One way we perpetuate anger is with our speech. Words are powerful because they reinforce our thoughts. Negative and angry speech creates and supports a negative and angry mind. So an effective way to work with your anger is to pay attention to how you use words. Here are some speech points to reflect on:

• Watch how much you curse. Swearing is a strong expressive statement, and it generally creates bad effect in the environment and in your mind. If you swear a lot, start letting go of the cursing habit, and start shaping your speech to be more gentle and uplifted.
• Do you frequently speak negatively about other people? If so you are setting yourself up for angry encounters, and for a negative angry disposition in general. Make an effort to cut back on the bad talk, and see how much difference it makes.
• Do you continually complain about things? This is another negative speech habit that creates an angry state of mind. Notice how much you complain and then start to work with cutting the complaining impulse.
• Blame is another one, similar to complaining. Blaming people or situations is basically giving away all your power because you are failing to take responsibility for your own state of mind. As long as your anger and happiness are dependent on others, you will never gain strength or confidence in life. Start cutting through the blame game now, and develop the habit of seeing how it is you, and you alone who has the power over your own life.
• Another strong anger speech habit is disagreement. In my own life I used to continually disagree with people, and it kept me in constant conflict. The thing is, it’s always possible to disagree with people. None of us are the same and it’s the nature of things that we all have unique ideas, beliefs, and thoughts.

But just because we don’t think alike is not a cause to express disagreement. Yes from time to time we may need to disagree when something real is at stake, or we may disagree with a friend just to keep the conversation lively, but these forms of disagreement are very different than the habitual knee jerk disagreement that perpetuates anger in our life.

Notice how much you disagree with people. Observe the effect it has on your relationships, and how much it adds to the anger in your life. And then do what you can to change the disagreement pattern.

With these points, it can be helpful to focus on them one at a time, for a given time period of several days or a week. You may also want to take notes throughout the day to track your experience.

By Craig Mollins