Dealing W/ Anger

Hello loves, ❤

Being angry is intense. Your body tightens up, your mind races. Emotions run wild. You can’t think straight. This chain reaction creates havoc in your life until you learn how to deal with anger.

There is nothing wrong with feeling angry. It’s how you handle it that becomes a problem.

When anger is unhealthy, it comes out as explosive rage or more quietly in indirect or sarcastic comments. These behaviors create a mountain of regret and shame that impact how we feel about ourselves. Before getting angry, it is crucial to find safe ways to express it—in ways that don’t hurt but foster clear communication, self-care and healthy boundaries.

 

20 Things You Can Do When You’re Angry

1. Avoid Using Profanity

When we’re angry, swearing can seem like a good way to vent. I admit that while swearing provides some immediate relief, it also intensified my anger. Too often it frightens others who may find the line between venting and exploding too intense.

By avoiding profanity, you can stop anger from escalating into verbal abuse. Using foul language opens the door to other hurtful behaviors like name-calling and intense blame. When this happens, the other person no longer feels safe so they shut down emotionally. Resolving issues becomes impossible.

2. Redirect the Focus Back to You

Have you ever noticed that focusing too much on others actually increases your anger? That’s because trying to change others makes you feel powerless. Consider this. Have you ever successfully controlled someone else’s behavior? Probably not! Attempts to control just create more frustration. Concentrate on something that you can control: YOU!

3. Exhale Longer than You Inhale

When angry, it’s common to feel your abdominal muscles getting tense. As a result your breathing becomes shallow. This automatically creates more stress on the body and intensifies your emotions.

Slow down your breathing. Focusing on the breath serves as a new focal point, rather than obsessing on who said what. Research shows that when you exhale longer than inhale, your body automatically begins to calm down. To start, inhale to a count of four and exhale to a count of six. This helps you regain control of your emotions and the situation.

4. Exercise Vigorously

Because anger creates tension in the body, regular exercise encourages the body to vent those feelings safely. In a moment of anger, even taking a short, brisk walk can help to relieve tension. Anger expressed physically doesn’t get trapped in the body as stress.

5. Catch Negative Thoughts

Anger starts in the mind. Whether it’s a random thought or a negative assumption, both happen in seconds. You cannot control your first thought, but you can control the second one. Catch those negative thoughts, and you’re halfway there!

Managing anger without identifying the thoughts that fuel it doesn’t work. Once you identify those thoughts, ask yourself, is this thought even true?

Consider the acronym FEAR, which stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. What you fear rarely actually happens. So, identifying those random thoughts and assumptions creates a much needed stopping point. You have a choice to see them for the emotional illusions that they are.

6. Reach Out for Support

It’s not easy to admit you’re angry, but denying those feelings can lead to depression, isolation and even addiction. Getting support and being heard deflates the anger and makes you feel more connected. Having a group of friends to support you makes any crisis easier to handle because you can reason things out before responding.

7. Draw Your Feelings

When anger doesn’t make logical sense the tendency is to ignore it. You think that you shouldn’t be angry. But you are and that’s okay. Pick up a pen and draw whatever comes to mind without judging how you feel or what it looks like. Often this provides a safe space to honor your feelings. This is a great tool for bypassing the rational mind.

8. Examine Beliefs that Don’t Work

As a child, you learned what anger looked like, whether you saw rage, sarcasm, or the silent treatment. All of these memories influenced how you expressed anger. Discovering your family’s beliefs will help you recognize which ones are still impacting you today. As an adult, you may not realize that you’re still operating from old beliefs that no longer serve you.

Here are some common beliefs around anger:

• Anger is bad and should be avoided.
• Anger hurts people so I should just be nice.
• It doesn’t matter how I feel; nothing will change anyway.
• I must swallow my feelings in order to be liked.
• People don’t care about my feelings.
• People can’t be trusted with my feelings.
• Women and children shouldn’t be angry.

All of these beliefs hold anger back and create stress and resentment. Be wiling to confront these underlying beliefs so you can decide what works best for you now.

9. Tense and Relax Your Muscles

Pay attention to how your body feels when you’re angry. When angry, it’s common to feel your abdominal muscles getting tense. As a result your breathing becomes shallow. This automatically creates more stress on the
body and intensifies emotions.

Slow down your breathing. Focusing on the breath serves as a new focal point, rather than obsessing on who said what. Research shows that when you exhale longer than inhale, your body automatically begins to calm down. Inhale to a count of four and exhale to a count of six helps you regain control of your emotions and the situation.

10. Find the Demotion Underneath

Anger is considered a secondary emotion. Underneath anger lies sadness or fear (considered primary emotions). When you cover up these feelings with anger, you feel less vulnerable. But in the long run, you need to find out what is triggering the anger. Only when you understand how anger starts, can you begin to tame it.

11. Take a Silent Walk in Nature

Getting out in the fresh air and feeling the sun on your face can redirect your attention from a tense situation. Instead of blasting those ear buds (though great music can work well too), try spending some time in silence. Nature has a way of emptying the mind as you focus on the sights and sounds around you.

12. Let Yourself Have a Good Cry

Did you know that crying actually releases tension? It’s a physical reaction called a cortisol dump. When you cry the stress hormone, cortisol, gets released which helps the body relax and comes back into balance naturally.

13. Admit When You’re Feeling Hurt

It’s tempting to brush off a rude comment, but that’s a mistake. Admitting how you feel
prevents anger from leaking out in indirect, hurtful comments later. When hurt feelings get denied, they build up and eventually turn into unhealthy anger.

14. Use Time-outs to Avoid Outbursts

When you’re angry, trying to talk it out often leads to defensiveness and misunderstandings.

Time-out creates the space away needed so that you can calm down. Avoid anything that increases your stress during the time out. Instead, take a walk to de-escalate the situation.

15. Don’t Drink, Drive or Do Drugs

Avoid activities that don’t let you relax. Driving takes mental effort and concentration that gets impaired when you’re angry. Incidents of road rage happen because you’re flooded with stress hormones that cause you to seek revenge rather than think rationally.

Using substances may seem like a good way to take the edge off but using increases your chances of having escalated arguments that can lead to violence. Emotions are much harder to control when intoxicated.

16. Check Out Assumptions

Do you ever find yourself getting angry over the little things? For instance, your partner has an angry tone and you assume that you did something wrong. That assumption creates your upset. Your partner’s upset could have nothing to do with you. When you realize that you’re taking something personally, check it out first. Be careful not to get caught up
in assumptions rather than understanding what’s happening now.

17. Practice Meditation

Mediation is not about stopping thoughts. Instead, meditation welcomes your thoughts without judging them. Meditation is not necessarily about sitting quietly because that isn’t for everyone! If sitting still is challenging, try a walking mediation, listen to soothing music, or even sit by a warm fire and focus on the flames. Anything can be a focal point.

18. Focus on the Present Moment

Remember that venting can help, but too much of a good thing only inflames the anger. Bring your focus back to what’s happening now. Avoid fixating on the past or the future. Look around and just breathe. Write a gratitude list. Train your brain to concentrate on the present.

19. Write in a Journal

Writing provides a healthy outlet for feelings that you don’t want to share with anyone. On paper, you can fully express yourself without having to censor your feelings. This works particularly well when you aren’t comfortable speaking them out loud.

20. Don’t Get too Hungry, Stressed or Tired

Alcoholics Anonymous uses HALT, a wonderful acronym that stands as a reminder to not get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. Have you ever snapped at someone because you were hungry or tired? When your blood sugar drops it causes irritability and confusion. Logic goes out the window as the body tries to regulate itself by releasing adrenaline. This affects mood and makes it harder to stay calm.

Final Thoughts

Anger is not as easy emotion to tame. Once I learned how to deal with anger and express it assertively, my communication drastically improved. I was no longer hiding my emotions but able to express how I felt without blame. It felt empowering to let my anger out without feeling guilty or worrying about what others think. Healthy anger invites you to make positive changes within yourself and in your relationships. That’s the kind of power that truly transforms you!

Wherever you are in the world, have a lovely day ❤

Make A Change

Hello loves ❤

Do you ever get in these moods where EVERYTHING is a problem, EVERYTHING is making you anxious, EVERYTHING is making you feel uneasy? ME TOO. I’ve been feeling this way for a little while now.

Do you feel the below? If so, its time to make a change ❤

1. You feel consistently uneasy or uncomfortable for no discernible reason.

Logically, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be happy, and yet something that you can’t quite yet identify doesn’t feel right, and that feeling seems to permeate most of your day.

2. You’re having intense feelings of envy over what your friends and peers are doing.

Jealousy is the emotion that communicates to us what we are subconsciously denying ourselves. When you feel angry or jealous over what your acquaintance is doing (even though you wouldn’t want exactly what they have) what you are trying to tell yourself is that there’s some way in which you aren’t allowing yourself to go after what you desire.

3. You have conflicting desires.

Maybe there’s a part of you that is ready to embrace something new, and another part of you that is scared to let go of what you’ve known. Maybe you’re with someone you care about a lot, but also want to “be single for a while.” No matter the circumstance, you’re not clear on what you want, and your life is in limbo because of it.

4. You can’t make headway on important creative projects.

You consistently feel stuck, foggy or confused – but mostly, you feel unproductive. This is what happens when we are trying to force something too hard. Right now, you’re probably more attached to the idea of the project than you are to actually doing it, and it’s something you really need to reconsider.

5. You judge people who have the things you want.

When you judge people who have what you want or what you’re working toward, you develop a subconscious association that “having what you want” is bad, or makes you unaccepted/unloved… which makes it a lot harder to get it.

6. You feel like you should be farther than where you are.

Often, this feeling crops up not when we feel suffocated by society’s insane definitions of “success” and the timeline on which we should achieve it, but when deep down, we know that we could, and should, be doing better than we are.

7. You’re romanticizing the past, and fearing the future.

You’re keeping yourself stuck by both imagining that the past was better than it was, and fearing that the future will be worse than it is.

8. You feel totally thrown off-kilter from one little remark or comment.

The smallest transgressions seem to have the power to totally derail your day, mostly because you have a lot of deep-seated emotions and thoughts about that topic that you are suppressing or not acknowledging. When someone triggers them even slightly, it feels like an avalanche is activated.

9. Your consuming compulsively.

Whether it’s food, clothing or anything else, you are trying to fill something that feels unsafe or unprotected within you.

10. You’re hate-scrolling.

You’re almost intentionally seeking out content (or people) who you know will aggravate or upset you. A common reason for this is wanting to trigger a catharsis of sorts.

11. You have weird, irrational fears.

Often, we fear what’s irrational or unlikely in order to process real feelings in a way that feels more safe.

12. You’re starting to pick up on your negative patterning.

Every time you get together with your best friend, you both seem to say you’re just “in a weird place right now,” or you notice that you’ve consistently struggled with the same body/money/worth issues for 10+ years. What you’re identifying is not an ongoing problem, but a belief system/internal misalignment that needs to be rectified.

13. You don’t have the energy to waste on things that are inauthentic.

You literally cannot make yourself hangout with people you dislike, or carry on at a job you know isn’t right for you.

14. You feel like you want to purge.

Whether it’s old clothes, toxic beliefs, stale relationships or anything else, you’re ready to completely release whatever’s not serving you in favor of what could.

15. You’re having vivid dreams, or random recollections from childhood.

When you’re in the process of healing (or are going to begin it) you start unearthing old memories, feelings, traumas and authentic experiences that you’ve suppressed for as long as you can remember.

16. You’re reading this.

At some subconscious level, you know that you need to make changes in your life – and maybe you’re just looking for the proof that’s been right in front of you all along.

Wherever you are in the world, have a lovely day ❤

Bond More in Your Relationship

Happy relationships shouldn’t be hard work!

That’s one of the upbeat findings from my landmark study of marriage, which has been following 373 married couples since 1986. Here’s more good news for lovebirds: If you’re in a happy partnership, married or not, you can keep it that way or make it even better by introducing a few new behaviours and small changes into the relationship. While many relationship experts say you need to focus on fixing what’s wrong, my research shows that adding positive behaviours to the relationship has a much greater impact on couples’ happiness.

 

Here are nine ways to deepen your relationship bond and be a happier couple, based on my research study.

 

1. Accept your partner’s uniqueness. We have all had moments when we wished our partner was thinner, wealthier, more romantic, and so on. Take a look at your expectations and ask yourself how realistic they are. Unrealistic expectations lead to chronic frustration, which my study found is the main reason relationships fail.

 

2. Do random acts of kindness — often. Small gestures that say “I’m thinking of you” are essential to keep the relationship bond strong — e.g., he fills up her tank with gas, she brings him a steaming cup of coffee in bed. Hand holding, touching or a midday love email are all small ways of showing affection. Research shows that the accumulation of small gestures has a bigger impact on couple happiness than grand, less frequent gestures.

 

3. Devote 10 minutes a day to connecting. Most couples think they talk to each other all the time. But how often do you talk about things that really deepen your understanding of your mate? The happy couples in my study talked to each other frequently — not about their relationship, but about other things — and felt they knew a lot about their spouse in four key areas: friends, stressors, life dreams, and values. Set aside 10 minutes a day — I call it “The 10-Minute Rule,” to talk to your partner about anything other than work, family, the household, or the relationship. This simple change infuses relationships with new spirit and life.

 

4. Fall in love all over again — weekly. Spontaneous dates are great, but the truth is that we’re busy and we often don’t make time for our lover. Keep your love relationship healthy with a once-a-week date — dinner out, a movie, dancing, an art show, couples yoga — whatever. Take turns planning it. Men: studies show that women are more passionate and their libido is stronger when they are out of their home setting—away from kids and chores. Watch what happens when you book a night at the local hotel, and get a friend or relative to watch the kids and pets.

 

5. Change and grow — together. Your love relationship is a living thing that needs nourishment to grow and develop. The best way to nurture it is to infuse it with change. Much like fertilizer for a plant, introducing change into relationships has been shown to be a key ingredient to couple happiness. The changes can be small, but they have to upset the routine enough to make him or her sit up and take notice. Switch roles: If he always makes the dinner reservation, let her do it. Or interrupt routines: Play hooky from work and do something fun together, like visiting a museum or tourist spot nearby. Or try something new: Take a water-skiing class together, or go on a mediation retreat.

 

6. Get to know each other’s friends and family – My research found that men, in particular, are happier when the female has a good relationship with his family. Also, couples who accept — not necessarily love — each other’s friends and make an effort to know them report being happier than couples who have separate friends and separate family lives.

 

7. Be a caregiver. One of the three things couples need for a happy relationship is support (the other two needs are reassurance and intimacy). The happy couples in my study uniformly said that having a partner who was “there for them” was one of the most important aspects of their relationship. Men often like to give instrumental support — the kind of support that fixes or solves a problem. Women often like to give emotional support — empathetic listening and constructive feedback. Find out what type of help your partner really wants first, and then give it to him or her — often and consistently.

 

8. Keep it light — and full of light. Laughter is a spiritual practice. In marriage, it acts as happiness medicine. To keep your relationship from slipping into a rut, you need to balance the rational aspects of your partnership with the fun parts. Yes, you need to do certain things to keep your life orderly and your partnership secure. But don’t forget to play. Try to rediscover the pure delight of playing a game, acting childish in the snow, watching a silly movie, dragging her onto the dance floor, and so on.

 

9. Find a healthy way to communicate. The happy couples from my long-term study of marriage all said that good communication skills were what kept them together and thriving. This means not only asking your partner what he or she needs, but telling your partner what you need. It means checking in regularly to find out what stressors are rearing their ugly head in your partner’s life, and it means learning how to fight fair — no name calling, shaming, or kitchen sinking (bringing up everything that’s bothered you for the last year).

 

I pray this has helped you in some shape or form.

I know this is something that I would like to work w/ J on more.
Wherever you are in the world, have a lovely day ❤

Strengthen Your Relationship W/ Your Partner

Whoever said, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me” must have never been told a rude word, or never went to high school. Words hurt, and they can leave scars with us that are difficult to heal. We are not perfect and we occasionally react in ways we wish we could take back. Sometimes we say things that are hurtful and that we don’t truly mean. Other times, we don’t even realize the things we are saying to another person can be damaging. We aren’t aware of our passive aggressive tone, or that we don’t need to bring up that one subject again.

All of this goes for being in a relationship, as well. It’s normal for couples to argue and to get into heated debates, but we do need to eliminate some words from our vocabulary. Communication is key for a relationship to be strong and healthy. With that being said, you want to communicate in an effective way, instead of using words that might stir up emotions. Here are 7 things you should stop saying to the person you are with.

 

1. Threatening To Leave

Unless you are dead serious about leaving your partner, you should never threaten it. Making threats left and right only leave you feeling regretful and your other half feeling insecure in the relationship. How is your lover supposed to feel safe and vulnerable with you if they think you have one foot out the door?

 

2. Hurtful Names

Some people get down and dirty when they are upset. Whether it’s a learned style of fighting from their childhood or they watched one too many episodes of the Sopranos — it needs to stop. Calling your partner words like, “Bitch” or “Asshole,” isn’t going to help any situation. It will only make you and your loved one lose respect for one another.

3. Rude Remarks About His Or Her Family

Keep your feelings to yourself. Family is family and they are here to stay. Be careful what you say about them because they are never going away. You know what they say, “Keep your friends close, but your partner’s family members closer.

 

4. “You NEVER Do A, B Or C”

I know, sometimes it gets frustrating that your partner doesn’t do exactly what we were hoping they would. Whether it’s cleaning up after they eat, or spending more quality time with you — it’s how you communicate that will get your message through. When you start out a sentence with “you never,” never expect them to be receptive. You’ve already put them straight into defense mode because it sounds like an attack. Instead, put it in a positive spin by saying “I would appreciate if you would do a, b or c.”

 

5. “You Can’t Do This Or That”

The word “can’t” should only be spoken by your angry parents, not by your romantic partner. In a relationship, there will be times where you wish your significant other didn’t do certain things, like go out with his or her friends on date night or spend the rest of the grocery money on shoes. You will want to tell them they “can’t do that.” The problem is, we are not in charge of our partner. So by using the word “can’t” only makes us sounds controlling. Instead, express how it feels when your other half does a, b or c.

 

6. “Relax” Or “You’re Being Too Sensitive”

Telling your other half to “relax” if he or she is upset, is like asking them to get 10 times more upset. When you say comments like, “You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” it only invalidates your partner’s feelings. People feel how they feel. So instead of lessening how he or she feels, try to understand where he or she is coming from.

 

7. “You Always” Or “You Never”

Using words such as “always” or “never” when you’re trying to get your point across to your significant other, will do just quite the opposite — get your point no where. These all or nothing words exaggerate what is actually occurring and even worse, send your partner into defense mode.

 

These have really helped me – I hope they help you 🙂

Wherever you are in the world, have a lovely day ❤