Anger is certainly an emotion filled with blood boiling sensations, but at its simplest level, it’s a conditioned reaction.

I’m guessing we’ve all felt anger. It’s a subset of fear which comes with the human software package. And I’m sure you’ll agree that some folks are more angry than others.

There is a price to pay for being angry more often than the average bear. It takes a physical toll on you. Angry people manifest constricting diseases and conditions more often than others: arthritis, angina, high blood pressure, to name a few.

The problem angry people have is they think their anger is caused by someone or something else. It’s not the other causing our distress; it’s us reacting in a conditioned way to a set of circumstances. We’ve learned to be angry.

There are some therapies that recommend that you get your anger out of you by striking at or yelling into an inanimate object like a pillow. I’ll leave it to your imagination how long-term effective that approach is. In short, it isn’t.

The remedy that works much better is recognizing anger within you and not assigning it a cause. Just acknowledge your feelings of anger to yourself. “I have anger within me” is, as we use to say in radio, the phrase that pays. Then after recognizing and acknowledging that you have anger within you, sit with the feeling. Just notice what the sensation feels like in your body. In doing so, you will feel what you call anger begin to wane. It dilutes itself until it’s no longer felt.

The worse thing you can do is to ascribe anger to an outside cause. That keeps it at arm’s length and you won’t be able to wrap your arms around it and feel your way through it.

All reactions can be outgrown. First you have to recognize that you’re having one and then interrupt it by taking some action to dilute, not justify, it.

It’s your anger. Own it by acknowledging and feeling it. Each time you do this, you weaken the conditioned link and outgrow your constrictions and start feeling “in the pink.”

All the best,

John

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