying me.’ ‘You’re stressing me out.’
If you find yourself thinking or saying sentences like these, you’re not really taking responsibility for your own emotions. You’re blaming someone else for the way you feel. This may seem perfectly natural. However, in truth, no one can affect the way you feel. The way you feel is determined by what you think about the situation.
For example, I accidentally spill a cup of tea on your work. If you think that I did it on purpose, you may think, ‘You damaged my paperwork deliberately, you idiot,’ and then feel angry and upset. You blame me for your anger.
If you see it as an accident and think that I may be tired, you think, ‘It was just an accident – I hope he’s okay,’ and react with sympathy. The emotion is caused by your thoughts, not by the person or the situation itself.
Rather than blame the other person for your anger, actually allow yourself to feel the emotion. Notice when it manifests in your body if you can. Observe the effect of breathing into it. Watch it with a sense of care. This transforms your relationship to the anger from hate to curiosity, and thereby transforms the anger from a problem to a learning opportunity.
An easy way to remember and manage your emotions is to use the acronym ABC:
A: Activating event
B: Belief
C: Consequence
For example:
Activating event: A colleague doesn’t turn up for a meeting.
Belief: You believe he or she must always be there on time.
Consequence: You feel annoyed.
Now go back and change your belief. Think differently, such as: ‘People aren’t always on time – that’s a fact of life. Some people are always late. Other times, they get held up in traffic or on a slow train or bus.’ Now you’ll notice that you’ll feel less annoyed. So be mindful of your beliefs whenever you feel a strong emotional reaction to someone else, and see whether changing the belief, or simple smiling at the belief, helps.
Here are some ways of managing your feelings of anger:
Be mindful of the thought patterns that feed your anger.
These include:
- Over-generalising by using sentences like ‘You always ignore me’ or ‘You never respect me.’ Be specific instead.
- Mind-reading by thinking you know what the other person is thinking, and often predicting the thoughts as negative, such as ’I know you think I nag too much.’ Try to avoid making assumptions like this.
- Blaming others for your own anger with thoughts like ‘You always make me angry’ or It’s all your fault.’ Instead, take responsibility for your anger.
Take mindful physical exercise.
By exercising regularly, you build a greater resilience to stress, and this may dissipate some of your anger. By exercising mindfully, paying attention to all the physical sensations as you perform an exercise, you simultaneously build up your mindfulness muscles too, leading to greater levels of awareness and less reactive, automatic-pilot behaviour.
Connect with your senses.
Listen to the sounds around you or listen mindfully to some music. Smell some of your favourite calming scents. Eat a snack as slowly as you can, chewing and tasting with as much awareness you can muster. Have a shower or bath and connect with the sensations on your skin. Look out of your window and enjoy the sky, clouds, trees or rain.
Question your reaction.
Ask yourself questions like: ‘Is this worth it? Is this important in the big picture?’ ‘How else can I respond in this situation? ‘What is a more helpful thing to do now?’
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
