Stress Management: 12 Universal Laws for Managing Anger
1. The Law of All
It’s not necessarily bad to get angry. You get angry, I get angry, all the children of God get angry. It is what we do with our anger that makes the difference.
2. The law of stress
Although we don’t often think of anger as a form of stress, it is by far one of the largest and most destructive forms of daily stress. Manage your anger and you will manage a great deal of your stress.
3. The Law of Election
Anger is rarely an automatic response. It’s a choice. It’s a choice because we have to think about something before we get angry.
4. The Law of Shoulds
We all have beliefs about how the world and the people around us should behave. When these beliefs are violated, anger is a natural and sometimes reasonable response. The problem is that when we “owe” someone, it can become a trigger for our anger.
For example, if we repeat the phrase “that driver shouldn’t have passed me” over and over again in our heads, the response is likely to be unpleasant. At best, we’ll raise our blood pressure, and at worst, we’ll do something really stupid.
5. The law of guilt
Another of our thoughts that quickly leads to anger involves
blame someone or something The dance of guilt is a deadly step of two:
1) someone is to blame, and
2) they should be punished – anger can be very punishing.
6. The law of the cause
This is closely related to the law of guilt. There is a myth in our culture that very few people question. The best example is the phrase “it made me angry.”
Well bull! No one can make us angry without our cooperation.
7. The law of inflammation
Another myth is that if we are able to vent our anger,
decrease automatically. That is not necessarily so. I once saw a neighbor stomp on the side of his house, grumbling and getting tired as he went. Stomping next to the air conditioning unit, he slammed his fist down on top of her. That movement not only made him angrier, it seemed to me that it also hurt a lot. Grumbling and wearying even harder, he stomps into his backyard and kicks over a deck chair. didn’t seem to calm down
he knocked him down, and it seemed to hurt him too. I later found out that she broke her hand and foot while she was frolicking around the yard.
8. The Law of the Source
In almost all cases, anger is a secondary emotion. In other words, we experience some other strong emotion before we feel anger. Follow the source and you will usually come up with one of three strong emotions: fear, frustration, or pain, or some combination of the above. Deal with fear, frustration and pain and you will be able to cut through anger in passing.
9. The Law of Battles
Learn to pick your battles. If you get angry about everything, then your anger means nothing. If that sounds confusing, here’s an example: how much would gold be worth if we all had it in abundance? That’s right, not much. Gold is valuable because it is so rare. If you always get angry, people stop taking you seriously and just want to avoid you.
10. The law of value
Ask yourself this question: “Is this situation worth getting angry about?” Most of the time it just isn’t.
11. The Law of Muscles
Learn to exercise your muscles of choice. We can choose to be angry or we can choose another way to handle the situation.
12. The law of channeling
When you get angry, channel it into something you can use to benefit yourself, such as motivating yourself to change what can be changed.