More Topics

• ANGER..NOT to have and to hold (don’t be married to your anger)
• Empathy, Assertiveness and Forgiveness (the antidotes)
• Anger and Diabetes(“Let me count the ways!”)
  Stay in anger to avoid pain from narcissistic injury, insult of diagnosis, difference(“Why me?”), fears of danger or threat, loss of control, family and doctors not protecting you; fear what will happen or what will not happen (marry, have a child), loss of old place in family- independence, naiveté, health
  • misunderstanding tools (b.s. tests) as helpful vs. judgmental
  • self-talk: expectations of perfection
  • family interaction: control, boundaries
  • interaction with friends, work, dealing with the medical team (expectations, judgments) Response to anger: withdrawal, shame...
  • Anger is not a dirty word
  • Alerts us to something needing to be attended to
  • Anger as secondary emotion; fear, frustration, helplessness first (catch it early)
  • Embrace as a warm ( or hot) human emotion which can move us forward
  • What you do when you are angry is as important than why
  • Allow anger vs. repression or suppression into somatic complaints
    accompanied by physical arousal..internalizing anger leads to hypertension, hostility, cardiovascular disease, depression vs. THE MYTH OF LETTING OUT ANGER: Be yourself is the worst advice you can give some people- Tom Masson
  • Turn into a motivator for change or action-i.e. “the upside of anger”: anger equals energy..anger as volume control (the louder I turn it up, the more powerless I feel)..turn the anger down..not off and convert it into constructive movement
  • Tools(Learned behavior---can be unlearned!)
    • RECOGNIZE
    • ANALYZE (Move from blame) THINK BEFORE YOU ACT (Time-out)
    • DISCUSS(look for rational explanation) vs. blow up
    • CHOOSE NEW BEHAVIOR ..ASSERTIVE TOOLS ( or exercise, yoga, write, scream in a private place, paint, stamp your feet in a private place)
    • EMPATHY (Seek first to understand, then to be understood)
      • LET GO
      • Beware of “Anger Addiction”…staying in anger to avoid pain (sole and compulsive response to stress is anger.. “We don’t know what we want but we are ready to bite someone to get it..Will Rogers)vs. Healthy Anger(expressing in healthy and appropriate ways)
        

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