Originally Posted by kenton

Hey YCDT2, sorry to hear about the argument with your mum. I know you've had lots of superb advice but I wanted to respond to you because I've just spent the last 3 hours learning about anger at my mindfulness course. Anger was always my number 1 trigger and so I was keen to learn as much about it as possible. I found this info quite interesting. ....

Anger has a purpose. It alerts us to the fact that something isn't right.... a boundary has been crossed. But anger doesn't appear in isolation - it's covering other 'softer' emotions such as fear, hurt, sadness, frustration, panic, humiliation, irritation etc. And these softer emotions have arisen because one of our needs isn't being met. We all have emotional needs. ... eg to be loved... respected... heard...valued...accepted...treated fairly etc.

When we react in anger to the person who is not meeting our emotional need, that person will become defensive. The irony of anger is that no matter how angry we become. .. we will never address the source of our anger and get our needs met. Instead, we will become more and more angry which can result in unhelpful behaviours and if the anger hangs around long enough it turns into resentment and bitterness .... more triggers.

To release the anger we need to notice when we're angry and then explore the anger before reacting. What's causing the anger? Are we frightened? Irritated? Disappointed? Do we have a need for respect? Do we need to feel heard? Accepted? Loved? Once we identify the true source of anger, it can become much easier to handle. We can explain how we're feeling in a non-confrontational way. The other person may not want to listen and that's OK. We got no control over other people. The crucial thing is that by identifying the real reason we're angry we can comfort ourselves and let the anger go. Thus breaking the anger/trigger/regret/shame/anger/trigger cycle.

I just learnt all this tonight so I need to go and put it all into practise. Good thing about this world is that we never need to wait very long until someone makes us angry! So I reckon I can start practising what I learnt very soon. And that's why I wanted to post this. People are always going to push our buttons and make us angry .... so if anger is a trigger, it's helpful to try to learn how to better manage that anger.

Hope everyone is OK. I'm up very late and need to go to bed but wanted to ask for my next 24 hours before I fall asleep. And Jo, let me know if you want me to meet you for a coffee when you're in London. I won't want to intrude on your family time but I can come and say hello and point out Big Ben and ..... yeah, that's probably my level of expertise. Love to everyone xxxx