Struggling for weeks on how
best to serve readers with “borrowed expertise”, I had my epiphany. Instead of
weaving an article from intelligence scoured from books and other publications,
to help them improve their life and chances for good fortune, by tweaking out
the destructive behaviors and tweaking in the constructive behaviors, it could
be better if they read the experts themselves.
My position as an enabler
with this project is, then, to do the heavy lifting, helping my readers access
the salient points, the keystone information without the struggle of sourcing
for the material.
This will allow readers the
capacity to apply the experts’ finding to their current situation. In other
words, this approach frees my readers from having to consume the material,
editorialized by me, nuanced to my situation and experience with life.
In other words, this is
efficacy in response to “just give me the facts,” the common dictate of this
speeding and distractive world.
So, here are “The Anger Notes” …
From the book, “The Upside
of Your Dark Side” by Todd Kashdan, Ph. D and Robert Biswas-Diener, Dr. Philos.
(pages: ix, x, 12, 29,53, 63-79, 94, 132, 201, 214 and 218).
Anger is a good example.
Research shows that rarely does anger turn into the kind of overwhelming rage
that leads to violence.
Instead it tends to bubble
up when you perceive an encroachment on your rights as a person.
Anger stirs you to defend
yourself and those you care about, and to maintain healthy boundaries.
{note to self: also on the
same page, important distinction between embarrassment and guilt. Also, the
concept of disqualifying the positive.}
Note the two types of
avoidance. Avoiding pleasure and avoiding pain.
The other form of avoidance,
by far the more common, is turning away from the so called negative
psychological states, such as anger and anxiety. This sentiment reflects the
philosophy of the Hedonists of the ancient Greece-the intellectual crosstown
rivals of the Stoics-who held the view that the best life is to be found in
pleasure.
{Anger is a corrective
psychological tool. It helps progress and improvement.}
Can
you imagine the historic fights for racial equality or gender rights without a
touch of anger?
Can you imagine living in a
world in which no one felt remorse?
{note to self: Trump?}
The problem with hedonistic
philosophy is that people become overly skeptical with anything negative.
[Using the incident when at
half time during a Laker’s game, coach Pat Riley was so angry with their first
half performance, that in a fit, he upended a tray of paper cups with water on
their star player, Kareem Abdul- Jabbar.]
Does anyone think the team
would have played better if Riley had gone to the locker room at half time
intending to create an atmosphere of joy, love or contentment?
Expressing anger in this
instance was exactly what the problem called for. As we see from the reactions
of the players, negative emotion can be highly motivational.
Unless you open yourself up
to unwelcome negative feelings, you will miss out on important opportunities to
wield some of life’s most useful tools.
[…having a pleasant day did
not influence the quality of the following day. Having a crappy day, on the
other hand, did spill over on how people felt when they woke up (groggy) ate
breakfast (the oatmeal is prison food), and went to work tailgating and cutting
off cars to shave off two minutes on the highway. The same pattern emerges time
and again in psychological research.]
…people are typically afraid
even if they do not often articulate this concern that their moods may lead
them to lose control and od things they otherwise wouldn’t.
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| Photo by Sunyu on Unsplash |
The most obvious case of
this is anger.
{…element of truth: justice
system’s stance that second degree murder in the heat of the moment is less
serious than planned first degree murder.}
Anger is unlikely to make
you criminal but it can affect you in surprising ways.
Researchers were interested in
the term “hotheaded” and wondered whether anger is somehow associated in
people’s mind with heat.
-researchers presented some
participants with words related to anger such as scornful, hostile and
irritated; then they were asked to guess the temperature of 30 unfamiliar
cities. They found that those who were
primed with angry words were far more likely to guess that a place was hot.
Our negative moods have
power over others.
Thomas Joiner (academic
psychologist, suicide expert, Florida State University), found; if one of the
roommates was depressed at the initial assessment, it increased the likelihood
that the others would develop depression over the subsequent three weeks.
{Caveat: The depressed
roommate is more likely to affect the others negatively than the happier
roommates is to turn the depressed roommates’ mood around.}
[Emotions-all emotions are
information. Your emotions act like a GPS monitor on your dashboard, giving you
metaphorical information on your location, the terrain in front of and behind
you, and your rate of progress.]
You want to feel the thrust
of your anger when you need to stick up for your children.
Immediately trying to tamp
down the {“bad”} emotion of anger or any other feeling, does little to shed
light on why the anger arisen and what course of action it might be pointing
to.
Without such so called
negative feelings, we would be living in a world devoid of fully functioning
humans.
Drawing on one of his personal
maxims-always offer two kind interactions before taking a more aggressive tone.
(ref: to Matthew Jacobs, a carpenter who stood up to a raging aggressor in
Vietnam.)
Negative emotions, anger in
Jacob’s case, often surface as a result of external circumstances (as opposed
to “coming from nowhere.”)
Anger is itself neither good
nor bad; it’s what you do with it that matters.
Research suggest that only
10% of angry episodes actually lead to some form of violence, which is evidence
that anger does not exactly equal to aggression.
Anger usually arises because
we believe we’ve been treated unfairly or that something is blocking our
ability to accomplish meaningful goals.
-63.3% of anger were blamed
on other people than things e.g. a computer keyboard
-Anger is typically caused
by what other people did, didn’t do or might possibly do.
Positivity alone is
insufficient to the task of helping us navigate social interactions and
relationships.
Research overwhelmingly
indicates that feeling angry increases
optimism, creativity and effective
performance, and that expressing anger leads to more successful negotiations and a fast track for mobilizing people into agents of
change.
…research found that people
who had been induced to feel mildly angry took bigger risks. Anger led them to
feel more inclined to explore the boundaries of possibility.
…commonly athletes psyche
themselves up by “getting mad.”
…when people get angry
they’re likely to feel control (effect) over the outcomes, believed a positive
outcome was highly probable, and were confident that risks would pay off.
…feels courage, forget fear,
otherwise you won’t get angry. Angry links to action. {context is important.}
…researchers found that
anger can provide an advantage in negotiations…By the third round of negotiations,
the person trying to sell phones to an angry buyer relented giving a steep 20%
discount and by the 6th round, 33% (discount).
The researchers suggest that
angry people are viewed as powerful and of high status in the moment {the anger
must not be faked.}
Martin Luther King Jr. said,
“the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a
transforming force.”
{Anger creates activists.}
When anger arises, we feel
called upon to prevent or terminate threats to our welfare, or to the wellbeing
of those we care about.
…altruism is often born from
anger. When it comes to mobilizing other people and creating support for a
cause, no emotion is stronger.
Anger is best wielded with
an attitude of respect-for the perspective- of the particular person or persons
who violated your wellbeing.
Prepare for the fallout
{prepare to get angry} and it becomes easier to tailor the most effective
expression of (the) anger.
The right way to get angry.
Discomfort
caveat. Let other people know explicitly that you are
experiencing intense emotions and because of this, it is more difficult than
usual for you to communicate clearly.
{To be angry effectively is
to reduce the likelihood that the opposing party gets angry.}
Apologize in
advance for the potential lack of clarity (not for your emotions or actions.)
Lead in with the statement
such as, “I want you to know that I am feeling uncomfortable right now, which
means that it’s not the best time for me to be expressing myself. But under the
circumstances it’s important of me to say….”
The aim of the discomfort
caveat is to disarm the person, to keep them from becoming defensive.
{explain why the anger
emerged…}
Dr. Ernest Harburg
(University of Michigan School of Public Health; Research Scientist Emeritus,
Epidemiology and Psychology) and his research team spent several decades
tracking the same adults in a longitudinal study of anger. They found that men
and women who hid the anger they felt in response to an unjust attack
subsequently found themselves more likely to get bronchitis and heart attacks
and were more likely to die earlier than peers who let their anger be known
when the other person were annoying.
…recognize the difference
between events that you can change and those that are beyond your ability to
control. E.g. no point expressing anger when you lose something due to
carelessness.
…how do you appropriately
communicate annoyance or anger in a way that leads to a healthy outcome?
…the key is to use
appropriate tone without demeaning the other person.
… slow down the
situation…give yourself permission to pause for a moment, even if someone is
standing there awaiting a response.
…make good decisions than
fast ones.
…the motive of slowing down
is not to make you get less angry than about giving yourself a wider range of
options to choose from an emotionally charged situation.
Think like a chess player.
Before deciding on a course of action, imagine how the other player will
counter and how the situation might look two moves from now.
…if it looks bad, consider
alternative behavior, imagine how they will counter that, and evaluate the
scenario.
…keep checking with
yourself. “is my anger helping or hurting the situation?”
Psychologist John Riskind, (George
Mason University) an expert in helping people with uncontrollable emotions {has
an important advice},
“Don’t pile on-believing the
sequence of events triggering the anger is accelerating, the danger is
escalating and the available window for taking action is quickly disappearing”
{Don’t create that pressure mentally.}
{Look for alternative,
milder, kinder words to use.}
{Learn to work with your
anger.}
{Angry at what? The person
or the action?}
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| Photo by Javardh on Unsplash |
From “The Happiness Track”
by Emma Seppala, Ph. D. (pages: 8,9,29,56,62,71, 145-146)
Tapping into Natural Resilience.
…if you can bring greater
relaxation and ease into your body, your mind will naturally be at its best and
have chance to reset from stress.
So what is the fastest way
to achieve well-being?
…your breath-a rapid and
reliable pathway to your nervous system dedicate to helping you regain your
optimal state.
…revealing study by Pierre
Philippot (a Belgian Psychologist) shows that your emotions change with your
breathing.
…when they took deep, slow
breaths, the participants felt calm and when they took rapid breaths, they felt
anxious and angry.
From the book, “Your
Survival Instinct is Killing You” by Marc Scheon, Ph.D.
(pages: 28, 30,45,60,
143-144)
…consider having anger free
days, in which you depend less or not at all on anger; focus on openness,
tolerance and acceptance, and even agree to smile when you don’t feel like it.
Participate in charitable
acts that you might not typically perform, such as volunteering or helping
someone else. (These) have proven to help abate unrelenting anger in people.
From the book, “Emotional
Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman, Ph. D.
(pages: 6,7,48, 59-65,
63-64,144,169-172,191, 255)
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| Photo by Rakower on Unsplash |
To be continued…