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Anger management: hitting your pillow?

I have heard of therapist and psychologist suggest to individuals that it is a good idea if you are angry to go and take it out on your pillow.  One person in fact bought a soft object from me that was made for swinging to be used by her client to hit objects in her room – just to get the anger out.  So what do you think about this?  I believe that if we take to hitting things when we are angry that we are practicing what we would really like to do.  In fact we may one day when we are really angry not be able to control ourselves and actually do what we have practiced for all of those years, except this time it may be a real person. 

We see this sometimes when someone, usually a man, who cannot control themselves, puts their fist through the wall.  Eventually they will hit someone and create some very difficult situations for themselves.  So what is the answer?  We need to check in with our feelings and recognize that we are feeling anger.  When we check in we may recognize that the feeling is not anger as much as it is frustration, jealousy, embarrassment or some other feeling.  Once we recognize this we can ask ourselves, How can I calm down?  It may be one of the four ways we suggested in an earlier post, or it may be another way that works for us.   Then the question is, how do I solve this problem? 

How to solve the problem is always interesting because we have an entire list of ways of doing this.  Next time we will examine solving the problem.

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Anger management: Tune in

The other day when I was teaching I mentioned to the students that anger management may very well be one of the most important self defenses that we could ever learn.  Think about it for a minute.  Most of us will never be kicked or punched in a violent attack that takes place in the street.  But everyone of us will be angry about something at some point and depending on if we know how to calm down and think about the choices we have, may decide how much difficulty we make for ourselves.

Here are 4 ways that we can practice calming down.
1. Take 3 deep breaths. In fact take more if that is what is needed.
2. Count to ten or count down from ten to one. 
3. Allow ourselves to listen to a friend say “calm down’, or we can practice saying it to ourselves.
4. Visualize in your mind a very peaceful place that you enjoy being.

In all 4 of these examples the idea is to get your self to a place in your head to think about all of your choices and the consequences of each one.  We need oxygen in our brain to think and when we are angry, most people’s breathing gets very shallow and quick and does not get to the brain in sufficient quantities. 

So which technique works for you? Or do you have another method that you use?  some of the kids told me that they go to their room and hit their pillow.  In my next post I will comment on that technique.


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Do you get angry?

Everyone gets angry or sometimes has anger lingering in them.  For a young person it may be having a toy taken away from them by another child.  It may be not getting their way or what they want at that very moment.  As we get older though we may be angered because of being lied too or we may be frustrated, feeling guilty or it may be due to a fear that we have.

I will tell you my own example.  My father died when I was 13 years old.  I did not even realize it – but it made me angry that he had left me alone at that time.  That feeling followed me for a very long time and it was not till I was close to 30 years old that I realized that my anger about that unfortunate circumstance was having an affect on other parts of my life. 

How we feel anger can be different too.  It may be that we frown, clench our teeth, wrinkle our brow, feel it in our stomach, head or throat.  Some may react by clinching their fist, crossing their arms, stomping their feet or screaming mean words.  Others may just become very quiet and internalize their feelings.  So as we begin to discuss anger management we recognize that it is about how we handle anger in a safe, fair and positive way.  Of course it is OK to be angry, but its not OK to just someone with our words or physically because we are angry.

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Garbage patch found in the Atlantic Ocean too!

As if the garbage patch found in the Pacific is not horrific enough scientis have now announced that a similar area is found in the Atlantic Ocean.  Here is a link to an article in the National Geographic about this situation.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100302-new-ocean-trash-garbage-patch/

So what can we do?  Reduce the amount of plastic that we consume.  We have grown to be reliant on plastic everything –  but we can as individuals take steps to reduce the amount that we use on a daily basis.  I have personally taken this challenge and am recording the plastic that I use.  Why record it?  For me it helps to make me more aware of the issue and reminds me to question myself – Is there another way of doing this without plastic.  Sometimes there is – sometimes there seems to be no choice. 

Be Aware.

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Anger Management: Definitions

Each month we define and discuss a word of character development with all of our students.  This month the word is Anger Management.  It will be defined this way.

Young students:  Anger management means: “I calm myself down when I feel angry!”

Older students:  Anger management means:  Dealing with anger in a safe, fair, and positive way.

If you would like to see how we will deal with this subject with our students please follow our discussions here during the month of March.

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Self control: dealing with temptations

Lets look at how we can use our self control when we are tempted by something that may be appealing to us.  From the simple point of view if we look at something in the store or at something that belongs to someone else, while we may want it or something like it we would not steal it.  We know that taking something that does not belong to us, no matter how much we want it would be the wrong thing to do and would have very bad consequences.  We know that when that trust has been broken between individuals it is very hard to get back and using our self control is how we can maintain a high level of trust with our parents, friends, teachers, and employees / employers.

But this is not the only kind of temptations around us.  We may be tempted to not tell the truth, especially if we are scared or think we are about to get into trouble.  It takes a great deal of character and self control to stop ourselves from stealing or lying to others.  But there are temptations all around us.  For each one of us they are going to be different.  For some temptations may come in the form of food, intimacy, drugs, alcohol, gambling. For some we find ourselves lying to ourselves, the greatest form of deception, about whatever it is that is tempting to us.   So how do we guard ourselves from these sorts of things?

By taking the STEP.  STOP and take a deep breath or two.  Count to ten get away from the situation for a minute to give yourself time to THINK up some solutions.  Write them down, think about each way you could deal with the situation.  The EVALUATE all the possible solutions with 3 questions; Will this solution work, Is it safe and Is it fair?  When all 3 of those questions can be answered in a positive way then we can choose from the solution options that meet that criteria for what is best for us and immediately PROCEED with the plan.

Now while this is harder to do than it is to say, the way we get ourselves strong enough to use our self control at our command is to practice it on little things.  For instance I know that I need to do physical activity every day.  So have I set a time to do that?  When that time comes do I make excuses to refrain or do I make a personal victory by carrying out my plan?  When you have the little victories on a daily basis, when there is a bigger temptation we will have grown that muscle strong enough to demonstrate our self control. 

As a parent we can set the example and show our children when we are using our self control, and point out what and why we are doing it.  We can encourage them to do the same and celebrate with them when they display self control.  Talking and using the words on a consistent basis will be a great reminder for both parent and child.