Expressing anger

• We can try and validate the anger felt by an individual by making them know that their anger is maybe justified while putting firm but respectful boundaries on their aggression.
• We then need to be clear about what type of aggression we are willing to tolerate, setting boundaries on the unacceptable.
• We may have to put our foot down and be ready to leave the conversation or escalate the issue, without falling into the trap of guilt and emotion.
• If possible, we need to restart the conversation when things have cooled down, and diffuse the issue in a calm way.

Unchecked self-talk can easily turn into self-delusion. The stories we create almost always make you look like the good guy and cannot be termed as objective.

• The way to get out of this speculative self-delusion is to avoid any speculation about other people's anger, at least initially.
• Make sure to note down the facts of the situation. This can make the story less according to your gut instinct, and more towards the objective reality.

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. He tells him a fight between two wolfs rages inside him, and in every other person too. One wolf is filled with good emotions and another filled with negative ones. The youth asks which will win. The old man answers: “The one you feed.”

If negative thinking becomes incessant, it can lead to depression and self-destructive behavior. At minimum, negative thinking saps our energy, erodes our self-confidence and can put us in a bad mood.

Certainly, many would agree that our thoughts come and go so quickly that it’s seems impossible to notice them, but with awareness and an attitude of self-compassion, we can redirect our negative thoughts to more positive ones.

Anger is an emotion that can be harnessed, with collective anger being able to spearhead entire movements and disruptions.

Anger has a strangely energizing effect and helps people deal with trauma and grief. Anger is the one emotion that encourages action.

People listen to an angry person, making it a salient powerful emotion for interpersonal connections.

Entire movies are made of characters taking revenge as they are angry and resentful due to a reason that the audience loves to hear about.

Managing your anger is all about managing your thoughts. Your thoughts will determine how you respond.

Strategies like cognitive behavioral therapy can teach people healthier thought patterns.

It helps a user read a set of blood-boiling scenarios and rates how likely they are to have each of six possible reactions. It enables you to recognize unhelpful thoughts that cause a knee-jerk reaction. For example: When you are driving through a residential area, and someone backs their car out of a driveway and nearly hits you. There are six possible reactions:

• "They did that just so I'd have to stop." This is a fallacy known as misattributing causation - you don't know the other person's intentions.
• "They almost totaled my car." It catastrophizes a scary situation into utter destruction.
• "Nobody knows how to drive anymore" overgeneralizes a specific situation into a universal truth.
• "I was here first. They shouldn't have gotten in my way." Here you make an unreasonable demand that somehow other people should know where you're going.
• "That dumb jerk!" is inflammatory labeling that dehumanizes and insults the other person.
• "He must not have seen me" is adaptive and more likely to calm you down.

You can’t change an emotion you don’t own.

Accept responsibility for its existence.  Because an external event always precedes your experience of an emotion, it’s easy to assume that the event caused it. But as long as you believe it was externally caused, you are going to be a victim to your emotions.

Emotions are the result of both what happens, and of the story you tell yourself about what happened.

• A victim story: it absolves you of your responsibility for what happened.
• A villain story: it exaggerates the faults of others and makes them responsible for what happened.
• A helpless story: it convinces you that any course of action is pointless.

Questioners need reasons and justifications, and they're angry when other people act, or expect them to act, for reasons that are unexplained or arbitrary.

They're frustrated when others won't give them the answers they expect, or won't give them time to research.

Angry cry of the Questioner: "Why do people just follow along like lemmings, and expect me to do the same for no good reason?"

Obligers feel the weight of outer expectations. Their anger is often tinged with resentment and indignation, a feeling of being exploited or neglected or treated unfairly. Of the 4 Tendencies, the Obliger Tendency is the biggest (for both men and women).

Angry cry of the Obliger: "Why am I the only one doing anything around here? Why am I meeting other people's expectations, but not meeting my expectations for myself?"

When anger comes knocking, and it will, we have to know how to deal with it appropriately. If mismanaged, it can take down company morale and sabotage your ability to lead and collaborate well.

• Put boundaries on people who make you angry. 
• Get to the bottom of why you're really angry.
• Respond, don't react. Assess the situation and think about it rationally to arrive at sane conclusions and decisions.
• Take a six-second pause during a heated exchange to quickly assess the costs and benefits of that action.
• Be the first to reach out after an argument. Swallow your pride and make up with the person.
• Shift to the positive. Think of the things you are thankful for. Understand why the person made an action that made you angry.

Forgive. Research indicates that forgiveness makes you less angry and more healthy.

• Most people are in the dark about their fears. The unknown, random and unwanted scenarios or events that could happen in the future, forms the general anxiety known as fear. This can include a fear of losing one’s job, getting sick with a virus, or getting old.
• Some fears are in our deep, subconscious minds, and include the fear of not being in control, of not being good enough, and even some collective fears passed on from our ancestors.

Fear has the tendency to divide and isolate us, to shrink us to a tiny version of ourselves. Other negative emotions like jealousy, resentment, anger, bitterness and self-pity also have their roots in fear.

Some fear is good, like staying away from things or activities that can endanger us, but most fear is psychological and a false shadow inside our heads.

• While giving bad news to others, like giving feedback or firing someone, one can find it difficult to strike the right note.
• When a small sentence or even a word can be taken as a negative provocation and trigger an adverse reaction. Suddenly the conversation becomes intensely charged emotionally.
• A conversation where one resorts to profanity, manipulation, shouting to thwart the other person.

1. Be fully aware of one’s own vulnerabilities and shortcomings.
2. Anticipate any specific problem that may occur, and try to rehearse it if possible.
3. Understand that words are key that can make or break your conversation, and try to fine-tune and neutralize your phrasing.