Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (23 page)

Keeping these two criteria in mind, let me give you a series of methods you can use to reduce your anger in those situations where it is not in your best interest.

Develop the Desire.
Anger can be the most difficult emotion to modify, because when you get mad you will be like a furious bulldog, and persuading you to stop sinking your teeth into the other person’s leg can be extremely tough. You
won’t really want
to rid yourself of those feelings because you will be consumed by the desire for revenge. After all, because anger is caused by what you perceive to be unfair, it is a
moral emotion
, and you will be extremely hesitant to let go of the righteous feeling. You will have the nearly irresistible urge to defend and justify your anger with
religious zeal
. Overcoming this will require an act of great willpower. So why bother?

The first step: Use the double-column technique to make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of feeling angry and acting in a retaliatory manner. Consider both the short-and long-term consequences of your anger. Then review the list and ask yourself which are greater, the costs or the benefits? This will help you determine if your resentment is really in your best self-interest. Since most of us ultimately want what’s best for us, this can pave the way for a more peaceful and productive attitude.

Here’s how it works. Sue is a thirty-one-year-old woman with two daughters from a previous marriage. Her husband, John, is a hard-working lawyer with one teenage daughter from his prior marriage. Because John’s time is very limited, Sue often feels deprived and resentful. She told me she felt he wasn’t giving her a fair shake in the marriage because he was not giving her enough of his time and attention. She listed the advantages and disadvantages of her irritability in Figure 7–2.

She also made a list of the positive consequences that might result from eliminating her anger: (I) People will like me better. They will want to be near me; (2) I will be more predictable; (3) I will be in better control of my emotions; (4) I will be more relaxed; (5) I will be more comfortable with myself; (6) I will be viewed as a positive, nonjudgmental, practical person; (7) I will behave more often as an adult than as a child who has to get what it wants; (8) I will influence people more effectively, and I’ll get more of what I want through assertive, calm, rational negotiation than through tantrums and demands; and (9) my kids, husband, and parents will respect me more. As a result of this assessment, Sue told me she was convinced that the price of her anger substantially exceeded the benefits.

Figure 7–2.
The Anger Cost-Benefit Analysis.

It is crucial that you perform this same type of analysis as a first step in coping with your anger. After you list the advantages and disadvantages of your anger, give yourself the same test. Ask yourself, if the upsetting situation that provokes me doesn’t change immediately, would I be willing to cope with it instead of getting angry? If you can answer yes, then you are clearly motivated to change. You will probably succeed in gaining greater inner peace and self-esteem, and you will increase your effectiveness in life. This choice is up to you.

Cool Those Hot Thoughts.
Once you’ve decided to cool down, an invaluable method that can help you is to write down the various “hot thoughts” that are going through your mind when you are upset. Then substitute less upsetting, more objective “cool thoughts,” using the double-column method (Figure 7–3). Listen for those “hot thoughts” with your “third ear” so as to tune in to the antagonistic statements that go through your head. Record this private dialogue without any censorship. I’m sure you’ll notice all kinds of highly colorful language and vengeful fantasies—write them all down. Then substitute “cool thoughts” that are more objective and less inflammatory. This will help you feel less aroused and overwhelmed.

Sue used this technique to deal with the frustration she felt when John’s daughter, Sandy, acted manipulative and wrapped John around her finger. Sue kept telling him to be more assertive with Sandy and less of a soft touch, but he often reacted negatively to her suggestions. He felt Sue was nagging and making demands to get her way. This made him want to spend even
less
time with her, which contributed to a vicious cycle.

Figure 7–3.
Sue wrote down her “Hot Thoughts” when her husband acted like a soft touch in response to his teenage daughter’s selfish manipulations. When she substituted less upsetting “Cool Thoughts,” her jealousy and resentment diminished.

Sue wrote down the “hot thoughts” that made her feel jealous and guilty (see Figure 7–3). As she substituted “cool thoughts,” she felt better, and this served as an antidote to her urge to try to control John. Although she still felt he was wrong in letting Sandy manipulate him, she decided he had the “right” to be “wrong.” Consequently, Sue pushed John less, and he began to feel less pressured. Their relationship improved and ripened in a climate of mutual freedom and respect. Simply talking back to her “hot thoughts” was, of course, not the only ingredient that led to a successful second marriage for Sue and John, but it was a necessary and gigantic first step without which both of them could have easily ended up stalemated again!

You can also use the more elaborate chart, the “Daily Record of Dysfunctional Thoughts,” to deal with your anger (see Figure 7–4, page 170). You can describe the provocative situation and assess how angry you feel before and after you do the exercise. Figure 7–4 shows how a young woman coped with her frustration when she was dealt with tersely by a prospective employer over the telephone. She reported that pinpointing her “hot thoughts” and putting the lie to them helped her nip an emotional explosion in the bud. This prevented the fretting and fuming that normally would have soured her entire day. She told me, “Before I did the exercise I thought my enemy was the man on the other end of the phone. But I learned that
I
was treating myself ten times worse than he was. Once I recognized this, it was relatively easy to substitute cooler thoughts, and I surprised myself by feeling a whole lot better right away!”

Imagining Techniques.
Those negative “hot thoughts” that go through your mind when you are angry represent the script of a private movie (usually X-rated) that you project onto your mind. Have you ever noticed the picture on the screen? The images, daydreams, and fantasies of revenge and violence can be quite colorful indeed!

Figure 7–4.
Daily Record of Dysfunctional Thoughts.

You may not be aware of these mental pictures unless
you look for them. Let me illustrate. Suppose I ask you to visualize a red apple in a brown basket right now. You can do this with your eyes open or closed. There! Do you see it now? That’s what I’m referring to. Most of us have these visual images all day long. They are a part of normal consciousness, the pictorial illustrations of our thoughts. For example, memories sometimes occur to us as mental pictures. Conjure up an image now of some vivid past event—your high-school graduation, your first kiss (do you still remember it?), a long hike, etc. Do you see it now?

These images can affect you strongly, and their influence can be positively or negatively arousing, just like erotic dreams or nightmares. The exhilarating effect of a positive image can be intense. For instance, on your way to an amusement park you might have an image of that first dazzling descent down the roller coaster, and you may experience the excited rush in your belly. The daydream actually creates the pleasurable anticipation. Similarly, negative images play a powerful role in your level of emotional arousal. Visualize right now someone whom you’ve gotten good and mad at sometime in your life. What images come to mind? Do you imagine punching them in the nose or tossing them into a vat of boiling oil?

These daydreams actually keep your anger alive
long
after the initial insult has occurred. Your sense of rage may eat away at you for hours, days, months, or even years after the irritating event has long since passed. Your fantasies help keep the pain alive. Every time you fantasize about the occurrence you shoot new doses of arousal into your system. You become like a cow chewing on poison cud.

And who is creating this anger? You are because you chose to put those images in your mind! For all you know, the person you are mad at lives in Timbuktu, or maybe isn’t even alive anymore, so he or she could hardly be the culprit! You are the director and producer of the film now, and, what’s worse, you’re the only one in the audience. Who has to watch and experience all the arousal? YOU DO! You’re the one who’s subjected to a continual clenching, a
tightening of back muscles, and an outpouring of adrenal hormones into the bloodstream. You’re the one whose blood pressure is going up. IN A NUTSHELL:
You’re making yourself hurt
. Do you want to keep this up?

If not, you will want to do something to reduce the anger-generating images that you are projecting onto your mind. One helpful technique is to transform them in a creative way so they become less upsetting. Humor represents one powerful tool you can use. For example, instead of imagining wringing the neck of the person you are furious with, fantasize that he is walking around in diapers in a crowded department store. Visualize all the details: the potbelly, the diaper pins, the hairy legs. Now what’s happening to your anger? Is that a broad smile spreading across your face?

A second method involves thought stoppage. As you notice the images crossing your mind each day, remind yourself that you have the right to turn the projector off. Think about something else. Find someone and engage him or her in conversation. Read a good book. Bake bread. Go jogging. When you don’t reward the anger images with your arousal, they will recur less and less often. Instead of dwelling on them, think about an upcoming event that excites you, or switch to an erotic fantasy. If the upsetting memory is persistent, engage in vigorous physical exercise such as pushups, rapid jogging, or swimming. These have the additional benefit of rechanneling your potentially hurtful arousal in a highly beneficial way.

Rewrite the Rules.
You may frustrate and upset yourself needlessly because you have an unrealistic rule about personal relationships that causes you to be let down all the time. The key to Sue’s anger was her belief she was
entitled
to John’s love because of her rule “If I’m a good and faithful wife, I deserve to be loved.”

As a result of this innocent-sounding assumption, Sue experienced a constant sense of danger in her marriage because anytime John wasn’t giving her an appropriate helping of love and attention, she would experience it as a confirmation
of her inadequacy. She would then manipulate and demand attention and respect in a constant battle to defend herself against a loss of self-esteem. Intimacy with him became like slipping slowly toward the edge of an icy cliff. No wonder she was desperately grabbing onto John, and no wonder she would explode when she sensed his indifference—didn’t he realize her life was at stake?