If you are going to learn to control you anger, it is very important that you learn to distinguish facts from filters. You have to separate your thoughts from the objective facts of a situation. As you continue to use your anger log you will start to understand the difference between facts and the filter. You will see most of your filter from what you are writing down on the “trigger thoughts” column of your anger log.

If you let your filter get out of control, it will make you much, much angrier. Most of the time we don’t get upset about facts. We get upset about filter. Even in counseling for addictions and depression, there needs to be recognition of filters.

Now that you understand fact and filter, when you are evaluating your own situation check to see if it is filter or fact. Determine if your anger trigger is a fact or if it is your filter.

• Am I angry about something that happened, or my own conclusions?
• Am I reading into this situation, and that is why I am upset?
• Was I in a bad mood, and that is impacting how I see this?
• Was I mindreading here?
• Am I jumping to conclusions?
• Am I upset right now because of my filter?

If your anger filter is making you angry, then you have to question is this true? Question the validity of the thoughts. Is the thought that is making you angry a valid thought? You have to challenge the conclusion that you came to that there was an injustice that took place. Sometimes there really is no injustice. Sometimes it was just a problem that was in our heads.

• “Is this statement true?”
• Is he really “always” so disrespectful? No, not always.
• “is there any evidence that this is not true?”
• Well, yes, Sometimes she is very respectful to me.

Excerpt taken from “Take Control of Your Anger: A Step-by-Step Guide to Anger Management” by Michael Ballard, MA, NCC, LPC

Facts are what our eyes, ears and touch tell us and our filter is the way we think about and interpret these facts. Anger Management counseling facts are things that happen, and our filter is the lens that we use to see those things. Our filters are like glasses that we wear to see the facts. When things happen, we use filter that makes conclusions and evaluations about what happened. We don’t see events. We see what we thing of the events.

It’s like a camera filter. You can look through a camera filter and see the world in sepia, even though that is not really what the world looks like. But through your filter, that is what you see. And it seems real. You don’t think you re looking through a filter, you just think that is the way it is. But the reality is that the filter has totally changed the picture.

For example, you see a friend yawn when you are talking with her. That is a fact. But you interpret this yawn by thinking that she is bored with the conversation. You use a mindreading filter in determining that she is bored. You might even think that she is bored with you or doesn’t like you. The fact is that she yawned, but your filter is that she doesn’t like you. That’s the conclusion of your filter. Since you draw the conclusion that she is bored with you, you get your feelings hurt, act defensively, and say something rude to her.

Only later do you learn that she was up all night because she was sick and coughing. Her yawn had nothing to do with you. Your filter had caused you to make a false conclusion.

Or maybe you had a date scheduled with your girlfriend. Then she called and told you that she was sick and so she wanted to cancel the date. The fact is that she canceled the date. But your jump to conclusions filter might be saying: “She doesn’t like me. She’s bored with this relationship and that’s why she canceled.” or maybe even, “she’s going out with someone else tonight. That’s why she canceled. She’s cheating on me!”

That’s your filter talking. It is a conclusion that you came to based on facts. But it is not a fact.

In the end the assumptions in your filter often have almost nothing to do with reality. You take some facts and create a completely distorted picture out of it. We do this all the time. We make assumptions about the motives and feelings of others–often incorrectly–and then get angry because of this.

A few weeks ago my wife and I were driving the car. She turned to me and said, “Look at that guy’s lawn. It is so nice and green.”

What she said was a nice thing about our neighbor’s lawn. But what I hear was, “our lawn stinks. You are not taking care of our lawn the way that guy is.” That’s not what she said, but that is what I heard. That was my filter, the conclusion that I drew from what she said. And because of my filter, I got upset.

How do I know if something is fact or if it is my filter? A fact is something that you can see, hear, or touch. You know it is a fact if a video camera was watching and they would see what happened. A fact cannot be argued.

You filter, on the other had, is your opinion. It is the conclusions that you make based on some information. if your filter is distorted, it will lead you to trigger thoughts, which will lead you to anger.

Anger Management Option

Expressing passive aggression is an anger management option. This kind of anger is very different. Passive aggression is indirect. You might avoid someone completely. You might talk behind their back. Or you might do something sneaky to get at them in an indirect way. Most counselors and therapists in marriage suggest otherwise.

You don’t want to take part in open aggression, and might even look down on those who do. But you still attack, just not directly at the person.

Maybe you spread gossip or rumors about someone, talk about them behind their back. say something so the person will overhear the comment without directly talking to them.

You might give the silent treatment to punish someone, especially if you think this will bother the other person. You avoid the person, not answering their calls, walking down a different hallway as to not see them, not responding to emails or texts on purpose.

Or you might do something indirect to hurt the person, like  boss assigning an employee to an awful client as punishment because the boss is angry. Or baking a cake for someone and putting Ex-lax in the cake.

You may think you are controlling your anger because you are not explosive, but in reality you are creating future problems for yourself and others.

Why do you choose this?

You want to have control but don’t want vulnerability. You may use subtle sabotage to hurt others on purpose.

You might be competitive and out to win, which does not work well in relationships. It is important for you to be in control and be superior and right in almost every circumstance.

Maybe you don’t want to confront someone directly, or you want to punish them and be able to deny that you did anything.

Pros and Cons

Some people like passive aggression because they feel like they are getting people back, or they are just avoiding a situation so they don’t have to deal with it. To some it feels good because it feels like you are punishing someone. And some people have tol me that they think it is fun to be passive aggressive.

But it also has a lot of negative consequences. Passive aggression is a choice, but it will not resolve the issue and will create additional tension and fracture relationships. It is manipulative and immature. And it doesn’t actually solve your problem, it just hurts people. So it is certainly not a good choice for you to take.

Most of us choose one of the first 3 ways when we respond to anger. These are by far the most common and most popular. It’s probably what we aw modeled to us as kids. But anger does not get resolved until it is processed. None of these three ways makes our problem better, and they just make us feel worse in the long run.

If you find yourself using any of these three ways, STOP. You are using your anger to make your problem worse.

Excerpt taken from “Take Control of Your Anger: A Step-by-Step Guide to Anger Management” by Michael Ballard, MA LPC

Anger Management Options: Explosive Anger

This is what we usually think about when we think about anger. This is someone fighting physically or verbally. Yelling, screaming, swearing, snapping. Hitting, throwing, kicking, breaking objects. Intimidation, rage, blame, explosiveness. Bickering, criticism, griping. Explosive anger is usually what it looks like when you lose your temper.

This is a choice, but it’s not aver good one. It does not resolve our problem and usually makes it much worse. Many people describe explosive anger a “a monster taking over” or “it felt like someone else was doing it.”

Why do we choose this?

The main reason why people get explosive is simple. They want to be heard.

They usually try and communicate something, and the other person either doesn’t agree, doesn’t understand, or isn’t listening. So they get louder and more explosive to make their point.

They really want to be heard, so they raise their voice, slam their fist, or break something. The underlying message here is “pay attention to me!”

They take the normal desire: “pay attention to my needs!” and push it to an extreme. They want someone to notice them and their needs. This is often linked with unhealthy dependence on others, that others must do things a certain way or they will snap.

Sometimes small things bother these people. They are always tense because they are trying to sole all of the problems they have.

People who struggle with explosive anger must learn to live with some problems and accept imperfections in the world without trying to erase them all. They must understand their own limits in forcing other people to be what they want them to be.

Pros and Cons

For many people, explosive anger feels good, at least in the short term. You feel powerful and in control and you let the tension out of your body. It may seem like others listen to you better and you are more of an authority.

You can choose explosive anger, but it is a poor choice. It has may consequences, as we’ve discussed previously. If you choose explosive anger, you are also choosing a host of  negative consequences that go along with it. These consequences might be physical, legal or relational. To continue with this choice will cause tension, suffering and ruin your relationships. And this choice could also land you in jail.

If you are struggling with anger and rage, we have a anger management counseling program that teaches skills and provides tools to help better manage anger in healthy ways.  Call us at 303-933-5800 or fill out the contact form. A counselor will contact you within 24-hours.

Excerpts taken from “Take Control of Your Anger: A step-by-step guide to anger management” by Michael Ballard, MA, LPC

Anger Management Options

Up to this point, you have learned how to acknowledge your anger, stop your immediate response, calm yourself down, and evaluate your situations. You have thought through your anger rationally, and after evaluating your situation, you have a good picture of what is going on and why you are upset. You are understanding that you have anger management options.

The next step is for you to figure out what you are going to do about it. You have to consider your choices and figure things to do. The fifth step in the ASCEND method is: Navigate your options.

Anger Awareness
Stop your immediate response
Calm yourself down
Evaluate your situation
Navigate your options
D

You know what your problem is, so what are you going to do about it? You know you need to act. But before act, you need to think through what you are going to do. Just like dealing with marriage conflict and relationship issues, you will learn healthy options to deal with your anger.

Options When You Are Angry

When ever you get angry, you have six options for how you can respond.

1) Explosive Anger
2) Stuffing Anger
3) Passive Aggression
4) Direct Confrontation
5) Dropping Anger
6) Decisive Action

Any time you are angry about anything you respond by choosing one of these six options. There is no perfect option. They all have pros and cons. But there is a catch: you have to live with the consequences of whatever choice you make. In this anger management blog, we will review the pros and cons of each of the six options of management your anger. Please return to this anger management blog to read each option and learn about better ways to manage it.

Excerpt taken from “Take Control of Your Anger: A Step-by-Step Guide to Anger Management” by Michael Ballard, MA, LPC

Practice Empathy

Thankfully, the cure to selfish anger is a simple one. Empathy.

The ultimate solution is fixing your selfish anger is to see your problem from the other person’s shoes. If you can learn how to do this, then most of the time it will radically change how you view your anger.

If you can truly “walk a mile in their shoes” and see their point of view, it will change the way you see your situation.

If you can stop and think:

Ok. I know I am mad about _____ because I cam to the conclusion that this was unfair. That’s why I am upset.

But….if I think about it from the other person’s  perspective, I can see why they are mad too. They are mad because they think ______ is unfair. They think that is not right. I may not agree with them, but at least now I can see if from their view.

Learning to see something from someone else’s shoes might just be the most important skill in learning to control your anger. If you can do this, then your odds of getting your anger under control are MUCH greater.

It is impossible to have selfish anger if you are looking at the situation from someone else’s point of view.

Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and attempt to see why they did what they did. What need were they trying to meet in doing what they did? What was driving them to do that?

• She was in a hurry beaus she had that thing to get to
• She’s still upset with me over the last thing so she said that to try and hurt me
• She wants to protect her career; and so that is way she is acting that way
• Maybe she is having a hard tie at home right now and taking it out on me

You also want to ask yourself the question, “do I ever do that?” Most of the time the answer to this is yes, and that helps you understand their position better.

Last week I was mad at a friend. We had been [planning to meet up for months and then he said he couldn’t because of work. When I asked him about it he said, “I forgot and traded shifts with someone.” Then I thought, “Have I ever made a mistake and messed up my schedule?”

When i realized that I have done the same thing it helped me to not be as angry with him for his actions.

Practicing empathy is possibly the hardest step, and also likely the most important one to truly master your anger.

People who have strong powers of empathy rarely get angry. And conversely, people with serious anger problems usually have very little capacity for empathy.

Practicing empathy does not mean that you are excusing others for their behavior or that you are letting them off the hook. It is just the process of learning to see what happened from their perspective–to “walk a mile in their shoes.”

The more you can learn to practice empathy, you will see your entire situation in a different light, and the better you will become at managing your anger.

Excerpt taken from “Take Control of Your Anger: A Step-by-Step Guide to Anger Management by Michael Ballard, MA, NCC, LPC

Consider Your Expectations

Sometimes we become very upset over things that are really more about our expectations than anything else. This usually happens when we are asking too much of someone else (or of ourselves). This is especially true of people who are perfectionists.

Expectations for Yourself

I once worked with a professional golfer who was exceptionally gifted. Because of this he expected perfection every time he played. Unfortunately, anyone who has ever played golf knows this is not a reality. So when he made a mistake (and no matter how good you are, you will) he would lose his temper. His expectations for himself were perfection, and anything short of that was unacceptable in his eyes. So when a shot went into a sand trap, he lost his cool.

I’ve also worked with students who had 4.0 GPAs who would become furious with themselves if they earned anything less than perfect grades. When they made mistakes they would beat themselves up because their expectations for themselves were too high. If your expectations for yourself are unrealistically high, you will find yourself angry very often, because life is not perfect.

I hate to break it to you, but you are not perfect. You make mistakes. And the sooner you admit it the better as far as your anger is concerned. If your expectations for yourself are too high, you will frequently find yourself angry.

Expectations for Others

This is also true if your expectations for others are unrealistic. You might get upset at the way someone drives, annoyed at the way your spouse folds the laundry, angry with a coworker who is not working fast enough, or frustrated at the way someone chooses to do a task.

These are not real wrongs. The problem here is unrealistic expectations, and holding standards that are just too high. When our standards are very high and someone falls short, we get angry because they didn’t do it the way we wanted them to. But that says more about us than it does about them.

I once worked with a wife who became very angry with her husband because he did not read her mind and do exactly what she wanted. She told me, “We’ve married so long that he should be able to know what I think and do it without me saying it.” Unfortunately for her, he didn’t. So she was frequently mad at him because her expectations were just too high.

Are your expectations too high? consider how you would respond to the following events:

• Your spouse leaves clothes on the floor.
• You made a mistake at your job.
• Your kid gets B’s in school.
• You forgot to pick up the dry cleaning.
• An employee shows up late to work.
• You forgot to pay a bill.
• Your cleaning person didn’t put the dishes away.
• You give a presentation that doesn’t go as well as you had hoped.
• You get frustrated at an employee because he is working too slowly.

Would you get upset about these items? Would you get angry if they happen to you? Because there is nothing immoral or unethical on this list. These are not real wrongs. If you answered yet to several of them, you need to consider if your expectations are unreasonable.

To make matters worse, we we often have a nasty habit of turning these personal preferences into rules for other people. When we do this we use works like “should,” “have to,” and “ought to.” We take our own values and desires and put them on someone else. We try to control other epoel and what they do, think, and say.

We start to think about how other people should or should not behave. We create rules about how people around us should respond, such as “a friend should call you back within an hour,” or “my husband should know to buy me flowers without me having to ask.” When those around us break our rules, we get angry and punish them.

For some people it is entitlement, or the belief that bad things shouldn’t happen to me. For others it is perfectionism, or the thought that, “this is the right way to do it. You have to do it this way.” But the result is the same. If someone does not follow our rules we get upset.

I once heard a wife tell her husband, “This is the right way to pack a suitcase. You’d have to be an idiot to do it any other way.” The husband then responded, “You are wrong. This is how it has to be. Any other way is stupid.”

Both the husband and the wife were angry. They had personal preferences for how a suitcase should be packed and then turned their own personal preferences into absolute rules for the other person. By doing so they were being selfish, and this caused more anger and more fights for them.

And in the end, does it really matter how you pack a suitcase? Is that really a flight you want to have?

But often we try to control other people to make them do things the way we want them to. And this almost always leads to problems. Trying to change someone else (or waiting for them to change) is just not going to work.

The hard truth is that you can’t change any other person in this world other than yourself.

It is important to understand that there are limits to what you can control. You have to control what you can control. And getting someone else to change is NOT an option, because it is not something that you can control. You can’t change another person. That’s not possible. You only have control of your own actions.

You can threaten a person. You can argue with a person. You can give a convincing logical presentation to a person. You can bribe a person. You can make them a PowerPoint presentation. You can hold a gun up to a person’s head. But no matter what you try, you do not have the power to control another person. You cannot make another person do anything. You just can’t.

And what happens is two things. If you try to control someone you get upset because they are not doing what you want them to do. They are not following your rules. And meanwhile, they are getting upset because they don’t like being bossed around or told what to do. Is is a poison.

If I wanted to ruin a relationship I would tell both people to try and control the other as much as possible. That would do it. If you are demanding and creating selfish rules for how someone else must act. It will do two things. It will make you angry. And it will also make them angry. You can bet on it.

The sooner you focus on what you can control (your own actions) and stop focusing on what you can’t (someone else’s actions) the better things will go for you.

 

To start the process of learning how to think through your anger, you need to first understand why you get angry. When I ask most people why the get angry, I hear responses like:

 

 

 

• My husband never appreciates me
• My wife always criticizes me
• My kids don’t listen to me
• My boss is a jerk
• Drivers in this town can’t drive
• People are rude to me and don’t give me respect

Some of these might sound familiar.  Or maybe you have others on your list.

But no matter what makes us mad, we usually think of it like this: Someone did something and that made me mad.

But that’s not exactly right. There’s more to it than that.

You see, something did happen, and that is the first step in our anger. That’s called our trigger situation. But that’s not the complete picture. There is another step that we usually skip over.

A Common Misconception

This brings me to tan important point that most people get confused. Situations, people, and things do not make you mad.

We do not get angry because bad things happen to us. We don’t get angry because of people, things, or situations. People (like your wife), things (like your computer) or situations (like waiting in line) do not make you angry.

hat we think about situations, people, and things make us mad. We get angry because of the way we are thinking about these people, things or situations. We get angry because of how we interpret these events, view these events, and evaluate these events. That’s why we get angry.

I happens like this:

1. Something happens (trigger situation)
2. I think about it in a certain way (trigger thought)

Andy the way I think about it determines if I get angry or not.

Excerpt take from “Take Control of Your Anger: A Step-by-Step Guide to Anger Management by Michael Ballard, MA, NCC, LPC

Five Ways To Happier Life

The small things make the difference in the long run. Here are 5 EASY tips anyone can do in order to make you look, and more importantly, FEEL better. How do you stay happy during the day? There ways you can purposely work on staying happy. In this post I want to show you ways that are researched proven. If you these action items, you will be going in the right direction toward being happier in your life.

 

1. Drink more water. Dehydration leads to fatigue, bad moods, headaches, poor digestion, wrinkly skin, and more. You will feel better about how you look and have more energy throughout the day.
2. Take breaks to stretch during your day. Not a yogi? That’s okay! Getting up and stretching provides energy, promotes circulation, decreases chances of injury, and just makes you feel better. It lets you take inventory of how your body is feeling.
3. Make your bed. I know, I know, I hate doing it too. But it’s true that getting up and accomplishing one small thing in the first 5 minutes of your day makes you more apt to continue the pattern throughout your day.
4. Find things to smile about. Make an effort daily to find the good in life. The most beautiful people are not the most perfect, but the ones who can laugh at themselves and find humor in small things.
5. Stop saying “yes” when you mean “no.” This one’s a little trickier to put into place. When we do this, we’re skirting around the issue now, but it WILL come up again later. Learning to be assertive and upfront will save us hours of emotional agony later on.
6. Exercise.  Exercising releases the good mood endorphins so that you are always in a better mood after a workout or simply a walk to the supermarket.  Research has shown that exercising daily reduces depression and anxiety.
7. Make a gratitude list every morning.  This is a list of things you are thankful for in your life.  Depression can come from distorted beliefs about your life and finding gratitude in what you have rather than focusing on what you don’t have can bring about a change in your mood.  So daily, begin by writing down 3 things you that you are thankful for.
8. Practice being mindful and present.  This simply means to focus and pay attention to the present moment and accept it without judgement.  This has been proven to reduce stress, improve mood, and change for the better one’s quality of life.  Being present means enjoying and savoring all your senses: touch, smell, taste, sight, and sounds.  Focus not on the past or on the future.  Just stay mindful of the here and now.

Just a few ideas on purposeful actions that can change your mood and bring more joy.  Remember, being happy is a choice and research has found that happy people make the choice to be happy.  So I challenge you today to to live the joyful life that you can; filled to the brim with laughter and smiles.  My hope is that the above 8 tips will help you develop a more positive outlook on your life!