HOW DO YOU HANDLE ANGER

Anger is an emotion that can be difficult to deal with. Sometimes it’s experienced as a fleeting annoyance while other times it consumes our bodies with a burning rage. Anger is a natural human emotion, and it happens to everybody, whether we openly express it or not. The problem is not that we have anger. How we process anger determines whether it becomes a tool for self-healing weapons of destruction.

 

Anger is a wave of energy. It is not who we are (as in “I am an angry person”). Instead it is an emotion that is visiting for a short while — unless we decide to hold onto it. If anger is acknowledged and released in healthy ways, it can lead to deeper feelings of love. If anger is welcomed as it occurs and seen for what it really is, it will pass. However, not dealing directly with anger can lead to subtle forms of anger that can last for days or even years.

 

These subtle forms of anger may include resentment, impatience, chronic irritability, withdrawal, isolation, etc. Consistent prolonged levels of anger can affect health producing migraines, arthritis, and head, neck and shoulder problems. As with any suppressed emotion, unresolved anger can lead to self-soothing with comfort eating or other addictions.

 

One of the reasons anger can be so enigmatic is that many of us were not given permission to express this emotion while growing up. We were often told to go to our room or calm down. Some of us were taught to “stuff” emotions, especially anger. Children often learn that the negative feelings aren’t real or shouldn’t be displayed.

 

We are conditioned to pretend to be happy, nothing is wrong, smile pleasantly, be nice, and keep emotions hidden. Or we witnessed unacceptable, harmful expressions of anger and decided for ourselves that this is not how we would live our lives. The result is we grow up without knowledge or experience of how to cope with anger in healthy ways.

 

Not So Healthy Things to Do with Your Anger:

 

____ over eat / binge / bulimia / anorexia
____ compulsive exercise or pushing your body to fatigue
____ drinking and drugging
____ cutting or self-mutilation
____ sexual escape
____ withdrawal into silence or silent treatment
____ calm on the outside, steaming inside
____ ignore or deny the problem
____ avoid confrontation
____ abusive shouting/lashing out at others with angry or hateful words
____ physical aggression, throwing things at another person
____ internalize anger and frustration
____ dwell on intrusive negative thoughts
____ hypercritical self-thoughts
____seek revenge of punishment on another
____ dwell on how bad you have it

 

Personalize Anger:

 

One method to deal with anger is to personalize it into a separate being. This allows you to see the energy of anger as separate from who you are. The following is a guideline for working with anger. The steps work best if done out loud because this brings out the internal dialogue of the mind so you can become conscious of what is really going on for you beneath the anger.

 

1. Breathe deeply, from your diaphragm; breathing from your chest won’t allow connection with your feeling, and won’t allow movement to occur. Acknowledge that you have anger and take some time to feel it within your body. Decide not to run away from it. Thank the anger for being present. Allow for the ideas that even if you don’t understand your anger completely, somehow you felt threatened. Your anger is attempting to fight for you. Gratitude will melt resistance you have towards your own anger.

 

2. Give anger your unconditional acceptance. Commit to yourself that you will not judge, ignore, shame, reject, criticize, or punish yourself for having anger. It is allowable for you to have anger. Your experience is meaningful.

 

3. Share your desire to get to know your anger, why it is here, and what it wants for you. Anger is not your enemy. Anger indicates you are in pain, hurt, or fear. It’s very presence allows an opportunity to heal or open the doorway to greater love. Express your desire to know what experiences might be connected with this anger. Communicate with your anger in a way that you allow yourself to be its friend, and that your desire is to have it express itself to you.

 

4. Allow your anger, words, or memories to have a safe space to come out. As you listen to your anger, go beyond the surface and ask what you are feeling threatened by. Ask what you would need from yourself to feel even a little better. Notice the energy in your body, breathe into that energy, and allow it to expand until you feel a physical shift. Continue to remember anger is an experience, not who you are.

 

5. Recognize that beneath your anger, you felt threatened in some manner. Listen and be willing to understand what lives inside of you. Offer love to your anger and the tender place beneath your anger. This is the process of transformation. You don’t need to solve anything, rather you need to bring a loving presence to the hurt that lives beneath anger. Your job is to realize exactly what caused you to feel threatened, and now allow for new assertive, loving, and adult ways of dealing with that threat. 

- by Dr. Annette Colby, RD

 

 

 

 

 

EVERY TIME SYSTEMS BEATS EFFORT!

In business and in life, systems beat effort every time.
Most entrepreneurs confuse effort, activity, and motion with progress.
The key to making money, building a business and
satisfying your customers is NOT frantic motion, but a few
simple things done well.
Many of us have observed that the key to keeping our promises
is to make fewer of them. In business, the same
principle applies.
Well-run businesses rarely scramble or improvise. They
have systems and plans for creating great products and
delivering them at a fair price. Great companies
understand their customers, sometimes even better than the
customers know themselves! World-class companies do a few
things, do them extremely well, and generate profits from
their ability to impress (and keep!) their customers.
New or young entrepreneurs get caught by the lure of the
"next big thing". They are impressed with the innovation and
can't wait to expand or grow, and they forget the basics of
serving customers and developing life-long partnerships.
Take time to get organized. Set up automatic tracking and
record-keeping systems. Stay in touch with your best
customers and ask them for feedback about your company.
Sam Walton used to say that his best ideas came from
talking with stock-boys, check-out clerks and people on the
loading docks. In Tom Peter's phrase, he "managed by
walking around".
We can learn from that. Slow down and achieve more.
Simplify. Focus. Do one thing, do it better than anyone
in the world, and your fortune is assured.

RELEVANCE IN BUSINESS

Here’s a big truth in business.

If you’re not relevant… nobody will give you the time of day.

Here’s why - people care about themselves and they have short attention spans.

That means a few things -

1. You need to know and understand your ideal client really well. Know what’s important to them if you want to catch their attention.
2. Spend time where your clients spend time. And these days social media platforms are a fantastic place to make connections, share resources, and build your authority in your industry.
3. Stay top of mind. People are bombarded with so much stuff on social media - ads, articles, videos, that they may see your post once… but unless they see you repeatedly, they’ll forget about you.

Being relevant doesn’t just happen. It takes effort, planning, and consistency.

STEPS TO LEADING A GREAT TEAM

Studies have shown that almost 40% of employees say that working with a great team is their primary reason for staying. So how can you make sure you're leading a collaborative team? Think back to a high-pressure situation your team went through - did they stick together, or did they focus on themselves? However your team responded, there are four steps you can take to create team collaboration and accountability:

1. Define Your Purpose

In order to have an accountable team, each team member must know their individual purpose and the goal of the team as a whole. Have you defined your purpose for the team? Take action: ask your team to write down what they think the team is accountable for and see how closely the answers match. Depending on their answers, you may have to take additional steps to get everyone on the same page.

2. Track Team Progress

In order to lead a collaborative team, each team member must have a measurable way to track their progress. This will enable them to see how they're progressing towards their goals, allow them to pivot based on project milestone results and give the team a chance to celebrate their successes throughout the project. Take action: Discuss how you’re tracking progress with your team and find a way to make a visible progress tracker (i.e. whiteboard, poster, etc.) that everyone can see and update.

3. Create a Shared Fate

In order to go from an individual to a team mindset, the team must have a shared fate; meaning, whatever happens to the individual happens to everyone. Unless they have a real and meaningful share fate, the team will fracture under pressure – worrying about themselves instead of the group's success. To create this mindset as a leader, you should model the behavior you're hoping to inspire and reward successful collaborative results more than individual performance. Take action: write down a list of behaviors you want to see in your team. Keep track of your own behavior for a week, writing down whether or not you’re emulating those behaviors as well.

4. Work Through Real Issues Together

How important is open and honest communication in the workplace? Research has shown that 99% of employees prefer a workplace where people identify and discuss issues truthfully and effectively. In addition, studies showed that 33% of workers said a lack of open, honest communication has the most negative impact on employee morale.

In order to motivate a team and make it safe for them to process real issues together, there needs to be a strong sense of shared fate and high levels of trust. The first part of this means that the team's level of decision-making authority needs to be clearly defined. The second part requires setting clear performance expectations so that any gaps in performance can be identified. This is crucial because giving honest feedback requires understanding what is expected and identifying what is getting in the way of success. Take action: set-up time each week for open and honest feedback with your team.