How do you cool the flames?
Hi Laurie
Many interesting perspectives on anger.
I’ve experienced three very different sorts of major anger that I can think of.
I recall being hit on side of my head without any warning, quite hard, and being almost overwhelmed by a red hot flash of anger, feeling that I could crush the person who hit me. Fortunately for both of us he had moved out of range and I was able to bring the anger under restraint, if not full control, in that split second of time.
In another incident, I recall attempting to do the 40 hour famine, and finding that after about 35 hours without any food (no sugars at all) I became very quick to anger (I had a fuse that was only a few milliseconds long, and there was no space to consciously intervene until after the first expression) – really hard on Ailsa and Jewelz.
Over 30 year ago I was at a public meeting when the then head of Fisheries management tried to humiliate me in front of a meeting of several hundred fishermen with the comment “What the f*#% would you know Howard, you’re just a f*#%ing dropout anyway.” The next year I went back to university, completed my degree, majored in marine ecology, and was a thorn in his side until the day he died (and I think some benefit to both the ecosystem health and the profitability of fisheries).
The anger I felt at that meeting was of the righteous indignation type – the wronged individual.
These days I can see how much of a favour he did me, not much else could have motivated me back to University.
Then of course there are the tens of thousands of little angers that happen in daily life, some of which I manage to stop from expressing in reality.
Ted Howard NZ's Blog 