Anger and It's Control

Anger and It's Control - CC Manual - Project#2 (Organize)
By Venu Swamy Kovela (September 7th 2008)



Anger and it's nature:
Anger is an emotional state of mind, where in our mental equilibrium is disturbed and our mind is agitated. It can range from mild annoyance, irritation to violent rage.

Anger is like fire (philosophically), it burns within and burns anything that comes to its contact. If it finds dry brush or wind, it becomes much more violent and if it finds moisture it slows down. Similarly when we are angry, we not only burn/agitate ourselves, we agitate everyone who is around. If the person in front of us talking back at us, we get much more angry. But, when we are in the company of noble people or children, we tend to calm down little bit.

Why do we become angry?
Bhagawat Geeta (one of the ancient Hindu scripture) teaches us that when our desires are not fulfilled we get angry. Either something happened which we do not want to happen or something we wanted to that did not happen. Behind each angry instance, we will find that there is some wish that is unfulfilled.
We think that the cause is someone else, something outside of us. We get angry to make that happen, we try to teach a lesson, we try to correct someone.

What happens when we are angry?
Physically, when we are angry, our breathing becomes heavy, our heart beats faster, our blood pressure goes up, our voice becomes loud and it trembles, and our brain stimulates release of certain chemicals such as adrenaline and Noradrenaline. It's one way of our brain to prepare us for flight or fight response.

Bhagawat Geeta also teaches that when we are angry, we lose our memory, which in turn diminishes our intellect, which in turn fails to discriminate between the right and wrong. This leads us to say or do lots of bad things, we damage ourselves, we hurt feelings of our near and dears, we destroy our relationships.

Most often we regret later after the damage is done. We want to correct others, but the result is counter productive. Even if we say something absolutely correct while angry, the result is negative and the desired affects are obtained.

How do we control Anger?
Holy Quran (Holy teachings from Islam) teaches us, that when we are angry we should drink a glass of water. If we are standing, we should try sitting down. If that didnt help, lie down. If that didn't help then keep quiet for sometime.

Following are few more suggestions:
Take few deep breaths.
Count upto 10.
Forgive others.

Personal tips:
First and foremost realize that anger is bad.
Resolve in our own mind that we are not going to get angry.
Even if we get angry, have the awareness that we are angry at that moment.
Resolve that we will calm down as soon as we realize.
Tell ourselves that by remaining angry, the outcome is counter productive.
Think about maintaining good relationships.
Think about all good things about the person.

Conclusion:
Realize that anger builds in stages from annoyances to rage. Minor dissatisfactions and disappointments if not resolved sooner, gets accumulated and becomes stockpiles. And suddenly all the issues comes to the forefront and adds fuel to your anger. Hence, if we care about the relationship, we should resolve the issues immediately and not keep anything unresolved. We should forgive more.

Cone Example:
When we get angry, we regain our composure surely and certainly. But some of us are like the cone with the pointed side is on the ground, minor disturbance will disturb its equilibrium and it takes some outside support for it to stand. Some of us are like the cone which lies on its side. Little bit of disturbance, rolls the cone side to side but comes to rest after sometime. And some of us are like the cone with its base on the ground and no matter what happens the cone does not get disturbed. All of us are in this range, and obviously we should try to be like the cone on it's base.