Relationship Methods
I am Sanjay Sharma, a 32 year old construction engineer. I have a prosperous business and a very good family life. However, I am often caught in a rageful mood. I cannot resist getting angry. I know that my temper flies off at the slightest provocation. I am unable to understand why I am so impulsive and quick to react.
We are locked in the morose mood at the end of the day and want a magical transformation, to shake off the sullen shell we are in, to soften and open our heart a bit. Each day’s news comes to us rife with reports of disintegration of civility and safety, an onslaught of mean-spirited impulse running amok. There is a creeping sense of emotions out of control in our own lives and in those of the people around us. No one is insulated from this erratic tide of outburst and regret, it reaches into all of our lives in one way or another. There is an uptick in emotional ineptitude, desperation, and recklessness in our families, our communities, and our collective lives.
There is a surging rage and despair. There is a loss of self-control, zeal and persistence, and the ability to motivate oneself. There are times when the fabric of society seems to unravel at ever-greater speed, when selfishness, violence, and a meanness of spirit seem to be rotting the goodness of our communal lives. Fundamental ethical stances in life stem from underlying emotional capacities. Impulse is the medium of emotion; the seed of all impulse is a feeling bursting to express itself in action. Those who are at the mercy of impulse – who lack self-control – suffer a moral deficiency. The ability to control impulse is the base of will and character.
By the same token, the root of altruism lies in empathy, the ability to read emotions in others, lacking a sense of another’s need or despair, there is no caring. And if there are any two moral stances that our times call for, they are precisely these, self-restraint and compassion. A sense of self-mastery, of being able to withstand the emotional storm has been praised as a virtue. The goal is balance, not emotional suppression: every feeling has its value and significance. A life without passion would be cut off and isolated from the richness of life itself. What is wanted is appropriate emotion, feeling proportionate to circumstance. When emotions are too muted they create dullness and distance; when out of control, too extreme and persistent, they become pathological as in raging anger and manic agitation.
What you can do.
The first is to cool down in any situation. Walk away from that situation. Get into a setting where there are not going to be further triggers for rage. During the cooling off period, you can put the brakes on the cycle of escalating hostile thought by seeking out distractions. Distraction is a highly powerful mood-altering device. It is very hard to stay angry when you are having a pleasant time. The trick is of course, to get anger to cool to the point where you can have a pleasant time in the first place. Go for a drive, a long walk, exercise. However, this cooling down period will not work if that time is used to pursue the train of anger-inducing thought, since each thought is in itself a minor trigger for more cascades of anger.
Television, movies, reading all interfere with the angry thoughts that stroke rage. Indulging in treats such as shopping for oneself or eating do not have much effect; it is all easy to continue with an indignant train of thought while doing those activities. Catharsis, giving vent to anger is also one of the ways of handling anger. It makes you feel better because it is seductively satisfying. It works when it is expressed directly to the person who is the target, when it restores a sense of control or rights an injustice, or when it gets the other person to change some grievous activity without retaliating. However, because of the incendiary nature of anger, this may be easy to say than do. Ventilating anger is also one of the worst ways to cool down. Outbursts of rage typically pump up the rage, prolonging the mood than cooling it. Far more effective is to cool down first, and then in a more constructive, assertive way confront and settle the dispute. Do not suppress the anger, however, do not act on it too.
