Photo by valpopando

One of the ways we stay stuck in anger is by repeating the same patterns over and over again. We get triggered by the same people at work, we experience the same life frustrations, we have the same fight with our partner, time and time again.

If we look closely we’ll see that there is a storyline with our anger, a richly textured film that we play out, over and over again. The same kinds of things tend to trigger our anger story, and every time we encounter these triggers we have the same patterned responses.

In order to break free of this cycle we have to somehow make the first move. The patterns that keep us stuck are mental structures, and in order to get unstuck we have to manually break those structures. This is the kindest thing we can do for ourselves: to begin to release the death grip that anger holds on us. It’s like having a long fight with someone – finally someone has to make the first gesture and do something different if we ever hope the fight to end. We need to take pro-active anger management steps to cut the cycle.

An Anger Management Process for Changing the Patterns

Sit down and spend some time getting to know your anger story. Keep an anger journal and then trace the patterns. Once you have some familiarity with the how the story of anger plays out in  your life, choose a scenario that occurs over and over again, and write out how you normally respond. Once you’ve done that, then think about and write out an alternative response or responses.

Now you have a clear anger management plan of how to change the pattern. Work with this scenario day to day until you have some success in actualizing the new response. Then, congratulate yourself, celebrate with joy, and then choose another scenario, and do the whole process again. And so on…

By Craig Mollins