{"id":3710,"date":"2013-01-17T17:29:30","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T22:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=3710"},"modified":"2013-01-17T17:29:30","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T22:29:30","slug":"what-to-do-when-anger-becomes-your-trigger-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=3710","title":{"rendered":"What to Do When Anger Becomes Your Trigger Response"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do you do with the stuff that easily triggers anger?\u00a0 I\u2019m an easy going, peaceful and loving person, but I have my moments where I lose it, like when my kids throw tantrums or are exceptionally whiny, or someone treats me with disrespect.\u00a0 I get that we are all human and anger is a natural emotion, but in these situations it just feels awful and I always regret it.\u00a0 How do we show up as who we really are in those moments?\u00a0 I sometimes feel like a terrible person!<\/em><\/p>\n

Martha, San Francisco <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Hi Martha,<\/p>\n

Great question, and I think we can all relate to it. I\u2019m glad you used the example of \u201closing it\u201d with your kids, because those blessed little creatures sure know how to push our buttons and make us feel the furthest thing from spiritually evolved (coming from a mother of a \u201clively\u201d 3 year old).\u00a0 I\u2019m going to use this example as I explain why we have some strong emotional responses that don\u2019t feel so great sometimes as well as how to shift them.<\/p>\n

Conversations with God discusses the concept of \u201cgiving meaning to things\u201d, saying that nothing in this world has any meaning save the meaning we give it. \u00a0So a thing is not \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad\u201d by itself, it is simply a thing that is occurring and those who are observing this occurrence are the ones who assign the meaning of it being either a bad thing or a good thing.\u00a0 Now let\u2019s apply this concept to the thing we call \u201ckids throwing tantrums\u201d, something I happen to be very familiar with, and I\u2019ll speak from my point of view since I can\u2019t reach into your mind to access yours.<\/p>\n

The meaning I have assigned in the past to my child throwing a whopper of a tantrum (and total transparency here, please don\u2019t judge!), looks something like this, \u201cShe is being so irrational right now for no reason, she is not listening to me which is disrespectful and undermines my parenting.\u00a0 And this is awful to experience!\u201d\u00a0 The meaning I assigned that occurrence was making me feel bad, and triggering an emotional response of anger and irritation, which used to cause me either to raise my voice, get frustrated, things that certainly didn\u2019t help the situation.\u00a0 Presently, I am happy to report that I\u2019ve assigned this occurrence a new meaning, which looks something like this, \u201cWow, my little baby is having a difficult time right now, she\u2019s clearly overwhelmed by something and doesn\u2019t know how to manage her emotions yet.\u00a0 Poor thing!\u201d\u00a0 This new meaning triggers my emotional response of compassion, which now causes me to practice patience, tolerance, and even scoop the little tyrant up and hug her until she calms down.\u00a0 Voila, my experience of this occurrence is now vastly different and much, much better for all involved, simply because I changed the way I was looking at it.<\/p>\n

So I encourage you, Martha, to take a deep look at those common situations that occur in your life that trigger your anger.\u00a0 Ask yourself what meaning you are currently giving each of them, and then consciously assign them a new meaning that feels better to you.\u00a0 And then, of course, practice implementing them.\u00a0 You\u2019re not a terrible person, you\u2019re an amazing person for noticing something that you\u2019re not in alignment with and wanting to change it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Nova Wightman is a CWG Life Coach, as well as the owner and operator of Go Within Life Coaching, <\/em>www.gowithincoaching.com<\/em><\/a>, specializing in helping individuals blend their spirituality with their humanity in a way that makes life more enjoyable, easy, and fulfilling.\u00a0 She can be reached at Nova@theglobalconversation.com. )<\/em><\/p>\n

(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to: Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do you do with the stuff that easily triggers anger?\u00a0 I\u2019m an easy going, peaceful and loving person, but I have my moments where I lose it, like when my kids throw tantrums or are exceptionally whiny, or someone treats me with disrespect.\u00a0 I get that we are all human and anger is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[171],"tags":[865,868,838,869,866,867],"class_list":["post-3710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","tag-anger","tag-being-who-you-really-are","tag-creating-your-experience","tag-emotion","tag-giving-meaning-to-things","tag-shift"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3711,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions\/3711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}