Anger:
You probably have a problem with anger if:
• You can’t stop raising your voice
• You scare your children, partner or others
• You punch walls or break things
• You are hair-triggered and can’t stop getting into fights
• Anger has gotten you in trouble at work or with the law
• People walk on eggshells around you
There’s nothing wrong with anger – it’s a valuable emotion and a healthy part of the human experience. But if the ways you act out in anger cause problems in your relationships, work or social life, then you may need help managing it. Traditional anger management courses offer a variety of techniques for keeping anger in check, like time-outs and communication techniques. For some people these are enough to do the trick, but if you’re like many of my clients, you may have discovered the catch – when you’re triggered things happen so fast that all those tricks and tools go out the window and before you know you’ve lost control again.
Another thing that makes anger tricky is that it often doesn’t seem like a problem at first. In fact, it may seem more like the solution to your problems. When you get angry people pay attention and quickly change their behaviors – it may even seem like the only way to get them to do so. But over time it becomes clear that this comes at a significant cost: alienated loved ones, demotions and lost jobs, trouble with the legal system… When you try to rein it in you discover it’s not that easy – your anger seems to have a life of its own. It continues to erupt despite your best attempts at controlling it, causing you to feel shame and regret.
If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to manage anger before, you may have started to question whether this powerful energy within you can ever be mastered. I find that most people actually experience significant shifts in a relatively small number of sessions of Coherence Therapy. I can’t guarantee that the changes we bring about will bring back people you have alienated or restore your relationships, but by getting your anger under control we can create an opportunity for that to happen. What I can predict is that mastering anger will allow you to feel more in control and better about yourself either way.
If these symptoms resonate with you and you’d like an opportunity to make a change, I invite you to give it a try and schedule a free initial consultation.