Anger Management

I have never been very good at dealing with angry people.

I should take a moment to make it clear that what I'm talking about here is not somebody who gets angry because something happens, but somebody who lives in a constant state of rage to the point where you might even say that their love language (if you're familiar with that concept) is anger.

I grew up with a father who had — for lack of a better way of putting it — an anger management problem. Whereas I often enjoyed being in his workshop as a kid (and learned a LOT about building things), it was always at the risk that some tool would go flying across the room if whatever he was working on didn't behave exactly the way he wanted it to.

He had what many would call ”a short fuse.”

He scared a lot of people. I remember going with him to work one time — he was managing director of a mid-sized factory — and he was telling me about how employees "respect" the director... but to my innocent young eyes it seemed far more like the employees feared the director...

I don't know if it was just in his blood, or in his nature… but I do know that my own nature is almost 180° opposite from his.

That said, I'm definitely not one of those people who is in denial of anger as one of our essential emotions. Anger can be very productive and it lets us know that something isn't turning out the way we had envisioned it turning out.

As such, anger can serve as a catalyst for change.

During my earlier adulthood, I had considerable "issues" with anger and angry people; that is, I had issues with other people's anger and their inability to control their tempers.

I didn't really get to move past those feelings until some substantial therapy sessions in my early to mid-30s, when a very effective therapist — from whom I learned a lot — finally made it clear to me that anger ”didn't have to look like” my father throwing a chair across the room.

Ironically, even though I did not like to be around angry people, I ended up in a long term relationship with someone who had a serious anger management problem! I guess that's what the psychological profession calls the repetition compulsion, meaning that we often choose what we're familiar with, rather than what is good for us or what we truly want.

At the time, I still hadn't grasped the difference between someone getting angry about something, and someone being angry as a more or less constant state of mind.

In retrospect, it's pretty difficult to tell the difference until you've been around someone for a while and start to notice that they seem to "go off" over virtually everything that doesn't happen the way they were planning.

Of course, I still don't like angry people, and I tend to be somewhat anxious around the "live wires" of life. I'd really rather just stay "Zen" with most of life's annoyances and difficulties!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about you? Do you know the difference between "getting" angry and "being" angry? How do YOU feels about being in the company of angry people? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2024.08.28 23:44PDT
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