Your development of Automatic Anger Responses:

As children, we responded to anger with impulsive behavior. Since our higher levels of thinking had not yet developed, we expressed this behavior in simple, automatic reactions. Maybe you cried, yelled, bit, hit, ran away, or pouted, but your reaction was straightforward and quick. As a young toddler, you did not possess the ability to weigh your anger expression and then choose an appropriate response. The key to learning anger management is to understand that it is a skill where you express or release your temper in POSITIVE rather than NEGATIVE ways. But I bet no one tried to explain that to you at age 2, 3 or 4 (your formative years). Check out these Valuable insights:

Understanding Negative ways of expressing Anger:

Negative expressions of Anger are anything that hurts yourself, others or damages important property. Abusing drugs, cutting, gambling beyond your means, eating disorders, getting fired, evicted or getting in trouble with the law due to your anger are all examples of hurting yourself. There are many ways to hurt others. You can hurt people mentally, physically or emotionally. Some primary examples of hurting others would be swearing, name-calling, saying cruel things meant to wound, sarcasm, withdrawing your love or acceptance, hitting, slapping, kicking, intimidating, ignoring or forcing sexual advances. Finally, illustrations of damaging property would be hitting walls, slamming doors, kicking furniture or throwing your cell phone so that it breaks. Remember these eye-opening examples.

Negative expressions of anger often have long term detrimental side effects in our lives. It can interfere with our ability to do well in school, our career, sustaining happy and healthy relationships, problem-solving and can lead to problems with the law. If you realize that your anger outbursts are interfering with your success in life, it is time to learn anger management skills. Use this powerful information to change.

Learning Negative Expressions of Anger:

But first, it is important to understand why you express your anger in the ways that you do and where it came from in your life. Adverse expressions of anger help to release the energy and frustration that this feeling causes inside. This is the main reason why people yell, hit or run away when angry. The reaction may be unfavorable, but it often gives some instant relief. Anger management is the process of learning to replace these negative responses with more positive expressions like breathing slow and deep, talking it out with someone you trust or exercising. To be successful, you must constantly impliment these new skills.

If you want to change your negative anger habits but are having trouble changing; a competent professional counselor can be helpful, or you can book a conversation with Vicki at www.supportivetalk.com or read the rest of my 8 part series.

If you would like to check into books on this subject, there is “Dance of Anger” by Harriet Lerner or CD: “Relax, Unwind & Sleep.”