What’s up with anger?

Anger is “just” an emotion that is telling us that we are perceiving something in our outside world as a “wrong”

Anger can be positive if we use it to understand ourselves better and be constructive with it

Anger is not just a male emotion – females get angry too and that is normal

Anger can harmful if there is “too much”; it is affecting our relationships with others, too frequent, too intense, too long, leads to aggressive behaviour, disrupts work/ and relationships

Is your anger caused by external and/or internal causes? – everyone has stressors – do you have too much stress? it is often how we interpret and cope that will result in anger

There are lots of great things you can do to minimize anger and increase your wellbeing (which by association improves relationships).

Don’t bottle things up or continually blame others – own your emotions, a first step to positive change

If you are struggling with anger ask for help!  There is a lot of good information on the internet and a therapist can help to explore causes and provide strategies for change

Barb Larkin, MSW, RSW