Try Forgiving Yourself If You Are Angry At Someone Else

When we feel hurt or angry, it’s easy to fault someone else. “You’re to blame,” we insist. “You made me feel this way.” But the fact that we feel upset at someone doesn’t necessarily mean he or she is guilty.

Sometimes our rage is our own, forged in our own hearts and minds, fed by our personalities, our provocations, our exaggerated response to conflict. Yes, this other person may have done something to offend us, but perhaps not to the degree that our intense response would suggest. Our reaction may be entirely inappropriate or even dangerously misguided.

Owning up to your issues - tearing down your defenses and looking honestly at yourself—can be painful work. The process may teach you that you were more than just a victim, and that, perhaps, there is no one to forgive but yourself.

The same factors that influenced the way the offender treated you may have influenced the way you treated him. Again, some of these factors may be external. You might ask yourself, “What was going on in my world at the time of the injury that may have affected me emotionally, making me feel more vulnerable, less in control, less resilient, so that I reacted inappropriately? Did these life events throw me off-balance and lead me to act in ways that were callous or otherwise offensive?”

Internal factors may also shape your response. It helps to ask such questions as, “How did my personality affect my reaction? How did it influence the way I was treated?” If you’re innately shy, say, and the offender took this personally and assumed you didn’t like him, that was his mistake, not yours. You didn’t hurt him; his mistaken assumptions about you hurt him.

But if you’re shy and didn’t speak up and then felt offended that someone didn’t show interest in you or respect your position, you need to confront how you contributed to your own pain. It may be that your own silence - not his behavior - set a trap for you.

What about your dysfunctional ideas about yourself and the world, ideas that may have been based on damaging early life experiences? Did they play a role in your mistreatment? These fixed ideas often pre-date the offense and even your relationship with the offender, and create what are called “channels” of psychological vulnerability. What happens is that your heightened sensitivity - to being abandoned or ridiculed, for example 0 leads you to misperceive or mis-react to events today.

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Insecurity: Learn to identify your personality type

Internal conflict is considered conflict that you have within yourself. It reflects the difference between what you really feel and what you do about it. On the other hand, “interpersonal” conflict occurs between you and another person.

Everyone has four basic psychological needs. When these needs are violated, conflicts are produced. When conflicts are produced, people react in one of four ways. They can retaliate, dominate, isolate, or cooperate.

The four basic psychological needs are: The need to be valued and treated as a human being; the need to have control; the need for self esteem and self worth; and the need to be consistent.

Let’s start with the first need, and that is the need to be valued and treated as a human being. We all need to be appreciated. We all want for others to recognize our worth. We all want other people to value us and our contributions. People are more motivated when they are being recognized. Every time we feel unappreciated, taken advantage of, or taken for granted, our strong needs to be appreciated and valued have been violated, thus triggering our fear and anger response.

The second is the need to be in control. Being in control is an important matter for everyone, more for some than others. The more insecure you feel about yourself, the more controlling you become. On the other hand, if you feel secure and confident about yourself, then the less need you have to control others. Remember this the next time you have to deal with a very controlling person.

Third, we have the need for self esteem and self worth. A strong self esteem gives a powerful, solid groundwork for dealing with all types of situations in the right way. With a strong self esteem, you have the ability to respond to any type of situations, rather than react to it. Responding to a problem means approaching it in a positive, controlled way and is always open to solutions. On the other hand, reacting to a problem means approaching it in a negative, emotional, and often inappropriate way.

And finally, we have the need to be consistent. As soon as you put your foot down and decided on a situation, it’s very hard to go back and admit your mistake. The need to be consisted, along with the need to be right makes saving face a very important factor in most conflicts.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Why do we hurt the ones we love?

Have you ever been involved with an upsetting argument in the past with someone close to you like a friend, family member, or spouse? Of course you have, most everyone has had been upset with people they love.

What is ironic about these arguments is that we tend to say things in the heat of the moment to our loved ones that hurt their feelings. Many arguments that we have with the people close to us in our lives are ones that we wouldn’t even have with a stranger.

So why is it that when we are angry we tend vent this anger out to another person that is almost always somebody close to us like our spouse, our kids, or a close friend? Why is it that sometimes we treat strangers better than we treat our own family and friends?

It is obvious that anger does not look very loving when it is coming out. The ironic part about getting upset is that we do it most often to the people we love the most in our lives. There are times when we are having a hard time at home with our spouse or kids and treat strangers better than we are treating our family.

You see, the reason why we tend to show more of our anger towards our loved ones is because the more love that you feel towards a person, the more open your heart is. And the more open you are, the more vulnerable you will become to those you love. This is where the protective emotion of anger comes in.

When we choose to stay in a long term relationship and marry someone, all of our intentions are usually the very best. Most people do not plan on getting together only to have violent arguments and psychologically damaging each other. We happen to get into these senseless scenarios by being blinded and consumed by our fear and anger.

What starts out as anger quickly moves into violence when it stimulates retaliation and revenge. You have to be emotionally healthy in order to avoid these painful consequences.

You must always be conscious of your choices and be aware of your actions. Try to feel compassion while experiencing strong emotions. If you want to keep yourself and your loved ones safe during high emotional and stressful situations, then you must reach this point of mental awareness.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Learn Why Blame Causes You To Feel Worse Than The People You Are Angry At

When we think about a hurt, our body reacts as if it is in danger and activates what is known as the fight-or-flight response. The body releases chemicals whose purpose is to prepare us to respond to danger through fighting back or running away. The chemicals released are known as stress chemicals. They are designed to make us uncomfortable so that we will do something to get ourselves out of danger.

These stress chemicals get our attention by causing physical changes. They cause the heart to speed up and blood vessels to constrict. This raises blood pressure. Our liver dumps cholesterol into our bloodstream so that it can gum up our heart in case we lose too much blood. The stress chemicals alter our digestion and cause our muscles to tighten. Our breathing becomes shallower, and our senses are heightened to cope with the problem at hand. Digestion ceases, and blood flow is diverted to the center of the body. We feel jumpy and uncomfortable.

So Who Is To Blame For These Uncomfortable Physical Feelings?

Most of us blame this unpleasant body response on the person who we are playing the blame game in a way that can keep us trapped and helpless for a long time. The physical stress we feel when we mull over an abandonment or deception is the reason many of us struggle so hard to give up our grievances.

For example, for years my wife felt tense every time she thought about her mother, whom she had problems with growing up. Every time she imagined her unloving parent she felt her stomach tighten and would often get a headache. And each time she felt a physical symptom, she experienced another wave of anger toward her mother for ruining her life. She blamed her mother for her current discomfort, for activating her fight-or-flight response. This normal physical response, and the blame you have for the person who hurt you, cements the grievance that began when you took too personally something you did not like.

Alternatively, we may never again want to see the person who hurt us. We may try never to think of them again. While these responses to taking something too personally are common, they are primarily the result of the stress chemicals running through our body. They are primitive responses and usually not the result of careful or productive thinking.

Our problem is the choices these stress chemicals offer us are inadequate in helping to regain control of our emotional life. Simply put, these are poor choices. They do not help us face charged emotional situations with people close to us or come to grips with painful life experiences or deal with the subtleties of intimate relationship.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Self Confidence: How to handle rude and angry people

Have you ever had somebody just get so angry at you that they literally exploded in your face, yelled and screamed, and all over something that wasn’t even your fault? I have, and it took just one incident to learn and live by the fact that these people are not really mad at you, they are just using you as a scapegoat for their own problems.

Allow me to explain. As a young man working my way through college, I took on many jobs as a waiter. The work was flexible and the pay wasn’t half bad on the weekends. But of course there were always a few customers that would act like jerks to the wait staff, but that was normal.

However, one day a fellow waiter named James had delivered a meal to a man that was dining alone. The man looked very depressed and upset as it was. As soon as James set the man’s order down he stood up in a flash and without hesitation waved his arms up and yelled at the top of his lungs that this was not the food he ordered. He cursed at James and threw the food on the ground. We couldn’t believe our eyes. The man must have used every curse word he knew, all the while towering over James. It even scared me!

After the guy stormed over to the manager James simply walked over to another table, smiled, and and with a relaxed composure said “Good evening folks, I’m glad you stopped in, may I get you something to drink?”

I was astonished that James kept his composure and it almost seemed as if he didn’t even care the man was kicking and screaming. In fact, the more that he yelled the more polite James was to him.

In those days I would have yelled back and probably gotten myself fired. I was so impressed with James that I just had to pull him aside and let him know how much I admired the way he handled such a tense situation. James said “Oh it wasn’t really nothing at all. You see, people like that are just having a bad day. He wasn’t mad at me. He really wasn’t mad that the food was not exactly how he wanted it.”

James went on to say “That poor guy probably just lost his job, or his wife, perhaps he is facing loosing his children. I was just a way for him to vent and I am sure that deep inside he really is just a nice man.”

I was blown away. At that age I must admit that James gave me my first look into changing my perception towards rude and angry people. I started to look at everyone in a different way. I realized then and there that the best defense against someone who is seemingly out to get you is to just let them vent it all out, smile, and move on.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Try Forgiving Yourself If You Are Angry At Someone Else

When we feel hurt or angry, it’s easy to fault someone else. “You’re to blame,” we insist. “You made me feel this way.” But the fact that we feel upset at someone doesn’t necessarily mean he or she is guilty.

Sometimes our rage is our own, forged in our own hearts and minds, fed by our personalities, our provocations, our exaggerated response to conflict. Yes, this other person may have done something to offend us, but perhaps not to the degree that our intense response would suggest. Our reaction may be entirely inappropriate or even dangerously misguided.

Owning up to your issues - tearing down your defenses and looking honestly at yourself—can be painful work. The process may teach you that you were more than just a victim, and that, perhaps, there is no one to forgive but yourself.

The same factors that influenced the way the offender treated you may have influenced the way you treated him. Again, some of these factors may be external. You might ask yourself, “What was going on in my world at the time of the injury that may have affected me emotionally, making me feel more vulnerable, less in control, less resilient, so that I reacted inappropriately? Did these life events throw me off-balance and lead me to act in ways that were callous or otherwise offensive?”

Internal factors may also shape your response. It helps to ask such questions as, “How did my personality affect my reaction? How did it influence the way I was treated?” If you’re innately shy, say, and the offender took this personally and assumed you didn’t like him, that was his mistake, not yours. You didn’t hurt him; his mistaken assumptions about you hurt him.

But if you’re shy and didn’t speak up and then felt offended that someone didn’t show interest in you or respect your position, you need to confront how you contributed to your own pain. It may be that your own silence - not his behavior - set a trap for you.

What about your dysfunctional ideas about yourself and the world, ideas that may have been based on damaging early life experiences? Did they play a role in your mistreatment? These fixed ideas often pre-date the offense and even your relationship with the offender, and create what what are called “channels” of psychological vulnerability. What happens is that your heightened sensitivity - to being abandoned or ridiculed, for example 0 leads you to misperceive or mis-react to events today.

Popularity: 27% [?]

4 Tips to help you deal with an angry child

Are your kids always angry and easily disturbed? Parents all over the world are having the same experience that you are going through with trying to raise an angry adolescent. The most important thing for you to keep in mind here is that angry children need love, and lots of it.

However, I can tell you from experience that it is not easy to love an angry violent child who seems to enjoy giving his or her parents nothing but grief in return for the love that they are receiving. The older and angrier a child becomes, the harder they are to love like this.

Here are some free tips to help you if you have an angry child in your home, extended family, or even within your community:

1. Do everything that you can in order to get to know the child. Work to try to reach them on a level that is deeper than surface. Most, if not all of the time, an angry child or an angry teenager is just using a bad attitude to cover up being vulnerable.

In time, if you get them to trust you by becoming their friend, then it will be much easier to reach them and to help with whatever problems they may be facing in life.

2. Most angry children stay frustrated because everyone is always telling them what to do, how to act, or to stop being mad. Instead, take a different approach. Ask them questions about themselves. Ask them what they are interested in. Get them talking about things in life that they like.

Before you know it he or she will open up and start sharing this information. And that is a good sign that the child has the ability to be reached.

3. Become a steady presence in their lives, but only if you have dealt with and can manage not to choose anger in your own life. Yes, getting mad is a choice, not something that is forced upon us.

We choose to feel the way we do and if you are choosing anger in your life then what kind of example is that for the angry youngster whom you are trying to lead to happiness? Be sure that you are not having anger issues before trying to work out another person’s anger issues, especially youngsters.

4. Consult with other parents and adults who have dealt with the same kind of situations. Sometimes the best advice can come from another person who has experience in turning around the attitudes of angry children.

Popularity: 24% [?]

5 Emotions That Could Be Stopping You From Living Your Dreams

Hurtful memories can stifle your development and growth. How do we break through this insidious mental conditioning? How do we grow and develop beyond hurtful episodes that bury themselves in our subconscious and influence our lives? How do we change and grow so that we can live our dreams?

The first step is to break the hold of these inhibiting influences from the past. Recognize them and then either get rid of them or turn them into a positive force that pushes you ahead rather than holds you back. Identify these inhibiting memories in your life so that you control them rather than allowing them to control you. Did someone hurt your feelings? Forgive them and forget it. Move on. Did someone punish you unfairly? It’s over. It’s done. Go on.

Here are a few of the most common emotions that burrow into the subconscious and impede our growth as individuals:

Anger: This is a natural response to a perceived attack or injury. It makes energy flow. But when allowed to simmer, it depletes energy that could be used to improve your life. If you hold your anger for more than a week, it is only hurting you. Make yourself let go. Envision yourself throwing it out. Ease your mind. Transform your anger into positive motivation. Don’t get mad, get motivated.

Revenge: The first cousin of anger. It also robs you of strength in the long run. The person who has injured you has probably gone on with life; so should you. Don’t let the injury hurt you further by inhibiting your growth. Lose it or use it. Instead of saying, “I’ll get them,” say, “I’ll show them. I’LL BE SOMEBODY!”

Sadness: This is more crippling than anger because it drains you from the start, sapping your will to go on. You probably will have to let this drain away slowly at its own pace. Time heals, but if the sadness seems to linger, consciously force it out. Seek out things that make you laugh and feel positive about life. Realize that feeling sad will not change anything. Seek peace of mind as your right.

Resentment: Life is not always fair. It is unrealistic to feel any other way, and holding on to resentment is no way to fight back. Drop it and get back into the battle.

Guilt: Guilt is another emotion that stands between you and your dreams. All of us have done things we feel bad about and regret. Things we would do differently. Many of us carry that guilt around and it keeps us from moving forward. Don’t let people put you on a guilt trip. Say to yourself when someone is putting you on the defensive, “No matter what you do or say to me, I am still a worthwhile person.”

To rid yourself of these past emotions, put them in a perspective that is positive rather than negative and thereby cut off their painful roots in your subconscious. Reinterpret the past with these methods: Get better, not bitter. Find a quiet, comfortable place. Sit back and relax. Think about something or someone who caused you pain or disappointment. Now take a mental step back from that feeling and the situation. Assess it. Did the emotions that resulted make you stronger? Did they give you determination? Can you use those memories to empower you rather than drain you? Why let them hurt you further?

Popularity: 16% [?]

Anger Management: Assessing the aftermath of conflict

It is very important to have the proper approach in order to effectively resolve a conflict. But merely solving the conflict is not enough. It is also very important to recognize what valuable lessons you learned from the situation itself.

Below are twelve questions to help you recognize the source of the argument as well as how to learn from it. Ask yourself the following after your next conflict:

1. At what point did the conflict get out of control? Was it something that the other person said that offended me? Before the fight, was there tension that already existed between me and that person?
2. What did I learn from this experience?
3. What did I learn about sensitivities, both my own and the person that I had the conflict?
4. During the argument, how well did I respect, understand, listen, and calmly state my point of view?
5. How did I manage my anger? How bad was I hurt?
6. How did my adversary manage his anger? In what ways was he hurt?
7. Did either I or my adversary change our opinions and point of views? Were we able to handle our differences?
8. Did I make the mistake of finding this conflict valuable for letting off steam?
9. Did I learn something about myself during the argument?
10. Was I able to identify my conflict style? Do I tend to avoid conflict? Am I inclined to compromise? Do I tend to be a competitor?
11. Was I able to recognize my strategy (how I deal with conflict), and my “weapons” (my methods in which to attack, criticize, argue with my adversary).
12. What do I hope for my adversary to do differently next time to avoid experiencing another conflict?
13. What do I want and expect to do differently next time to avoid experiencing another conflict?
14. Was I able to come up with a creative solution to the very core issue of the conflict?

These 14 questions will give you the encouragement to further understand yourself. In addition, by being honest with yourself these questions can help you change your behavior when it comes to dealing with conflict in the future.

Human relations fail because people do not know how to handle differences. The greatest reward in assessing the aftermath of the conflict is that it improves and deepens relationships between two people.

Popularity: 16% [?]