Don’t Look Back In Anger

Not necessarily aimed it at someone or something but you’ve picked something up and thrown it?

How do you control a sudden wave of anger that seems to just engulf you? I remember my Dad hitting himself with a hammer when I was young and he threw the hammer up the garden swearing. I must admit it alarmed me. Number one up until that point I’d never heard my Dad swear and number two he threw a hammer, it could have gone anywhere.

I’ve been known to throw a few things in my life as a result of anger. It was never aimed at anyone, with the exception of one time and even then I didn’t intend it to happen. It just... happened.

No, I don’t have ‘anger management issues’ but there have been a few times in my life when anger has poured out of me with such intensity it was like a knee jerk reaction to do something to get it out my system.

Has that ever happened to you?

Otherwise I would direct the anger inwards instead and that’s a whole different story.

 Missile

The one and only time I’ve ever aimed a missile at anyone and I say aimed in inverted commas, was when I worked at The Royal International Air Tattoo. I was PA to the Director, Paul Bowen, bless his soul.

Paul had a habit of “amending” minutes of meetings to the extent I wondered if I’d actually been in the same meeting and heard the same things. After the fourth round of amendments I was getting annoyed at reproducing the minutes and I dared to challenge Paul over it.

“Debbie” he said “people have a tendency to think differently to me, or maybe I think differently to them, I may not be a pilot but I believe if we dare to dream it then it can be achieved. If a pilot says he can do something I’m with him, therefore if I push the boundaries safely we have something even better than before. My thinking goes beyond most others. I don’t see the sky as the limit we’ve been to the fricking moon for crying out loud, the only limit is what’s between the ears of a human being and how they think”.

I sat there stunned but with a smile on my face. I’d never heard him be so passionate to the point of anger about what he believed in.

Then he said, “I’m hungry, lunch is ready, are you coming? I’ll amend those minutes again after lunch”.

 Stapled To Death

It was at that point a wave of anger suddenly engulfed me as the prospect of yet another set of amendments hit me.  My immediate reaction was to pick up my stapler and fling it in the direction of the door. It hit the door frame and bounced off stapling thin air as it landed and I slumped in my chair completely dejected.

Then Paul’s face appeared round the door frame “You missed” he said. I felt the blood drain out of me and I sat there in horror, I genuinely thought he’d gone down the corridor. I sat there unable to move thinking “oh f”. “You might want to keep your thoughts in check you know”, “oh and I’ll put the stapler under lock and key in future”. He laughed. He had a wicked laugh and I loved it.

“You might want to keep your thoughts in check”. Personally I think I might not want to react so much. I was thankful he saw the funny side of it and I was even more thankful he decided not to tell everyone at lunch I’d attempted to take him out with a stapler.

You can imagine the headlines can’t you “Director stapled to death by his PA”.

 Split Second

So what causes that anger to suddenly well up?

Feelings of anger arise due to how we interpret and react to certain situations. Every human has their own triggers common ones include feeling: threatened or attacked, frustrated or powerless.

But what creates the feeling?

Our thoughts.

In a nano-second our thoughts are the root cause. In that nano-second of the thought of amending those minutes yet again it resulted in a reaction of throwing something out of anger in the general direction of my boss – something I suggest you not do!

But if you can catch that space between the thought and the reaction you can change the situation and have a different outcome. “And how do you that?” Is what a client asked me recently, “Never ask me how questions” I responded.

Little Tip For you xx

But I’ll give you a tip all you have to do is breathe. How simple is that?

But you breathe differently. Take a sip of breath in through the mouth, close your mouth and hold it, then slowly breathe out through the nose keeping your mouth closed. You have just interrupted the pattern in the brain. The brain has gone ‘hang on a minute we don’t breathe like that, what’s going on’. Then what’s happened? The mind is no longer focused on the original issue.

The breath. So powerful.

When was the last time you gave thanks for it?