One of the major problems we as men have is dealing with our anger. You have probably heard that this is because we have a hard time dealing with our emotions. Yet the fact of the matter is that men do deal with their emotions, but not necessarily in a constructive away.

Usually we deal with anger in two ways, either by stuffing it or by striking out.

Anger is an emotion, but like a cake it is made up of different ingredients. For instance, you might say, "That so and so made me angry". But under analysis you might discover that person didn't make you angry, it was just the way you responded to what they did. You could have just as well reacted in happiness or another type of emotion. It depends on the way you process the situation. The way you process the information is dependent on differing factors such as past experiences, upbringing, etc. Therefore our reaction is learned, not inherited. We learned to be angry.

Anger is an emotion and as such is reactive to the way we are thinking. Emotions follow thought and as such they are responders. What you are thinking is usually what you are feeling. If you are angry it is because you are thinking angry thoughts, or, thoughts that trigger the emotion of anger in you. Yet it is not the stimulation that makes you angry, it is your response to the stimulation. Our particular response individually is conditioned and learned over time.

Anger is an emotion. But it isn't as automatic as we often associate it. In fact, anger is a choice. Although we might excuse ourselves because we were tired, stressed, or by using a national and/or racial stereotypes, i.e.; Irish or Italian or Hispanic, or whatever. The truth none of these things have nothing to do with our anger. We get angry because we choose to be angry.

This is where we get the idea of "pushing someone's buttons". That simply means we know what we can do to get someone to act in a particular way. This is a knowledge that comes from observing them. "I know just how to get them angry!"

We all have this kind of knowledge of other people, and we like to use it too don't we? Yet we don't like it so much when other people find and push our buttons. This is why we wear such a mask all the time to hide them. Our mask is on most of the time to protect us against others who would expose our buttons.

That's why home is such a nice place to be - -sometimes. We can at least to a certain extent "let our hair down." We can take off the mask, relax our guard. We can be ourselves.

Men have a greater difficulty managing their emotions than women. The reasons for this are well known. For years we have heard that men were raised to not show their emotions. There is some truth to this assertion, although over the last twenty years or so it has changed as society norms have changed.

Most often when we talk about managing our anger we are really talking about controlling an emotion. That is really the key we are looking for. The problem is that we think that we have no control over our emotions. When we get angry we excuse ourselves by saying "I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself, I just got angry." It's like our outburst came out of the sky like a big bird and attacked us.

When I say that we choose to be angry it is because our anger is because emotions are simply responding to our thoughts. They are going to happen automatically to whatever we are thinking about. If we are thinking angry thoughts, we are going to be angry. Therefore, if we want to manage our anger, we are going to have to learn how to manage our thinking. We are going to have to modify our way of reacting to situations. We have to disable the buttons.

If we take a situation that we usually get angry at - for instance we can't find our car keys in the morning, we can dissect our reaction to see WHY we are getting angry so that we can modify our reaction. First a little values check. How much does getting angry help us find our keys? Not much when you think of it. We just get loud, wake up the family and the neighbors. But it is usually when we stop to take a breath and calm down that we find our keys. Usually right where we left them.

What happens when we notice they are gone is a process called the" Situational Reaction Matrix". The situation is that we cannot find our keys. Immediately our thoughts begin to access the problem according to the way we have learned to process this and similar situations.

Let me give you the usual thought pattern. 1) We can't find the keys. 2) We think, "Oh NO, now I'm going to be late for work!" As we continue to look for our keys we continue to get more and more agitated. The reason? Our thoughts begin to escalate towards the negative. Where we were thinking that we were going to be late, now we are thinking we are going to get into serious trouble, perhaps even fired. After that we start thinking, "Man, I'm going to get fired, lose my house, my car, I'll be on the street...."

Subsequently, because we are thinking fearful thoughts, anger becomes the result because the secondary reaction to fear is anger. It is like when you loose your kid in the store. At first you are fearful, then when you find them, you get angry and want to kill them. First the fear, then the anger.

Again, what have we really gained from all this expended energy? Not a thing. We have just produced a whole lot of energy reacting to subjective reasoning. The only real occurrence is that we have misplaced our keys. None of the other things we thought of were real. But just by thinking they were has produced anger in us. Wasted anger. Wasted energy.

In our relationship with our wife this happens all the time. While the example above shows just one of hundreds of situations that come to us every day. If we process them all in the same way we can only imagine what the result would be. We would be angry most of the day.

Many people live their entire life in the subjective realm. They fantasize about all the "could of and should haves" of life. Either living in the past or spinning furiously into the future (in their mind). This isn't reality, but fantasy -or subjective thinking.

The way to handle our anger is to keep our thinking objective. That is in the now, with what is actually happening. In the case of the keys that means to keep with the only problem present - the keys are missing. In other cases it means to keep focused only what is actually going on.

FEAR - THE REAL REASON BEHIND ANGER

Men who abuse their wives claim they just got angry. The fact is that they really are just fearful. Fear like anger is an emotion, and isn't in and of itself a wrong emotion. Fear is built into us to allow us to react to dangerous situations, just like in other animals. It is known scientifically as the "Fight or Flight" response. Many men shun the assertion that they are fearful --the macho idea that we are MEN and do not fear anyone! But we do fear, any man who doesn't think he fears of something is deceived or a liar.

Yet the problems come because we as humans have the rational ability to think in the future and past and fantasize about "what might happen". So in the case of a an abusive husband he might be fearful over finances, or his relationship with his wife, or his own mortality. This is a broad example, but typical. All that fear, most of which is based on subjective thinking, can quickly "overload" causing him to react in anger. Now this isn't an excuse for abuse, but it does tell us that there is a reason for it. I have seen it over and over again that once a man comes to understand
his anger comes from fear the abuse usually stops.

So how do we get a handle on anger?

First - Realize that anger is an emotion based on thought. Nothing makes us angry, it is OUR response to the situation that determines the emotion.We can react calm or angry depending on how we view what is going on.

Second - Because anger is based on our thinking, to modify the reaction, we have to modify our thoughts. It is how we think about the situation is what counts. In the case of the keys, we can use a little self-talk, to calm us.
"Ok, the keys are missing, now where did I put them."

Of course a little prior planning, i.e.; putting them in a prescribed location (key hook in the kitchen) so that we will always be able to find them.

Third - Since anger is a secondary reaction to fear, if we are fearful we will also have the tendency to be angry as well. Therefore we have to keep our fears in check if we want to control our anger. That is easier said than done, but we can do it if we realize that real fear is a natural reaction to a REAL circumstance. When we fear the future (projecting) or past (regression) we are experiencing fear of a phantom-a non existent circumstance.

The real difference between fear based on reality and that of imagination is TIME. The duration of a real threat may be sustained, but it is usually short lived. Our ancestors feared the creature only so long as it took to get eaten, or they killed it.

Imaginary fear has a tendency to be more prolonged because the threat never materializes. Therefore there is no crescendo. There is no end to the tension. Therefore the fear is prolonged and when prolonged over a period of time it can turn into anger. If prolonged even further this anger can turn into depression.

One way to look at depression is that it is the IMPRESSION left by FEAR.

KEY: Proper thinking. That is, keeping our thoughts in the WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW will keep our fear in check. Remember when a real threat comes our way it is perfectly natural to feel fear. It motivates us to confront or run away (a survival technique). But when it is based on imagined threats it can cause us to act out in a destructive way and without any real threat there is no real conclusion.

Understanding Anger Part Two