Hot Headed???

[msu17 0]

I think some people where the rubber band when they are trying to break a habit, like smoking... every time they feel like taking a smoke the snap the rubber band...

In our HS psych class we were supposed to break a bad habit. One of the kids decided to stop masturbating. Every time he'd have a naughty thought he'd snap hsi rubber band. Of course it got out, so all the girls kept trying to make it more difficult for him... He went through so many rubber bands... HAHA!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Primary vs. Secondary Feelings

Perhaps the most helpful thing to remember about anger is that it is a secondary emotion. A primary feeling is what is felt immediately before we feel angry. We always feel something else first before we get angry.

We might first feel afraid, attacked, offended, disrespected, forced, trapped, or pressured. If any of these feelings are intense enough, we think of the emotion as anger.

Geneally speaking, secondary feelings do not identify the unmet emotional need (UEN). When all I can say is "I feel angry," neither I nor any one else knows what would help me feel better. A helpful technique, then, is to always identify the primary emotion.

Here is an example. Assume someone wants us to do something we prefer not to do. At first we feel a little pressured, but not enough to get angry. When they keep pushing us, we begin to get irritated. If they continue, we get "angry". Such anger damages often relationships. One suggestion on how to avoid getting angry in this case would be to express your initial feeling by saying "I feel pressured" before the feeling has escalated to the point of destructive anger. If the person respects your feelings and does not

them, they may stop their pressure. Even if they do not, I believe it is helpful to know what the specific feeling is. Knowing exactly how we feel with others and why helps us in several ways. First it raises our self-awareness in general. Second, it helps us communicate more precisely. Third, it helps us learn more quickly who respects our feelings and who we want to spend time with.

Anger as a Response to Fear

One of the primitive functions of an animal's response to fear is to frighten away the attacker. But in modern human life, we often frighten away those who we need and care about most. Besides this, prolonged anger has clear health consequences. According to Dr. Herbert Benson, these include heart attacks, hardening of the arteries, strokes, hypertension, high blood pressure, heart rate changes and metabolism, muscle and respiratory problems. (The Relaxation Response, 1975)

Responding To and Learning From Anger

Anger is an intense emotion. It is evidence that we feel strongly about something. As with every emotion, it has a lesson for us. It can teach us what we value, what we need, what we lack, what we believe and what our insecurities are. It can help us become more aware of what we feel strongly about and which emotional needs are important to us. One way to learn from anger is shown in the example below:

Instead of saying,

She never should have done that. I can't believe how irresponsible, insensitive and inconsiderate she is. What a cold- hearted, evil witch she is.

a more productive response is:

I am really upset by this. Why does it bother me so much? What specifically am I feeling? What are my primary feelings? What need do I have that is not being met? What principles of mine have been violated?

From the answers to these questions, we can decide what course of action to take in view of what our goals are. Simply being aware that we have multiple options and that we can decide to pick the best one helps soothe the anger. It may help, for instance, to ask if we really want to frighten away the person we are angry at. As soon as we "upshift" and begin to think about our options and their consequences, and make appropriate plans, we start to feel more in control and less threatened. We get out of the automatic stimulus-response mode and realize that we have choices.

There is a quote which goes like this:

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. - Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

http://eqi.org/anger.htm