Anger: Fear and Pain · The Clinic

Anger: Fear and Pain

As someone who has allowed anger to seep into my personality, I frequently read books on it, and how to manage it. In case anybody else struggles with it, I want to tell you what I've learned.

Anger, by and large, is an automatic response to feeling fear or pain. Its the "fight" part of our fight or flight response. This is why its so difficult to curb. That response overrides all vestiges of reason, and intentionally so. Back in the day it helped us survive, as it did me. Today, though, outside the fogs or war and survival, it can create deep complications that prevent us from living our best lives.

To manage anger, one must address which part that anger comes from. Ask yourself "Am I scared, or am I hurt?" Pain was easier for me to handle. Pain, real pain, only happens when you allow it to. Mans Search for Meaning by Victor Frankle tells us that "You cannot be hurt without your own permission." And with a few days of practice I think I have a pretty good handle on it. Insult me, I don't care what you think. Yell at me, I laugh. Talk behind my back, I again laugh. Once you have control of your emotions, it can be pretty humorous to watch others struggle with theirs.

Fear, to me, is the harder animal to tackle. There is much to fear. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of death, fear of living, fear of being wrong, fear of being right, fear of cosmic horrors, and fear of mankind. I'm not as well accustomed to fear as I am pain. I think that will be individual to the each of us. But the only way I have learned to control fear is to address it ahead of time. I write my worst thoughts in my journal, and ask myself "What do I do if this happens".

And just writing that answer, should it ever comes to pass, prevents my fight or flight from responding. I am free to act as I said I would, or adjust my response to be more appropriate.

The point here is: you are in control. At the end of the day, how you think, how you percieve the world, determines your life. You are in control of your life. Take control of the only things you truly can: your body and your mind.

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