High Achiever's Edge: anger

Showing posts with label anger. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

How to Successfully Manage Your Anger

Anger has gotten a bad rap given what we have seen in the media. Unfortunately, reality shows and the general news can make one associate anger with violence. The most recent high-profile TMZ moment was with Jay Z and his sister-in-law, Solange.

Although it is unclear why Solange reportedly attacked Jay Z (or, for that matter, why Beyonce just stood there), what is clear is Solange was the physical aggressor and Jay Z was trying to avoid a physical altercation with her.

If the tables were turned, there is no doubt that Jay Z would be arrested and charged with assault. The fact that Solange is a woman does not diminish the seriousness of her behavior.

There’s no denying that Solange was emotionally triggered by something. What is unfortunate is that she was unable to control her emotions and address the situation with more self-control.

Anger is Good

Anger is a basic human emotion just like love, grief, confusion, and happiness. Feeling angry is normal, healthy, and can serve as a signal to you that something is wrong. How one chooses to express their anger is a different story.

From the time we are born, we learn how to express our feelings in either healthy and unhealthy ways – including anger. We use our emotions to communicate not only what we feel, but to gain some benefit such as attention, sympathy, or approval.

GOOD NEWS – if you can learn how to express your emotions, you can also learn how to manage them!

When you learn how to manage your anger, you can actually use anger to help you set healthy boundaries with people.

You can express your dislike, disappointment, or frustration in ways that people can understand and respect.

Here is the basic four-step process to manage your anger:

1) Acknowledge: Accept feeling angry. The more you deny it, the stronger it will become.

2) Understand: Think about what caused you to feel angry. Remember, anger is a normal emotion and feeling angry is not bad. You can take this step to the next level by beginning to identify your “triggers.” What makes you angry? When you are aware of the things that stir you up, you have more control over your anger.

3) Express: Share how you feel in a calm way. If you are enraged, you want to take a time-out and get yourself together (e.g. go for a walk). When you do express your anger, do not attack the person’s character. Instead, use “I” statements. For example: “I felt belittled when you called me incompetent.”

4) Let Go: This is usually the hardest step. I wrote another blog on how to let go of hurt and anger that you can read here. The focus is to move beyond the anger and grow from it.

DO NOT:

* Deny your anger. Remember, acknowledge your anger – it’s a healthy emotion.

* Bottle up/hold in your anger. If you acknowledge your anger, but don’t express it, then you risk having an outburst of anger or rage when you least expect it. Take a lesson from Solange, it is NOT ok to hold in your anger and then react physically when you think no one is watching.

* Take out your anger on other people or things. If you’re angry at your husband for how often he goes out, tell him. Don’t damage his clothing or hide his keys.

* Become passive/aggressive. Indirectly expressing your anger through being hostile, sarcastic, or stubborn will only escalate negativity.

I hope you found this process to be helpful. While each person will manage anger in their own way, it is important to seek the help of a professional if you feel your anger is escalating, has/is becoming a problem, or is posing a threat to you or others.

There are a number of effective treatments that you can use such as meditation or heart-centered hypnotherapy to release your anger and get to the root of your problem. Look into different methods and see which ones resonate with you.

As always, please share this article as you never know who may benefit from the information.

With love and light … I wish you pleasant journeys!

Dr. Jinnie Cristerna is a psychotherapist, RoHun Doctor, author, and national mental health expert located in Chicago, IL. Dr. Cristerna works with talented and ambitious individuals, families, and corporations to help them break through and heal psychological roadblocks limiting their success. To learn more about Dr. Cristerna, go to www.HighAchiever.net

Monday, January 2, 2017

Dressing Down My Hubby

READER QUESTION: “Dear Jinnie: My husband and I are not speaking right now. He made a risky financial move I repeatedly warned him wouldn’t work out, but he did it anyway and now we are in the red. When I tried to discuss it with him, he said he is tired of me dressing him down and embarrassing him to the point where he doesn’t even want to communicate with me about important matters. What am I doing wrong? He shouldn’t be mad that I tell him when he’s wrong or point out what could be a dumb mistake. Isn’t that what a marriage is for? Or does he have a point?”– Signed “Truth Hurts”

Dear “Truth Hurts,”

I am sorry to hear about these issues with your spouse. I know it must be difficult to be in a position where you two aren’t even communicating. Without knowing the full extent of the financial issue or seeing the dynamic in person, I’ll do my best to offer some virtual couples counseling. It sounds like you may have bruised his ego, and while you feel justified, this scenario clearly didn’t pan out the way you planned. To speak more generally and help you, plus other women in this situation, here are four factors to consider when interacting with your husband for next time. I also added some coping strategies for good measure:

1) Loyalty is key. Let’s be clear, standing by your man when he is unemployed and looking for a job is different than standing by Jerry Sandusky (may he continue to rot in prison). Loyalty is about being on the same page and going through the good and the bad struggles in order to build something … together.

To improve the connection and loyalty in the relationship, try the following: a) Talk about your dreams; b) Come up with a plan; c) Identify the circumstances that will cause the plan to change.

2) You must always offer support. To put it bluntly, you may have emasculated him in your exchange. Calling him or his actions stupid (even when he does something that falls short of intelligent) isn’t nice and it takes away his confidence – just like it would you. Let him take the lead in those areas that are important to him and respect him as your partner. This is important because you want him to let you take the lead in the things that matter to you, right?

To be more supportive, try the following: a) Let him know when he’s done something well; b) Acknowledge his efforts; c) Reassure him that it will work out and you believe in him, even if that means changing course.

3)You gloated about being right. This goes out to all the ladies out here who have enjoyed that “told ya so” glow. Most of the time you are probably right and the man will know you are right; however, you don’t have to rub it in his face and remind him of it. Your place is as his partner–not his mother or math teacher. If you want to be treated like his partner, then act like one.

Try the following: a) Listen without interruption. Placing your index finger over your lips is a good way to remind yourself to shush; b) Notice your tone of voice. Sometimes, it’s not what you say that makes listening to you difficult, it’s how you say it; c) Ask clarifying questions. The Socratic method is awesome and practically fail proof! Yes, this is practiced faithfully at my beloved alma mater.

4) Let him fail. Men need to try and learn for themselves what worked and what didn’t work. Men are proud and it is important that women don’t take that from them. Now, there is a difference between a healthy sense of pride and narcissism. Healthy pride moves you to try and believe in yourself; however, it also has a fail safe switch that says, “you’re in over your head, get humble and get help!” Narcissism is unhealthy because it says you are right and everyone else should be willing to suffer to make your, often unrealistic, dream a reality. Narcissism has no place in a relationship – period. Know the difference between the two.

For even more education, I recommend a video that Redd Velvet created that offers advice on how to be good to your man. I like her words of wisdom. Watch it below or click here.

I hope you found this helpful and as always wish you pleasant journeys! With love and light …

Jinnie

Affluenza is Not a Disorder

How to deal with entitlement

As a mother, I was devastated at the verdict in the case of Ethan Couch, a Texas teen, who killed four people while driving drunk. As a clinical psychotherapist, I was appalled that Affluenza (which is NOT recognized by the American Psychiatric Association) was even humorously considered as a legitimate defense. I work with a significant number of ‘affluent’ individuals and families and this is ridiculous.

Affluenza is not a disorder. In sum, my re-framed definition of affluenza is the pressure to be socially accepted, which should have ended shortly after college. These are people who are empty/lack self-esteem and try to feel better by buying things that make them feel alive, special, wanted, or loved. Their sense of entitlement is eerily high and the feeling of empathy and remorse is practically bankrupt. In fact, anything that doesn’t go well for them is typically – wait for it – someone else’s fault.

Lack of self-esteem is hardly a disease; it’s a developmental phenomena that indicates one does not know, has not identified or believe in their own ability or self-worth. These things can be learned and are often taught by our caregivers when we are children through appropriate mirroring, conversation, encouragement, and setting limits (aka discipline).

Now, can one be so damaged that they will never develop self-esteem or the ability to empathize with others? Sure. We call those people psychopaths. With this said, if this kid is indeed suffering from ‘Affluenza’ there are a few sentences that the judge could have chosen to enact justice. Here are a few that comes to mind:

1) Place him with his peers – I believe they can be found in juvenile hall and then later transferred to prison. He will have an opportunity to connect with other like-minded individuals who also felt empty inside and lacked direction. For many of them, part of their emptiness also came from not receiving enough attention, structure, and consequence.

2) Put the parents in jail. I mean – the defense’s case was, ‘It’s the parent's fault,’ no? With all of that money, I’m sure they could have afforded therapy for themselves or their kid once there were problems, right? The unwillingness or inability to do so means they are just as liable for the deaths of the people their minor child killed.

3) “You work it out or you sit there until you do.” I believe that’s called a time out. Let them all share the smallest cell is the darkest corner on the cell block so they can work out their problems the good old fashioned way. Why should four people die because of your normal family “I HATE YOU!” problems? What family in America doesn’t hate each other?

4) Take away their money until they learn how to handle the pressure that comes with it. It is long noted that once a stressor is removed, healing can occur. Once the healing takes place, the stressor may be reintroduced slowly so there is a healthy response to it. This is called behavior modification. This may seem a bit extreme to some people but I redirect your attention to the four dead people that are unable to speak for themselves.

Anyway, this is my take on one of THE most unreal cases, defenses, and verdicts only topped by the Zimmerman outcome this year.

I hope that we all learned how important it is to parent our children and help those parents who are struggling take responsibility for stepping up. Last but not least, I hope we begin having deeper conversations around the importance of mental health – for everyone.

What do you think about Affluenza and this case? Do share in comments below.

Jinnie