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George Neidorf's avatar

Subtitled: How to have a heart attack.

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Fred Basset's avatar

Epifiny; not every one has to do what I want them to do.

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William Weaver's avatar

That's a great visualization.

I found that most of my anger comes from fear of various types. Mostly from things that are out of my control. A sort of panic sets in, and I would get angry, not knowing what to do and feeling not in control of whatever situation.

The acting out part of my anger—the yelling, and the rush of it all—was very addictive. I was addicted to the chemicals that would flood my body when I got angry.

The same thing happened when I worried about the future or mistakes I had made in the past.

Different chemicals, but a similar addiction to them.

This started at a very young age, and by the time I was aware of the addiction, it was deeply embedded.

So even when I learned to accept responsibility for being angry, I had to learn how to break the addiction to the chemicals flooding my body from being in that angry state.

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Jim Geschke's avatar

I guess I'm fortunate. I am very slow to anger ... almost to a fault. Must be my age, but the little things don't bother me anymore.

Best life advice: Don't worry about things out of your control (which are most things).

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Don Rudy's avatar

This is epic! Great advice, and I want to share with everyone here when I had become angry at everything in life was when my liver was suffering from the medicines I took to treat the symptoms of a metabolic disorder. In the Indian Holy books the liver is described as the seat of anger. Hypoglycemia is the worst metabolic disorder for mental stability, which will be treated with anti-seizure meds and sleeping meds, which further damage your liver and brain. If you were a previously calm person and are angry all of a sudden, get with your doctor or a naturopathic physician and quit taking memory loss causing drugs and get a new liver. It only takes 90 days to regrow!

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Jim Sanders's avatar

Hmmmm.

I’m not a subscriber to the Many Worlds Theory recognizing it is an artifact of a mathematical model that may be very successful in predicting many observations at the quantum level. However, for me, it is metaphysics posing as physics.

In reading your suggestions above, I applaud you. Nevertheless, I posit that your medicine is not universal for all etiologies of anger.

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Stanley Wotring's avatar

Such easily digestible wisdom you provide.

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Dave Conant - MO's avatar

Well done. I learned the power of anger early on after an argument with my then roommate and still best friend who didn't come home that night because he feared my temper. Realizing, as you point out, that the anger was self-defeating and had a bad impact on me led me to look carefully at myself when I became angry and decide if it was worth the energy to accomplish nothing positive. That question answers itself and I am much more relaxed and get a much better look at things that trouble me, often coming up with solutions I'd never considered before. I don't deny that age helps some, but self-awareness is a bigger part of it. Thanks Deborah.

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Dr. Patricia Morton's avatar

Deborah, as always I appreciate your advice and I agree that it is self-defeating to lose our temper.

But how is anyone to feel if, for example, she was molested by her own father while her own mother did nothing?

As my own therapist has taught me, sometimes the healthiest thing for folks to do is to learn how to express our hurt and our anger in ways that do not further hurt ourselves.

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