Extinguish The Fire With Questions
"Speak when you're angry, and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret." Lawrence J. Peter
"Whenever you are in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude." William James
When one feels the smoldering inside of them because another person has ignited some kind of fear, the first thing we might do is question ourselves. that may sound ludicrous but an immediate question may find the reasons why we begin to flare up in anger. I am by no means saying our anger is due to another person's agitation. Just because another person angers us does not give us the right to speed our temper. Controlling our anger is our problem. The beginning is then to understand what triggers our anger and to work on that. If another's tone of voice angers us ask yourself why. Do we recall a parent's tone in that voice? Did a parent make us feel inferior or even stupid? That would explain why when we hear that tone from another, we tend to overreact. Logically we might then be able through understanding, let go of the anger we feel towards another when we hear them speak to us. Anger usually originates from fear. We fear losing control. We fear losing respect, an object, a person, power, friends, position etc.. The list goes on but the fear is basically the same just varying degrees. If we get cut off when driving a car do we begin to think, the other driver deliberately tried to do it and wanted to prove they were crafty. In our minds we visualize them laughing at us, making fun of us. The flame inside of us burns stronger until we feel the need to attack in some way. This might be verbally, causing a barrage of profanities in front of our family or we recklessly race to try and cut them off at another area of the road. If we first asked ourselves why it bothered us so much we might ponder the fact that they were simply taking their shot to move ahead and get to where they were going without any integral part of us involved in their thinking. Most of the time, road rage has nothing to do with an individual person. It's more to do with winning or getting ahead or trying to make time or a zillion other reasons that have nothing at all to do with us. Why does it bother us when another person gloats about their vacation or raise or new whatever? Does it make us think that they think they are better? Can we remember a time when we gloated about something, anything? Did we want to bother or upset another person? If we can say no to that question, then we should acknowledge that most like;y people are happy about their current situation and they do in a sense brag but it is not necessarily to harm us as much as it is to increase their own joy. Reflect on your anger when you have some time. Even when we get angry with our kids. Maybe they interrupted a movie or time with our spouse. We don't want to hurt our child we're just upset with our lost time. Is it really lost? Can't we just finish something later? If we work on something and it still doesn't work, will yelling at the wife, husband kids make the situation better? Maybe it is time to walk away from the thing and ask for help or work on it when our mind is refreshed. Don't fear not getting it done the way it was planned. Nothing ever goes according to plan. There really are no plans. When one realizes that maybe our fear of accomplishing so much will end and our frustrations won't lead to anger. Ask yourself a few questions today before you fan your fire.
"Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end." Denis Waitley
"Discipline is the habit of taking consistent action until one can perform with unconscious competence. Discipline weighs ounces but regret weighs tons." Jhoon Rhee
"Whenever you are in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude." William James
When one feels the smoldering inside of them because another person has ignited some kind of fear, the first thing we might do is question ourselves. that may sound ludicrous but an immediate question may find the reasons why we begin to flare up in anger. I am by no means saying our anger is due to another person's agitation. Just because another person angers us does not give us the right to speed our temper. Controlling our anger is our problem. The beginning is then to understand what triggers our anger and to work on that. If another's tone of voice angers us ask yourself why. Do we recall a parent's tone in that voice? Did a parent make us feel inferior or even stupid? That would explain why when we hear that tone from another, we tend to overreact. Logically we might then be able through understanding, let go of the anger we feel towards another when we hear them speak to us. Anger usually originates from fear. We fear losing control. We fear losing respect, an object, a person, power, friends, position etc.. The list goes on but the fear is basically the same just varying degrees. If we get cut off when driving a car do we begin to think, the other driver deliberately tried to do it and wanted to prove they were crafty. In our minds we visualize them laughing at us, making fun of us. The flame inside of us burns stronger until we feel the need to attack in some way. This might be verbally, causing a barrage of profanities in front of our family or we recklessly race to try and cut them off at another area of the road. If we first asked ourselves why it bothered us so much we might ponder the fact that they were simply taking their shot to move ahead and get to where they were going without any integral part of us involved in their thinking. Most of the time, road rage has nothing to do with an individual person. It's more to do with winning or getting ahead or trying to make time or a zillion other reasons that have nothing at all to do with us. Why does it bother us when another person gloats about their vacation or raise or new whatever? Does it make us think that they think they are better? Can we remember a time when we gloated about something, anything? Did we want to bother or upset another person? If we can say no to that question, then we should acknowledge that most like;y people are happy about their current situation and they do in a sense brag but it is not necessarily to harm us as much as it is to increase their own joy. Reflect on your anger when you have some time. Even when we get angry with our kids. Maybe they interrupted a movie or time with our spouse. We don't want to hurt our child we're just upset with our lost time. Is it really lost? Can't we just finish something later? If we work on something and it still doesn't work, will yelling at the wife, husband kids make the situation better? Maybe it is time to walk away from the thing and ask for help or work on it when our mind is refreshed. Don't fear not getting it done the way it was planned. Nothing ever goes according to plan. There really are no plans. When one realizes that maybe our fear of accomplishing so much will end and our frustrations won't lead to anger. Ask yourself a few questions today before you fan your fire.
"Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end." Denis Waitley
"Discipline is the habit of taking consistent action until one can perform with unconscious competence. Discipline weighs ounces but regret weighs tons." Jhoon Rhee
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