Ways I calm myself down when I’m angry…
Yeah. I’m not so good with anger. When I get angry, it feels likes the fiery pits of hell are boiling up in me. And it doesn’t ever want to leave so easily. As much as I want to just suck things up and let it go, I tend to harbor emotions until I drown in them. However, I do have a few things I turn to, to keep me from going over that edge.
Loud music. Music is my number one go to, when any emotions is involved. When I am angry, and starting to feel out of control, you are most likely going to hear some pretty heavy stuff blasting around me. The heavier the guitar, the angrier the song, the more release it is for me. Huh? What? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you right now…
I make myself cry. This can be a tricky one. I hate to cry in front of my kids. Actually, I hate to cry in front of people period. I used to wear my emotions on my sleeve. I’d cry so easily, and it would frustrate the crap out of me. After the abuse of my ex, I couldn’t even walk into the grocery store without nosy people coming up to talk to me about it all. People who, when him and I were together, acted like he was the greatest person in the world. When it was all said and done, they would come up to me telling me all about his past and the horrible things they’d heard over the years. I would leave the store in tears, not even finishing my shopping. After a while I sort of became numb to my tears in public. Now if I need to let all that out, I wait until the boys are down for the night, but on music and let it release.
Vent. I have a couple of people (you know who you are!) that I will seek out and just let it all go to. Whether it is a phone call, dm, or Facebook message, it goes. All with a lot of cursing. Because emphasising that seems to release that anger even more so.
Yoga. That very simple and basic stretching can do so much to help calm me down. It just feels so good, and it’s a little hard to hold tension in when your body is forcing it out. This is one reason I pretty much live in yoga clothing. I am known to stop anywhere and haul out a few poses when I feel I need that break.
I take a walk. Just being outside in the open air can help me greatly. So if I’m all wound up, I grab my boys, my dog and my camera and head out the door. Anywhere and everywhere. I love to hike the trails around my town, but even if I can’t drive anywhere I just hit one of the back roads around my house and we are good to go. There is always a distracting adventure to be had when we get into the outdoors.
Meditate. Yep. I do. Well, I try. This is one of those activities that can take me in either direction. It’s a hit or miss with me. I usually head into meditation directly after a yoga session. If I’m cooling down and can focus, I’ll usually got over every one of my katas in my head. But if whatever made me angry gets in for a split second, I’ll spend the entire time dissecting every angle of it, usually making myself angrier.
I clean. I am a neat freak to begin with. But when I’m mad, I have a tendency to take it out on my house. It takes a lot of energy to clean up after my little family, so a lot of frustration can be burned off cleaning out this little house.
I cook. I love to cook. It fits any mood of mine. But if I’m in a particularly bad mood, nothing can make me feel better than creating something amazing in my kitchen. These are the times I like to look up an entirely new recipe and twist it and shape it into something of my own. My head is so focused on what I’m doing that it doesn’t have time to dwell on what was making me angry.
I take a lot of pictures. You could say that I am snap happy in general. I probably take at least 20 pictures a day, if not more. And when I’m all worked up over something I can ease my mood by taking a bunch of random photos, and then playing around on Picnik.com. I love seeing what I can turn a plain photo into. And when I create something beautiful to me, it lifts my mood.
Goju. You should have seen this one coming. The dojo is my sanctuary. No matter what is going on in my life, for that short time I’m in these walls nothing else really exists. And I’ve said it before, no matter if I’m doing kata, line drills, hojo undo, having a long talk with Sensei or just plain kumite, I’m feeling my most at ease.
So tell me. What do you do when you are angry?
*The 50-50 Challenge is an idea that Lori and I came up with. Go read her awesomely brilliant blog, and her challenge along with mine. We got the idea after reading another random blog post from Demanding Joy on 50 Lists to Write to Lift Your Spirits. And well, we were inspired.
I can’t see an “Angry” post without thinking about Clue: “Flames… on the side of my face… breathing-breath… heaving breaths… Heaving breath”.
If I can’t work my way to a piano, I need to run these days when the anger gets there. If I get to the point where I can’t “hold it in,” it’s scary (I’m never, ever violent, but I’m a great big person and a great big person who blows his top so that he’s yelling in what appears to be a foreign language really isn’t a good thing).
Basically, I need to take the anger and redirect it (which it appears is what you try to do, too) through physical or creative activity. If I ever got into a point where I needed to run a sub-three-hour marathon, I might just schedule an hour-long conversation about politics & religion with my mother beforehand.
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