Anger is a Choice: Being Accountable

There are three elements for anger management to come full circle. First, you must identify the anger in its many forms. Second, begin to understand the factors causing anger to remain. Third, change your patterns of thinking to promote a healthier lifestyle consistent with Biblical principles by learning God’s ways and applying them to daily living. It is important to succeed in all three. If you fail to implement the third step, your efforts will not produce the results you desire. New insights and awareness mean very little until they prompt you to make significant adjustments in your behavior and lifestyle.

Appling your insights: Anger management advances when awareness is put into action. You can make several adjustments in your behavior to confirm that you have succeed in managing your anger including, setting goals to be more relational, making amends, choose to be positive in your communication, and being authentic.    

Set Goals to become more relational: Anger expressed improperly fails to achieve its goal. Misused anger creates an emotional atmosphere of rejection, pessimism (expecting the worst), and self-centeredness, ultimately leaving everyone involved dissatisfied. Once you begin to understand the root causes of your anger, create goals that will reflect a change of heart. Be known as someone who finds the good in others. Find joy in the small pleasures of life, such as a quiet dinner with family. Be courteous to others even when problems are not completely resolved. Choose to accept the imperfections of others, just as you want others to accept your imperfections.

Making amends with those you have wronged: An inevitable by-product of misguided anger is damaged relationships. It is not enough for us to resolve to move forward with a new perspective on managing anger. To truly find balance we must be willing to make amends with those who been hurt by our past behavior and attitudes such as asking the one whom you offended to forgive you for specific wrongs. While there are no guarantees that we can tie down all loose ends involving past anger, we can proceed with a clean future when we are willing to take the lead in our commitments to emotional healthiness.

Choose to be positive in your communication: Ongoing anger inhibits positive traits. Rather than being friendly or encouraging, anger can cause us to be cynical, critical, or withdrawn. Instead, be a better listener. Initiate friendly and sincere exchange. Show some enthusiasm towards the interests of others. Be more flexible and less rigid in your daily interactions. The true test of anger management is revealed in who you become after you have chosen to manage your anger differently. Balance is found when reasonable issues are communicated in a proper and respectful manner.

 

Be authentic about your anger-management efforts: For change to be effective, you need to be open and real about your changes with people who know you well. It is one thing to decide quietly that you will handle your anger more appropriately, but you will be more powerfully motivated to maintain your adjustments when you openly describe what will be different. As we share our needs and plans, we create the very atmosphere of growth and encouragement that will prompt ongoing emotional healthiness. 

Why Anger Lingers

Rationalizations that perpetuate anger: Facing reality is difficult. We may really want to change but we resist the idea of hard work. It requires persistent effort and willingness to restructure the thoughts and perceptions that guide and direct us. When we cling to anger in spite of potentially helpful knowledge and insights, it is usually due to making excuses to avoid the hard work of change. Instead of admitting that we have chosen to react in anger, we would rather believe, “My anger is in me because of someone else’s problems.” 

My past is too painful: Most people with long-standing anger problems have an emotional history full of pain. Most commonly, angry people recall having a parent with a foul temper. Later in life, these same people have similar painful experiences in their adult lives with spouses, relatives, or close friends. After years of enduring attacks, futility settles in, causing a pessimistic “what’s–the-use?” mind-set to guide their emotions. To get beyond a painful past, we must humbly admit our inability to control others. This requires us to accept a difficult notion: Pain is inevitable, cannot be fully controlled or eliminated, and sometimes is almost unbearable. You cannot control the past, but you can choose a new direction for yourself.

Forgiveness is too good: The ultimate goal in anger management is to drop the anger and instead, choose forgiveness. But what happens when the person to be forgiven has done nothing to deserve that forgiveness? We cling to anger because forgiveness seems to let others off the hook too easily. Certainly the person being forgiven can choose to feel a sense of relief and can decide to mend his or her erroneous ways. However, there is no guarantee this will always occur, but we are still potentially assisting others in their spiritual growth when we choose to forgive. An ever higher motive to forgive is that it pleases God when we yield to His guidance. Forgiveness honors Him.

Why should I try when nobody else does? Anger reduction is much easier when everyone involved makes equal effort toward harmony. But that’s not very likely in many cases. Usually, one person lags behind the efforts of another. They cling to their anger, because they perceive things are not fair. We ask for more trouble when we require fairness as a prerequisite for anger management. You may really want to resolve the problem, but in light of the other person’s stubborn ignorance you stay stuck in your anger, waiting for him or her to make the right move. You can move forward, but to do so, you’ll have to drop the idea that things must be fair.

Anger is a familiar habit: Just as we can become addicted to alcohol, food, or materialism, we can also become addicted to anger. Some people seem to enjoy staying angry. Anger has become a core element to their identity. Inwardly, something tells them that their anger is harmful, yet it is such a familiar habit they wouldn’t know how to think or act without it. They’re angry response far exceeds the importance of the conflict at hand. While you cannot dictate which emotions will or will not enter your mind, you have a choice about the intensity of that emotion. To reduce anger, take responsibility by allowing God to guide your emotions and take personal accountability for your own choices.