Anger

The other day I was talking to a brother of a client. I did not anticipate the conversation would go a full hour. He was expressing his dissatisfaction with his younger brother. My client is the younger brother. I think it is positive when family members can vent when addiction is present in their family. However, I think it is positive when anger can be released, regardless if addiction is not the primary challenge with the person venting. In this case, this was evident. The older brother was not angry with the younger brother, he was angry with his parents in how they enable his younger brother. I feel fortunate to share this story with our readers. Anger can build up through the years. In this writers experience, I believe anger can be over shadowed with positive energy if you are willing to believe in yourself! In this particular case, I suggested that the older brother let  out all of the negative energy by communicating with this writer. That is step one, vent. Then I directed the older brother to list positive things in his life at this particular second. Step two, is where you identify with what is positive in your life at this moment in time. He started to rattle off positive areas in his life. Essentially, giving self credit for the hard work.  Now it was time to examine the final step in releasing the anger. Step three is being patient or not allowing your negative emotions to get the best of you! This is where I constantly tell our clients that you have been given a timeout, you are not allowed to react just yet. Step three is really a time out! All you can do is take a deep breath, and only allow your thoughts to pause, yes that is correct, pause. You have the brakes on from what you may be wanting to do, act, or say. Remember, I already let you vent in step one. All the negative should of came out then! Step two is where you train your mind to think positive and what list you have created in your thoughts. Step three is patience. Come on, I said, to the older brother, relax the thoughts. He was fighting step three as many do when I first introduce this anger exercise to someone new. I was watching his body language, his tone became softer. I could not see this vein in his forehead, where I did in step one, as he was loud, and extremely angry with his words. I think he wanted to yell more, but he did not. Being patient with our anger allows us to not overreact and say things that will not help the situation. I was sensing he wanted to talk more, I was wrong. He smiled at me, and walked away. Stay in your health, stay in the moment.