Strategies for anger

[Lax]

Hi fellow sufferers of anger. 
        After being lost to anger responses for…. Well forever I’m a confessed rage-aholic  Who has come across Gabor Mate’s explanation for the anger response happening when a boundary is crossed. the anger response is to say a strong No. 

   when that response is suppressed and not permitted  it will find its way to the surface, may be a sign of unresolved, embodied trauma being triggered. 
 May not be great news to have to be the one to do more. 

I ended up shutting myself down trying to break the Anger spirals of Blame, Hate,  and the damage it does, turned it inwards to a self attack that becomes misdirected at those around me.  Tried to self medicate it away, not helpful. there are ways to breathe through it and realise what the emotion is saying no! to, finding a name for the trigger and expressing that in a clear way does help. Now I mostly end up in tears about the pain it comes from and how it has affected those close to me. Anger and resentment truely is a poison you drink expecting it to harm someone else.  
still hopeful I can do better investing time and effort to change. 

[Ru-bee]

It sounds like you've had a real journey with your anger @Lax, I'm so glad that you've been able to share this here. That learning that anger signals some sort of boundary crossing is so interesting and it sounds like this really helped to shift your approach to managing this emotion, from trying to suppress it, to understanding it.

I definitely find anger to be a difficult emotion myself and feel that I'm personally working to understand it more and accept it as a useful and valid emotion, as it is communicating something to us, like a boundary being crossed. 

P.S. I wanted to extend a warm welcome to the forums, so good to have you as part of the community

[Lax]

Appreciate your Message @Ru-bee. being so angry so often is an uncomfortable part of being human and often means a lot of judgement. I’m not as capable as managing as I’d hoped to be by this stage so I’m Grateful you’re here to reply.