Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions (28 page)

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Authors: June Hunt

BOOK: Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions
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13
LET COOLER HEADS PREVAIL
How to Put Out the Flames of Present Anger
“Good sense makes one slow to anger”
(PROVERBS 19:11 ESV).

 

NOT LONG AGO, I read an article about a man named Steve Tran of Westminster, California, who discovered his apartment had been infested by cockroaches. He decided to take action by fumigating with “bug bombs”—25 of them!
After activating all the bombs, he closed the door behind him and assumed he would no longer be bugged by bugs. But when the toxic spray reached the pilot light of his stove, a fiery explosion blasted Steve’s screen door across the street, shattered all his windows, and set his furniture ablaze.
“I wanted to kill all of them,” he said. “I thought if I used a lot more, it would last longer.”
According to the instructions on the label, just two canisters of the fumigant would have solved Steve’s pest predicament. The blast caused more than $10,000 of damage to the apartment building. But looking on the bright side of the situation, at least it ended the cockroach problem, right? Wrong.
According to Steve, “By Sunday, I saw them walking around.”
1
How Do We Prevent an Eruption?
You could certainly say this was a clear case of overkill, an over-the-top response to irritating circumstances. Sounds like the way some people handle their anger, doesn’t it? The goal is to express feelings appropriately rather than inappropriately, and proportionate rather than disproportionate to the situation. We want to resolve the issue without making it worse. Moreover, we want to
alleviate our anger
in a way that is honoring to God, ourselves, and others.
But that can sometimes be a tall order. After all, the potential for anger remains ever present. A spark of irritation can be ignited intentionally by hurtful people or unintentionally by those who love you. Regardless, God wants you to seek His answer for anger quickly before it singes your heart and burns the bridges of your relationships.
What to Do When Your Fuse Is Lit
In the late 1700s, President Thomas Jefferson presented a preventative solution for anger out of control, which is applicable for us all in today’s world: “When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an [
sic
] hundred.”
2
When you prepare ahead of time for any angry eruption, you are putting up “fire walls” that will halt the growing flames of anger.
We all need strategies for dealing with anger in the heat of the moment. When an incendiary incident occurs—when you feel the fuse lit in your heart—what will you do? The aim is to heed the words of Peter: “Be self-controlled…be compassionate and humble…Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”
3
Imagine yourself suddenly thrust into one of these situations:
• At an important work meeting, someone takes credit for a big idea you’ve spent weeks preparing. He gets all the credit; you get none.
Grrrr!
• Your kids have a raucous pillow fight in the living room—which they’ve been told not to do—and they break your most cherished sentimental gift (the old clock passed down from your grandparents).
No!
• Your accountant calls with bad news about an error on your tax return. With fees, penalties, and so on, you’ll need to come up with an extra $7,500.
What?!
• The one you love the most snaps at you, “I’m leaving! I hate you—I never want to see you again!”
Ouch!
I’m sure you could describe your own blood-boiling, anger-inducing scenario from real life. It’s only natural you would feel upset and angry. No one could blame you. But now, the question becomes this: What are you going to do with those red-hot emotions?
Nine Anger Alleviators
What follows are nine strategies, each starting with the letter
A
for easy recall.
1. Acknowledge Your Anger
The first thing to do is
recognize
and
admit
to yourself when your internal temperature is rising. Become aware of your feelings of anger, and be alert to the temptation to suppress your emotions because of fear. It takes only a moment to stop and ask, “Okay, what’s
really
going on inside of me?”
Be willing to take responsibility for any inappropriate anger. As Proverbs 28:13 states, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”
If you find yourself getting mad, just admit it. Accept it for what it is. Once you identify your feelings, you can deal with them. But if you deny or suppress them, they’re bound to leak out—or explode—in unhealthy ways.
2. Assess the Source
We’ve talked about the four reasons we get angry: hurt, injustice, fear, and frustration. If we look closely, we’ll realize our heated feelings stem from one or more of these sources. So when you start to get mad, it’s helpful to identify what exactly is stirring up your emotions. Identify if your anger comes from…
•
hurt
feelings from the words or actions of others
•
unjust
actions of someone toward you or another person
•
fear
of some kind of loss
•
frustration
because something didn’t go as you planned
Knowing precisely what is causing your flared-up feelings will enable you to respond wisely. If you know
what
you’re dealing with, you’ll know better
how
to deal with it. The Bible says, “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place” (Psalm 51:6).
3. Analyze Your Style
Ask yourself the following questions:
• How often do I feel angry? (Often? Sometimes? Seldom? Never?)
• How do I know when I am angry?
• How do others know when I am angry?
• How do I release my anger?
Do you explode? Do you become teary-eyed? Do you joke or tease? Do you become sarcastic? Do you criticize? Do you become defensive?
As you seek to understand your style, pray…
“Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind.”
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4. Appraise Your Thinking
Those who call me on
Hope in the Night
almost always are experiencing some sort of problem or pain. I don’t often encounter, nor do I expect, levity or humor from people pouring out their hearts to me late at night. So I was surprised by the fun call from Terri. But even lighthearted banter couldn’t disguise her out-of-control thought life.
Terri:
“I want you to tell me exactly what is wrong with me.”
June:
“Uh-oh! What’s the matter?”
Terri:
“I used to have a bad temper. I decided I needed either a shrink or a church…so I tried church. I trusted Jesus, but my temper didn’t go away…it just went underground. Now I get mad in my mind. But there’s an upside: I have a great time visualizing the things I want to do to people.”
June:
“Ahhh…like what? May I have an example?”
Terri:
(laughing) “Well, the other day—right in front of my employees—my manager snatched a folder out of my hands. She just turned on her heel and walked away. Ever since then, in my mind, she’s been suspended—head-first—outside my office window…which happens to be on the fifth floor of a downtown bank.”
June:
(laughing) “So you’re telling me I should be grateful I have managed, so far, to stay on your good side!”
Terri:
“Exactly! There was a time in my life I didn’t know these thoughts were wrong. But since giving my life to Christ, I know they are.”
June:
“Terri, I’m hearing you say, now that you’re a Christian, you don’t act out on your anger as you used to—you don’t blow your top—but you’re finding yourself struggling with your thought life. What’s good is that you have a grasp of the danger of letting your thoughts go uncontrollably wild. Tell me, are you familiar with the concept of a spiritual stronghold?”
Terri:
“It’s an area of our lives that we can’t seem to get the victory over. That’s what this feels like to me.”
June:
“That’s right. Strong emotions can distort your thinking. When your mind is under siege, it’s helpful to intentionally pause and recognize what is going through your head. Paul tells us, ‘Take captive every thought to make it obedient.’
5
We can grab hold of our thoughts to assess if they’re accurate and truthful and if they pass the test of Philippians 4:8—true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. This is the litmus test for taking our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ. If a thought flunks the test, it’s to be thrown out—rejected and ejected from your mind.”
As our call progressed, Terri and I talked about other ways to guard our minds from out-of-control anger. I explained that too often our anger is fueled by our own misinterpretations or misconceptions. When offended by someone, we can easily:
•
Exaggerate
the situation: “He said my presentation could be more polished. What he really means is that I
bombed
.”
•
Assume
the worst: “She didn’t show up for the party even though she promised to.
I think she probably hates me
.”
•
Mislabel
someone based on misconstrued actions: “I don’t care if she insists she just ‘misunderstood’ or ‘got her facts wrong’—
she’s nothing but a liar
.”
•
Generalize
: “He is
always
rude. He
never
says anything positive.”
As we talked more, Terri began to grasp the importance of guarding her thought life so she could control her anger.
June:
“Terri, our thoughts are filtered through our fears, our personal interpretations, and our past experiences. We would be wise to ask God to help us, because ‘the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts.’”
6
Terri:
“I’m beginning to understand. I need to look into my own heart, examine the issues that are making me angry, and ask God to help me see truth. If I can learn to evaluate my thinking accurately—compare it to what God says is true—my life will change…and so will my anger problem.”
June:
“Exactly!”
Terri seemed well on her way to getting her thought life under control—and with it, her runaway anger.
Now back to our nine anger alleviators.

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