The world is full of evil. Colleagues, neighbors and even a friendly man – everyone around periodically radiates anger. The psychotherapist and expert in the management of anger, Stephen Stosna calls this an epidemic. How to prevent anger to spoil your life?
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“If we become more irritable, impatient, critical, offended, evil, less flexible, we lose the ability to see prospects, these are not our fault. This is an evil world “. A psychotherapist and an expert in the field of relations and work with anger, Stephen Stosna is convinced: anger in any manifestations is the most contagious emotion of all. Being next to negatively tuned people, seeing them in the news, reading on social networks, we can absorb their negativity, take it on ourselves.
Which is worst in life in the evil world? He turns us into what we despise, considers Stosna. “We react to morons as morons. We hate people who hate us. We behave disrespectfully and complain about disrespect. Reacting to daffodils – those who feel morally or intellectually better and are not able to understand others – we themselves show narcissism.
We are unhappy with politicians who call each other dishonest and hypocritical, and for a short while we feel satisfaction when the same anger that collects political movements ultimately destroys them ”.
We have the right to anger
No matter what serves his cause, we have the right to anger. But there is a more important question, Stephen Stosna clarifies: “You want to be angry, irritable, impatient, offended and gesture?”
Chronic anger includes the charge. It makes us focus on the idea that other people do wrong. Because of this, it is almost impossible to see what we are doing wrong ourselves. It seems to us that we are bad. Expressing protest, we are confused by the negative reactions that we receive in response.
Anger is felt inside not what it looks outside. He changes body tongue, facial expressions and tone of voice. This is what other people react to, this is what they read in communicating with us.
When we accuse, we are inevitably accused. When we shame others, others will shame us.
The desire to blame others changes our perception. It is unlikely that we will understand how anger changes ourselves. Stosna gives several vivid examples.
- Makes us “reactogolics”: other people “press our buttons” and manipulate us.
- Eliminates positive passion – conviction, meaning, determination – through a strong desire to take revenge or punish.
- Destroys sexual life by accumulating the number one block in intimacy – resentment.
- Worsens fine motor skills. “By the way, never choose an evil or offended surgeon,” says Stosna.
Chronic anger increases the risk:
- heart diseases, stroke, cancer, hypertension and mood disorders,
- alcoholism, drug addiction, workaholism and other compulsive forms of behavior,
- colds, flu, abdominal pain, head and muscle pain.
Since anger requires the ultimate concentration at the perceived threat, it distorts the perception of reality. Chronic anger makes us see threats everywhere. It turns out that we are easy to offend. We have something akin to paranoia. This gives rise to pettiness and revenge.
In relations, chronic anger includes a constant struggle for power. This feeling is definitely not for communication or negotiations. Its functions are to:
- control/neutralize perceived threats – mainly aimed at the ego,
- prevent, intimidate, threaten the loss of attachment.
More passion, less anger
Anger and passion are often combined. Some people think that they need anger energy to correct the mistake. In fact, in a state of anger, we are much more likely to perform, and not correct them. Stephen Stosna believes: to correct the error, you need the energy of passion.
In his conviction, it is the difference between anger and passion and helps us to remain in their right mind in the evil world. Anger encourages the struggle, punishment, depreciation, destruction, destruction. Passion gives the strength to build, create, improve, appreciate. Anger unleashes war. Passion brings hope. Anger leads to exhaustion and depression. Passion moves to the goal and confidence. And, of course, passion is more likely to give positive results.
Do not let yourself be deceived
Some research participants talk about the beneficial effect of anger on them. But self -report, first -person assessment cannot be objective – anger covers his eyes, makes him blame others and deprives the opportunity to see the situation from different points of view. Working with the problems of domestic violence, Stosna at the beginning of his career realized that another – and more accurate, realistic – an assessment of a person’s anger can be obtained by interviewing his family or colleagues. Anger, by definition, deprives us of the ability to soberly evaluate our own behavior and see its influence on others.
Anger can be justified, but not to justify it
Of course, everyone is sometimes angry. Anger is not a problem if we do not spend a lot of time on its justification. The longer we do this, the longer the anger lasts, we cannot throw off the grievances from our heads. This significantly prolongs the emotional and physical state, which developed at the moments of short bursts of energy. The consequences of anger that are mentioned above are the results not so much as we are angry, how much our anger lasts.
The desire to justify your anger is indicative. Surrendering to anger, we abandon our values and beliefs. Therefore, we want to justify our reaction, mainly in our own eyes. “You someday felt a desire to justify more humane emotions-compassion, kindness or love?” – asks Stosna.
In any case, even living in the evil world, we can maintain common reason if we consider our own anger as a fleeting emotion and refrain from judgments until it passes.