Coping with Anger?

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

the book chief fox mentioned is very good. i also liked these two alot as i like the budhist approach to emotions in general:

http://www.amazon.com/Places-that-Sc...e=UTF8&s=books

http://www.amazon.com/Anger-Thich-Nh...e=UTF8&s=books

my friend got me one and recommended the other. i felt bad at first, because when i opened the gift and saw "the places that scare you" on the cover i actually lold irl. i thought it was a joke. now that ****er sits on my headboard as one of the books ill pull out and read random passages out of before going to sleep. you really have to keep an open mind when reading the one by hanh as well. the way it was worded, about treating your anger like a baby and **** liek that, almost caused me to stop reading it after a few chapters. but ill be ****ed if some of the **** that little ****er wrote didnt hit me like a ton of bricks when i'd get ****ed. tonight i threw a printer. i still have a lot of work to do ... but if it werent for some of this reading throwing the printer would have just sparked me to break more and more ****. instead i realized what was happening and i went and took a shower to calm down before things got worse.

[SPJ]

we are all made out of flesh and blood.

meaning that the blood is warm, we have emotions.

we may practice meditation and "see" thru things beyond the "outward" appearances etc.

we may be calm as a placid lake or eye of the storm etc.

when the stress or anger/frustration thresthold is reached, we all "explode" in outbursts of emotions.

the water squirt was intended to be "funny" or just a "joke".

we may laugh it off and shake hands--

we may talk about why you would do that in a formal interview. that is amounting to an insult. which Tom did.

or we may just grab the thing and squirt it back.

just do not give the magazine or media something to report and do an article about--

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[Royal Dragon]

It sounds like your friend needed to get cracked...but good. It also sounds like you gave him just what he needed without going over board and being overly agressive.

Instead of worrying about your getting physical, be proud you had the selfcontroll not to pound him into the dust he probably deserved to be pounded into.

You did fine. You were controlled, and not excessive.

Agression has it's place and use. There are times when a little calculated "uleashing of the beast" is called for. You did not start beating him uncontrollably or unstoppably. You didn't even kick his ass when it sounds like he justly deserved it. You gave him a small taste of what was waiting for him if he pressed the issue. Hopefully he was smart enough to recognise the deterent and back off.

Sometimes physical contact is the only communication your advisary will understand. You gave him just enough to get the message across. Don't be hard on yourself for it, congradulate yourself for doing it just the right amount and not a bit more.

If he starts with you again, I sugjest one good Pao Chui to the chest (not explosive shattering power, but lots of push so he flys back really far, with just enough penetration so he really feels it)...just to show him how much power he's really dealing with. Putting the fear of God in him might be all you need to, or needed to do.

[Shaolin Wookie]

As a former/now seasonal distance runner, I can say....DO NOT RUN ANGRY.

You won't breathe right, or pay attention to what your'e doing. Before you know it you'll be ten miles from home, hacking up a lung.....wondering how the **** you're going to get back home.

Then you'll know true anger.

The way to deal with anger is to laugh at life. When people give me ****, I take it, smile, and then put it in a neat little biodegradable baggie, and throw it away. There is nothing in this world worth getting angry at. It happens, and sometimes I get a little miffed, but then I wind up laughing at myself. I used to be an angry guy. But then I worked in the kitchens at a Univ. of GA dining facility and scrubbed pots and floors for eight hours a day for four and a half years (didn't have a car to get off campus for another job).

I hated that job. It made me stink...working over a steaming vat of water, scrubbing invincible scum off of pots, scrubbing all that crap off of the floors, cleaning out garbage cans......I stunk. My clothes stunk. And then I'd have to walk a mile in the cold January wind each night with wet boots and sweaty jeans, huddled up like a friggin' bum. Man....I had major anger issues. Since I couldn't afford to do laundry every friggin two days...or the time...I wound up smelling kind of bad all the time. One girlfriend quit me, saying, you're just.....so blue collar. People gave me funny looks---I was takin 20 hours of classes and working 40 hours a week---so I got indignant...kind of like flashed them the look that says: "look at me like that again and I'll **** you the **** up!! Iwork twice as hard as you lazy rich ****ers!!!" I couldn't believe that I was getting a college degree, working such a ****ty, mindless job.

So I understand where you're coming from. But after four and a half years of scrubbing pots and floors, I had this one experience mid-scrub on Italian food day (the worst, b/c the marinara gets cooked into the pot and is a ***** to scrub off)......and my stress just fell away. I've always called it my moment of enlightenment.... I just lost track of myself. I saw things simply. I stopped relating everything around me to myself. People gave me instructions on how to complete a task, they opinionated about the results, etc....but it didn't matter to me at all--I just focused on the task and did it. (I know this sounds banal, but it was a truly profound thing that happened to me. I extracted myself from the stuff around me and looked at it from the outside, rather than as the point-of-projection). Some people crack, some get angry, and some achieve enlightenment...I suppose. I began to laugh at indignation. Stress is the result of taking yourself too seriously. I mean come on...if someone was angry that I didn't scrub pots fast enough, I'd just laugh, because in the grand scheme of things, this was such a trivial matter. 7 million years of evolution, and a hairless ape was shouting at another hairless ape to scrub a pot so some rich hairless apes could get their food faster. Kind of puts things in perspective..... .

Stress is going to be there all around you, but you don't have to take it. Just be Neo, with four bullets flying towards you.....you just look at it calmly, and say "no", and the **** won't hit you...yeah...it sounds hokey . I graduated from college and have worked on a forklift for three years to get money for graduate school (starting this fall ) in a job that's even worse than Univ. Food Svcs. (now I come home covered in dirt, after working in GA's summer heat and cold winters). Everyone's always stressed and screaming at each other, *****ing about how much work they do, and how they're unappreciated. They often direct their complaints to me, or at me, because I work hard and am responsible (funny how guys with work ethic catch flack from the biggest slackers in any industry ). I just shrug, laugh, and smile, chuckling "Whatever..."

The things that matter are MA, girlfriends (or wives and kids), reading, writing, music (piano), etc. Who cares what anyone else thinks? It's all a matter of keeping things in perspective. We're a bunch of hairless apes wearing designer jeans, eating genetically alter foods, watching digital recreations of reality on an electical box.......

Evolution's a wonderful thing.

[Shaolin Wookie]

I always call it human abstraction.

Anyways...everyone needs their own method for dealing with anger. It's not one size fits all.

Something you have to work at......and sometimes it's just a peace that hits you on the head, coming from out of nowhere.

[SPJ]

I know this is about anger thread.

I usually take 3 deep breaths and slowly exhaling out all the bad Chi. or take a swim and relax.

I am calm again.

most of the time, we are busy, if not we start to feel depressed or sad.

we also feel anxiety or worry too much about the world, work, etc etc.

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I always go the beach and watch the waves and the whales.

or look at the stars in a clear nite.

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we are not alone, and we are so small, one of a millions--

my worries, depression etc or problems no longer significant--

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this is how I cope--

[mickey]

Hi CaptinPickAxe,

I haven't had a moment like that in a very long time. While I will not advise meditation, I suggest introspection.

Ask yourself:

How did you allow yourself to get into that situation?

When did you start to lose control? (Hint: It was long before that confrontation)


Please come back to this thread with answers. We'll talk more.


mickey

[Oso]

if a loud mouth needs a punch, oblige him. It is not outside the realm of good sense to do so.

i have to agree with DJ on this a bit. some people are asking for it...especially if they specifically ask for it.

i'm not advocating a lifestyle of continuously responding to *******s with violence but every once in a while, when they push you beyond a reasonable level of acceptance to their assholiness...whack 'em.

Question: with the throwing and groundwork you know why wouldn't you just clinch, control and takedown and submit thereby humiliating them but not actually harming them?

and as a counterpoint to the above: one of the things I say to my students is that the main reason why they shouldn't fight is because they can.

[D-FENS]

I usually find a few rounds of "Rampage" on Midway Arcade Classics does it for me. Nothing works out your frustrations like levelling a city and eating its inhabitants. It also helps to yell obscenities at the screen while doing so. It's a great stress-release.

BTW, I always pick the lizard.

[Oso]

love it...i'll pick one of my diabloII characters that sufficiently skilled enough to lay waste and spend 30 minutes or so whacking demons and undead.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

i log onto a free shard for some old school uo to go out pk'n, but usually i just get killed myself and end up even more mad.

[SPJ]

some people believe that there is a pill for everything, depression, anxiety, fear and even anger.

ok just take the anger pill and call me in the morning, it is honey+benadryl.

so sleep it out.

some people believe there is the herb or diet for everything, depression, anger.

ok, what would you eat for calming youself down, a toast, a cup of camoline tea, a glass of milk--

for me half shelf oysters with ginger slices and wasabe and a pitcher of dark beer will do. pretzel is fine, too.

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my bro would just go to a karaoke bar and sing all his stresses and emotions out.

my sis would just shop till drop or max out the credit cards.

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