Anger is a secondary emotion.
Emotions are a funny thing. We all walk around with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts and behaviors. Emotions can ride at the surface and we easily recognize them or they can remain hidden and we might not even know how they are affecting our lives.
Anger is an emotion with a wide variety of intensity. The physical effects of anger include rapid heartbeat, elevated blood pressure and increases in adrenalin.
Since anger is a secondary emotion something is usually happening first to make us feel uncomfortable. I am asked over and over how to recognize anger and I have put together a few simple exercises below that you can use to “check in” with yourself to monitor your behavior.
First, ask yourself… what am I feeling? Are you feeling happy, sad, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, shut down? Try to pinpoint what you are feeling. A healthy person has access to all of their emotions from joy to grief.
Next, try to get in touch with your emotions. We are all subject to emotions and if we are not in touch with what we are feeling we will soon become controlled by our emotions rather than us controlling our emotions. Try to figure out what emotion you are feeling. Remember anger is secondary so another emotion had to happen first to trigger your anger. Usually hurt is the primary emotion to anger.
Ask yourself questions: What am I feeling right now? If you are not sure, keep asking the questions. If you have trouble determining how you are feeling, try to describe the things that are going on in your life. Ask yourself what someone else might feel if they are going through the same experiences are you are going through.
Journal about your feelings and emotions so that you can become more aware of what you are feeling. Being able to revisit how you were feeling on a particular day can help in your ongoing process of getting in touch with your feelings.
Your emotions are an important of your life and if you are aware of what you are feeling you have put that information and energy to work for you.
If you are interested in investigating your feelings of anger, please join us at AngerManagementOnline.com where we are finding the answers together.
