You ever get so angry you can bite through a block of wood?
My son at age 4, wanted to watch his favorite cartoon. We could not let him have screen time. He started open and slamming the cupboard door, which was hanging on one loose hinge. I implored him to please stop the banging as it would break the cupboard, and then invariably, everything took a turn for the worst. He broke off the cupboard door. I felt my emotions rising to a hissing pulse in my ears as I started counting the cost to fix the door and also his disrespectful refusal to listen to me.
What is your strategy to manage this rising invisible emotion?
Here are 2 questions to help
- Do you know why this is happening?
- What good may be derived from its occurrence?
Why is this happening?
He has an emotional reaction, and I am reacting. I know he is angry, but his causes will take some deeper analysis.
Monitor the causes for you. I have written some examples to help get you started on thinking about yours.
- The Disrespectful, the inconsiderate, and the impolite have minimal regard for others and treat you with disdain.
- The Arrogant is both inconsiderate and disrespectful in that they have made up their mind solely on their opinion. The arrogant will either ignore or cut you off, not wishing to listen or see your perspective. You are left both unseen and rudely dealt with.
- The Bully or the Bossy usually takes on a forceful arrogant form. If the arrogant is passive, the bully is aggressive, pushes their opinion onto you, and expects you to accept it.
- The Hypocrite; says one thing and does another. As the cliche says, “Do as I say and not as I do.”
- The Wrongful Accuser; This usually has roots in an exaggerated story to such an extent that it becomes distorted and false.
- The Tattle Tail usually falls into the wrongful accuser because they want their audience to side with them, so the story becomes exaggerated and distorted. For example, An actual touch becomes a punch in the story. A six becomes an eight.
- The Entitled are usually complaining about how things are so hard for them, but the reality is their audience, you have a similar situation or, in some cases, worse.
Traditionally I have been a one-trick pony to manage these situations. I call it “The Evasion strategy.” Evasion is a very primitive way to manage it, but it works. The issue is when you cannot evade the source of the emotional stimulation. How do you keep the emotions at bay and not flood red hot?
You will need more mature strategies to prevent emotional flooding and stay in the yellow zone. Sleep more. A siesta helps to have a greater amount of emotional energy to manage the rising emotional storm. Strategies to reduce flooding may include:
- Timeout/pullout/take a break—timeout not as a punishment but for cooling down.
- Calm water or a warm bath or shower
- Exercise off the energy of emotion
- Breathing to slow heart rate
- Gut-busting humor to change direction
- Music and scents to calm emotions
- Reading to redirect the mind
- Soothing touch or massage to connect.
- Using your words is only possible if you are in the yellow zone and aware of your trigger. You will not let a drunk person drive, and you should not tell an emotionally charged person to talk, and for this reason, I listed this last. Another important note is DO NOT use these above labels as you explain things but rather state things from your opinion. For Eg, I feel overlooked, NOT You are acting arrogant. If they are wrongfully accusing you, say I think you really mean to say, “X,” correcting the statement as you experienced it and explain what you mean by your comment (if needed).
What good may be derived?
If you can answer this, it will be powerful in your moving past, future occurrences. In this case, it was how to understand others then be understood.
