The Challenge Of Learning To Get Angry

We can all come to notice when we are upset, or when we behave in a spiteful and vindictive way. However,  do we know how to identify well the situation that makes us angry? How can we learn to get angry and to show our anger at the right time and with the right person? Everything requires personal work.

Learning to get angry is a challenge that many do not overcome. Learning to get angry is learning to tolerate frustration and know how to channel it appropriately so as not to divert it or affect more fields than it should or more time than is allowed. Getting angry requires intrapersonal work, that is, with oneself, and interpersonal, with others.

Let’s take an example to understand the importance of knowing how to get angry. A couple has an argument at home, they shout what each one thinks and the subject is left that way. One of the members of the couple arrives at his work and before a small failure of the subordinates he fights without allowing him to reply.

This person, unable to prove why he made that mistake, comes home and gets angry with his son for not obeying the first time and is punished. The son in turn, when he returns to school, argues with a classmate because he speaks badly to him. So we could make an endless chain that we could have ended with the couple solving the problem by talking and each one defending their point of view.

Identify the situation that makes me angry

The mistake may be in believing that it is the external or others who make me angry, but in reality what makes me angry is something mine. Not all of us are angry the same, and not one, at all times, is angry about the same thing. Therefore, the first challenge is to identify what specific act or words have triggered my alarm.

When I am able to identify this first fact, I can work with it and stop it. Knowing myself gives me the tools to understand myself and to know that there are things that I do not tolerate because they affect a part of me that I do not like, do not know and I have to continue working on it.

Getting angry is normal and healthy, but our responsibility is also to know how to get angry with the right person and at the specific moment, not let the anger last and learn to communicate what I do not like and that makes me dislike. Shutting up what makes us angry is not a permanent solution to the problem.

Know how to communicate anger

The best technique to communicate what we dislike can be outlined in different steps. The prologue will be to calm down to speak calmly and look for solutions, we think that shouting rarely leads to a good understanding. Subsequent steps can be:

• Show how I feel : it is important to show how I feel and not the action or words of the other. Saying “I feel isolated when you don’t make plans with me” is different from saying “it makes me angry that you go with your classmates.”
• Contextualize the problem : avoid using expressions as always, never, everyone … Knowing how to limit and make specific a problem also helps to communicate it and solve it better, for example “You are always with them” to say “there are several days that you have dedicated to being with any of them “
• Show my desire : here is the time to show what we would really like, for example “I would like you to continue making plans with your colleagues but not stop thinking about time to dedicate to both of us”.
• Show empathy : trying to understand why the other has acted in a specific way helps us not to feel the actions or words as an offense, which allows them to resolve the situation in a more effective way. “I understand that you enjoy time with your companions from time to time ”.

• Propose solutions : here is the most important challenge, not only do I show how I feel but what I want to achieve “we could find some space to continue doing activities between the two of us.”

The challenge of learning to get angry takes work and practice, but its results allow us to feel better and improve my relationships, both with myself and with others. Do not delay the work and start with your challenge, do you know how to get angry?