The recent video from Judge Lynn in the US Divorce Courts on the advice she gave to Shaneesha on “managing her crazy” that I uploaded on the Positive Psychology Ireland Facebook page, has prompted a lot of interest and questions on whether I think Mindfulness can help manage anger. The answer is a resounding YES! Anything that helps you calm down , take things one breath at a time , and encourages you to look at the thoughts in your head as temporary, as just floating by like clouds in the sky, is going to raise your threshold to the triggers that usually set you off.
In my experience also, it is a good idea to re-learn your ABC. It is not the situation itself, which we call the Activating event (A) but your interpretation of it, your B (belief) about it, which sets off the heightened emotional reaction, the consequence (C). So step back from your habitual pattern of thinking , your beliefs and interpretations about e.g what lay behind someone rejecting your suggestion. Could there be reasons other than that they are trying to get back at you or put you down? Could they perhaps not have the resources to carry out the suggestion at this time? Is it perhaps not something that is top of their agenda at the moment? Did you perhaps not spell out the advantages clearly enough? etc
Mindfulness really helps us to see that our thoughts are not solid, fixed entities, but only one possible way of viewing something,out of many different interpretations we could have. It helps us to to realize that whats happening in our head is fantasy, a construction , and not the reality of the situation, and encourages us to come out of our head and back to whats immediately in front of us in the sensory world.
I am reprinting here an interview I gave to Stellar magazine in August 2012 in relation to anger management for young people.