Have you noticed that people seem to be more hostile and impulsive these days? Everything is fodder for contentiousness. Anger seems to be a hair-trigger’s breadth away for many. As a result, aggression in the workplace is increasing as well. Physical altercations, from fistfights to semi-automatic fire, are becoming more commonplace.
Handling anger, yours and others, is not something you come by naturally. It’s not routinely taught by parents, schools, or society. Instead you’re generally told to stifle or swallow it. Get over it. That not only doesn’t help but also makes matters worse.
You’re supposed to act as if the emotion doesn’t exist. And when it does, you’re told you don’t have a right or legitimate reason to experience it. Because of this, you are likely to have few or no skills with which to address it. Consequently, you’re often unprepared when you encounter it in yourself or in others.
When you’re angry, your body is pumping adrenaline, preparing muscles to fight. You’re on auto-pilot. Something or someone has frustrated, disappointed, or hurt you, and you want to get even. So all you want to do is act, to strike out in any way you can. But while there is some immediate satisfaction in doing so, this aggression will tend to be self-reinforcing. That is, you’re going to feel rewarded for attacking and, thus, likely to approach similar problems in a similar way in the future. This becomes self-sabotage.
The basic problem with this emotion-initiated response is that it results in mindless behavior which provokes retaliation. Retaliation further escalates the original anger. Anger begets anger unless you short-circuit the feedback loop.
Because this is a self-defeating approach where no one wins, you need to find better ways to handle the anger you feel and encounter. The first thing you need to do is recognize your anger. Sometimes this is hard because you were probably taught that anger is bad and you shouldn’t feel it. But you do feel it. It’s one of your basic emotions along with happiness, fear, and sadness. So validate it. What is bad isn’t the presence of the emotion but your not handling it effectively.
Once you acknowledge it, you need to step back to see what provoked it. You need to ask what makes you respond as you do. This not only gives you some useful insight into the situation but also slows you down so you won’t be as quick to act to throw a verbal or physical punch.