A Way to Conquering Anger

Anger

Early in life I recognized two facts:

  1. I did not have a talent for cussing (quarreling and cursing). Since I never entered a match that I was bound to lose, I avoided the back and forth trading of barbs and curses.
  2. When angry, I lacked the time or patience to beat around the bush. When triggered, I got to the point physically, or I deemed my opponent unworthy of my time and energy and walked away to deal with more important things.

Whilst I tended to choose to walk away more often than not, at 17 years old I found myself in an altercation with a neighbour. Provoked, one too many times, I grabbed the man and attacked with the only thing in my hand, a steel fork. In the midst of my white-hot rage, something stopped me. I halted to find that I had cornered the man and had the fork pressed to his jugular. My red-hazed intent was to make him an example. In that moment, one thing crossed my mind: “If I continued on my current path, I was bound to end up in prison.” No one should have that much power over me or my life. I paused, looked the man up and down, said simply, “You’re not worth it.” and walked away. Shaken and stunned, he uttered not a word.

From that moment onwards, whenever I feel that anger beast rising up, I do three things:

  1. I mentally pause and take a deep breath. If I am truly pissed, I might start displaying physical signs of agitation in the struggle to rein in my temper.
  2. I ask myself any combination of the following three questions:
    • Is this person worth giving away your power?
    • Will the results of your explosion be worth it?
    • What would Christ do?
  3. I change the tone of the conversation or pause or close the conversation.
    • Changing the tone of the conversation can take the form of a distraction that is designed to reduce tension.
    • Pausing the conversation can take the form of a request to discuss the matter at a later date. My implicit intent is that the matter can be further discussed when I am in a better frame of mind to discuss things rationally.
    • Closing the conversation occurs when I realize there is no point is continuing the discussion.

It took sometime to get away from the mentality that I needed a visual demonstration of my dominance, physically or otherwise. In fact, at times I still struggle with it. However, I recognized that I didn’t need to prove to anyone but myself that I have won. Public perception or opinion carries little weight because I had the power to define what winning meant to me.

I chose to define wining as: Retaining my power and keeping my future and purpose in sight. 

Choosing that definition does not mean that I’m a pushover. I am still willing and capable of fighting for what I believe is worth it but I changed my tactics. I choose how and when I will respond. My power lies in my choice.

 

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4 Responses

  1. Lol a steel fork at his jugular. 😆😆. Omg!
    “Public perception or opinion carries little weight because I had the power to define what winning meant to me.”- Chanel Robe . I like this line

    1. Looking back I can say I had some serious rage reaction issues. It didn’t help that I always had the element of surprise. No one thought I would attack because of my size. I didn’t want to deal with my rage in a healthy way. Thank you so much for reading and leaving your thoughts.

  2. Lol at this memory this must have been very interesting to see. However, you are absolutely correct no one should have such power over us unfortunately people do get under our skins so we need to find practical ways of not acting on our emotions. It’s hard very hard.

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Author picture

Hi, I`m Chañel. I used to be a people-pleaser who gave 200% because of my love for people. As a result, I almost lost my mind and my life. Today, my goal is to make sure people stop putting themselves last. And, if possible, never experience what I went through!