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| Beyond Anger Management Techniques | Educational Resources | ||||||||||||||||||
In this article:
THE DESTRUCTIVE EFFECT OF ANGER Think about all the times you’ve become angry at a spouse, a child, a co-worker, or a friend. On a single one of those occasions did your anger ever bring you a sense of genuine peace or happiness? Did your anger ever bring you closer to another person? Or enrich your relationship? Anger is uniformly harmful, both to us personally and to our relationships. The Destructive Effect of Anger on Other People When we get angry at people, we’re loudly declaring that they have failed to do something for us, or they have done something to inconvenience or offend us. In other words, when we’re angry, we are primarily concerned about ourselves, not the welfare of the people around us, and they feel that. When we get angry at other people, they hear us saying I don’t love you. That is the principal source of harm to other people when we get angry, that we are telling them that we don’t care about them. We cause the same effect when we use any of the other Getting and Protecting Behaviors. When we lie to people, get angry at them, act like they’re hurting us (victim), withdraw from them (run), or cling to them, we are not primarily concerned about their happiness—the definition of Real Love. We use those behaviors—mostly unconsciously—because we want to protect ourselves, or get something for ourselves, or both. When we use any of the Getting and Protecting Behaviors, our primary concern is for ourselves. On these occasions, the people around us can’t possibly feel like we unconditionally care about them, and they’re quite right—we don’t. That has a terrible effect on them and on our relationship with them. The Destructive Effect of Anger on Ourselves Our Getting and Protecting Behaviors—including anger—are also uniformly harmful to us. Real Love is unconditional. It must be freely given and freely received, so if we do anything at all to influence other people to alter their behavior toward us, we cannot feel loved unconditionally. The moment we use any of the Getting and Protecting Behaviors, we are influencing the behaviors of others, and in that moment we can’t possibly feel genuinely loved. We can only feel Imitation Love—the acceptance, power, pleasure, and safety we’re given after we earn them. That is perhaps the greatest danger of anger, that when we’re consumed by that feeling we cannot feel loved or happy. Anger Is Always Wrong Our primary goal in life—our very reason to exist—is to be genuinely happy, and we achieve that condition only as we feel unconditionally loved and share that love with other people. Whatever contributes, therefore, to feeling loved, loving, and happy is right, while anything that interferes with feeling loved, loving, and happy is wrong. From extensive personal experience we’ve all learned that when we’re angry we’re never happy, nor do we contribute to the health of our relationships. Because anger detracts from feeling loved, loving, and happy, it is always wrong. Instinctively, we even know it’s wrong, because when we’re confronted about being angry, we usually deny it. I am not saying you shouldn’t be angry. In any
given moment, anger may be the best you can do. I’m only stating
in the strongest possible terms that anger—along with all the
other Getting and Protecting Behaviors—is destroying our happiness
and our relationships. And now we can learn to eliminate anger and
replace it with joy. THE ELIMINATION (NOT MANAGEMENT) OF ANGER I have now had experience with sharing the principles of Real Love with hundreds of thousands of people, and I can state categorically that we don’t have to settle for the temporary and superficial effects of anger management techniques or anger management tips. We can learn to actually eliminate anger from our lives, and that is followed by an indescribable peace and power. The elimination of anger is accomplished by two approaches, one intellectual and the other experiential. The Intellectual Approach: Seeing differently Imagine that you and I are having a pleasant lunch together by the side of a large pool. It’s a lovely day, and we’re having a great time, but then someone in the pool begins to splash you—first on your shoes, then higher up on your pants or legs. You can’t see who’s splashing you, though, because there’s a deck chair between you and the person in the pool. At first you ignore it, but as you become increasingly wet you finally become irritated and get up from your chair to say something to this idiot who’s being so thoughtless. As you stand up and look over the chair that was in your way, you see that the man splashing you is drowning. He’s splashing you only because he’s thrashing and kicking in the water in an effort to keep his head from going under. Are you still mad at him? Of course not. As soon as you see why he’s splashing you, you not only lose your irritation, but you immediately become concerned about him, and you help him out of the water. In one moment of insight, your state of mind shifts from one of anger to one of unconditional concern for his happiness (Real Love). Such is the power of perspective, and we can apply this power to our relationships with others. Imagine in your mind someone you find irritating. Now imagine his or her irritating behaviors. Is it not true that all of these irritating behaviors are Getting and Protecting Behaviors? Of course they are, and why would he or she use these behaviors? As we’ve already discussed, people use Getting and Protecting Behaviors only when they’re empty and afraid, conditions that are cause by insufficient Real Love. People who are behaving badly simply lack Real Love, which is just as important to their emotional health as air is to a drowning person. In short, every person who is behaving badly is just drowning. If we can see people as drowning when they’re behaving badly, we’ll find it impossible to be irritated at them. How could we be angry at a drowning man or woman? Eliminating Anger With the Actual Experience of Real Love If we ourselves are drowning, however, a simple intellectual understanding of the behavior of other people is often not enough. If you and I are both drowning, your splashing and grabbing may become life-threatening to me, and my understanding of your situation alone will not help my condition. I need more. We’ve already demonstrated that anger is primarily a response to the lack of Real Love in our lives. With anger, we protect ourselves and temporarily fill ourselves with Imitation Love. We’re responding to the lack of twenty million dollars, referring to the metaphor we used above. The solution to anger should therefore be obvious. As we learn to find sufficient Real Love, we gradually acquire the twenty million dollars, which we can carry with us wherever we go. Then when someone takes two dollars from us, it really doesn’t matter anymore, and we simply don’t become angry. To make use of both metaphors above, Real Love also pulls us out of the pool, so we’re no longer drowning, and then the drowning behaviors of others no longer become life-threatening. This is not a fairy tale. Real Love really does empower us like this, as demonstrated in the lives of thousands of people all over the world. Allow me to share with you a few of their comments:
THE FREEDOM OF BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ANGER We blame people for our anger because it seems easier than taking the responsibility for our own lives, a technique we learned from birth. When I blame you for my anger, however, I’m stuck. I’ll be angry forever unless you change. That’s unfortunate for two reasons: It’s very impractical to have my happiness chained to your decisions, and it’s simply untrue that you cause my anger. When I realize that my anger is a reaction to the emptiness and fear caused by a lack of Real Love in my own life, I can finally do something about it. I won't need anger management techniques or anger management tips. I simply won't BE angry—it's the natural and universal result. To learn more about where your anger comes from and how to replace it with peace and happiness, download a free chapter of Real Love and Freedom for the Soul: Eliminating the Chains of Victimhood. In order to learn much more about anger and its elimination with the power of Real Love—unconditional love or true love—and how to find genuine happiness and richly fulfilling relationships:
With literally hundreds of hours of Real Love online education at your fingertips on RealLove.com, we provide new content and instruction on finding happiness in your life. Learn to look at life through the clarifying lens of Real Love and eliminate the confusion and frustration in your life. |
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How
to Eliminate Anger—Anger Management Techniques 
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