Learn your buttons, mindfulness can also raise our awareness of certain times or situations when we
tend toward anger.
Identify your primary emotions.
Anger often comes from other emotions.
For example, we might feel hurt or rejected and respond with anger, which in a way might be a more
comfortable emotion for us.
Or perhaps we feel fear that triggers us to lash out as when a fellow driver nearly causes an accident
and our fear responds quickly.
Change into rage.
Notice what might be beneath your anger at times.
Once we are aware of a feeling that led us to anger, we can deal with that source of the emotion rather
than getting lost in the overlay of anger.
Relax.
Anger is a state of tension and physical relaxation can diffuse it.
A similar reminder to ourselves to relax, accompanied by a calming breath, can listen our tension.
It also helps to practice deep relaxation when we are not in the grip of anger so that we can let go
of tension on command.
Breathe with your anger.
We don't have to react to our anger, but instead can learn to tolerate it by breathing with the anger.
We can open to the experience of being angry, allowing it to run its course like a wave that rises
and falls.
Mindful breathing will also engage your parasympathetic nervous system, which quiets the fight or flight
response.
Observe the anger.
We can take a small step back from our anger by taking the role of observer of our experiences, rather
than identifying 100 percent with being angry.
We can maintain some perspective on our reactions, seeing them as buzzing through us.
When we watch our angry reactions like this, we start to recognize that we don't have to act on the
thoughts and feelings.