Anger management: can hypnosis really help?

 

Do you wish you could more effectively manage your anger? Have you tried counting to 10, taking some deep breaths or thinking positive (marshmallow dreams and rainbow smiles) BUT haven’t found any of this has worked well for you?

If you can relate to this struggle to manage your anger then read on and learn the psychological secret of what’s actually behind your rage and anger. Really understanding what this is all about often helps you stop this intrusive pattern.

In fact often ‘traditional methods’ fail with all sorts of issues and you can find out why here in my blog, “Why do people struggle to beat anxiety?”

 

The secret of anger management = The secret of gun control

 

A long time ago I saw a clip of the comedian, Jim Jefferies, talking about gun-control and he suggested that the wouldn’t be so many shootings if we all went back to old-fashioned muskets. These are the guns that in order to load it have to do take out the powder from a pouch, load it into the barrel of the musket manually, pack the powder down with a special rod, insert the bullet or projectile and pack it all down again and all before taking a shot. Now why would he suggest such a thing (even if it was in jest)?

He pointed out that many people have an initial ‘flash’ reaction (they see red) which means that it’s dangerous to have guns that can fire off too easily or quickly. In other words someone could shoot someone before they even had a chance to get back into their ‘thinking’ brain.

However, if you can slow down your response (which loading the musket forces you to do) then it gives someone a chance to kind of cool down and not react on impulse.

Check it out the comedian sketch here.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UFyNy-rw4

What can we learn from this if you are wanting to know more about anger management?

So finding ways to slow down and to really create some space before you respond is one thing that hypnosis is really good for and you can focus on to help reduce your ‘angering’.

 

Turning the light on and exposing anger for what it really is.

 

Many years ago when I was just a child, I remember waking up in the middle of the night screaming out, “help” as I could see a hooded figure in the corner of my room towering above me.

My mum would come bursting in and see me trembling and pointing at something in the corner. “What’s the matter?” she’d say, as she turned the light on. However the moment the light was switched on I’d see it wasn’t a cloaked figure at all, it was simply my dressing gown that had been hung over my wardrobe handle.

At this moment, once I had had time to really see what it was, she could then turn the lights off and even though I could see the same shadowy shape my mind-body system didn’t respond in the same way. Why? Because I really knew what it was – it wasn’t the hooded figure that it had been initially interpreted as.

When it comes to anger, more often than not there is something your “thinking” that remains hidden out of view, however, if you can turn on the light and see what’s really going on, it becomes much harder have the anger response.

But thins’t isn’t really even about anger ‘management’. Think about it, once I really saw it was just a dressing gown I didn’t have to “manage” anxiety, the anxiety was simply not there. Once you switch on the lights in your thinking and see you the pattern that was previously hidden often anger doesn’t need to be ‘managed’ it simply just isn’t there.

 

Anger ‘management’ is a ”must”

 

If I picked up a ball and dropped it, it would fall down to the ground. Why? Because there is a universal physical law on earth by the name of gravity. This will operate whether I like it or not.

Now why am I telling you about gravity? Well, some people create mental rules about how the world should work that instead of seeing as ‘self-created thoughts’ they instead unconsciously treat with the same physical universal truth that gravity possesses.

These mental rules tend to fall into the categories of ‘musts, have to’s, and should’s.

Let me give you an example and then explain how this relates to helping you manage your own anger.

 

Anger about self.

 

Let’s say someone had created a mental rule/psychologically demand along the lines of, “I must be perfect”

If they treat this self created rule as a universal truth then they are likely to be very triggered if anything pops up in their existence could expose them as being anything less than perfect.

So these are the individuals who would probably come to see me over anxiety about exams. The prospect of ’failing’ in an exam is likely to trigger this person more than someone who didn’t have the same rigid thinking about self-perfection.

But… failing an exam in the case of these individuals could also lead to self anger. It’s literally a feeling that a rule about the universe has been violated.

But is it true? Is it true that in the same way gravity exists there is a universal law that says, “You must be perfect”? Or is it something that you’d simply just really like. You’d like and have a preference to be perfect to do well in exams. Recognising there is no universal law and that your ‘must be perfect’ thinking is primarily self-created is enormously empowering.

 

Anger about others

 

Some people create hidden psychological rules about how others should behave.

For example,” my wife must listen to me” said a husband who was working with me about his anger in his relationship.

Well is this true?

Is there a universal law that says, “all wives must listen to their husbands”?

Is it physically possible for wives not to listen to their husbands?

Of course this is not a universal truth, it’s simply that in this case the husband has a strong preference for his wife to listen to him but it is not the same as the universal law of physics like gravity.

However if someone is making this demand in their thinking, ”my wife must listen to me” they’ll likely be more triggered into anger than someone who unconsciously has just a preference to be listened to.

 

Anger about the world

 

I remember walking up to a restaurant in central London and seeing a large queue outside my desired eatery. I had a strong preference to go there (after all I’d heard great things).

I asked the waitress, who was at the front of the queue, “how long do you think the wait will be”. She replied , ”45 minutes”. This was frustrating and I was a little disappointed but I shrugged and we went somewhere else for dinner.

However, the gentleman behind us who heard it was a 45 minute wait went red in the face and started mouthing off at the waitress, “this is unacceptable… we have come all this way… restaurants must never keep people waiting like this… etc”. Even after we’d walked down the road quite some way we could hear him chuntering to himself and raging about this terrible ”injustice”. (And I reckon he’d probably still be raging about it the next day too or in the future at the mere mention of the restaurant’s name”.

In order for him to get so angry about this it’s likely he had some hidden psychological demand about the world along the lines of “restaurants must not make me wait“. If he is constructing his world as though this was a universal truth, then feels more violated at having to wait than someone who just has a preference for there to be short waiting time.

 

What have these three situations gotten common?

 

They all point to anger being generated when people self-create psychological rules about… the world, themselves or others, that really aren’t universal truths.

They are particularly powerful when you don’t realise that you have created them and revealing the hidden psychological demands that you’ve been making (those hidden musts) can be like turning on the lights in your own thinking.

Once you see anger is often coming from your own created rules it’s much harder to do it on automatic and Anger ‘management’ becomes a thing of the past.

 

So can hypnotherapy help deal with anger?

 

A resounding yes is needed here! When I help people to better deal with their anger response we focus on two key areas:

  1. Helping people to slow down enough that they are able to think before reacting and…
  2. I help show you the hidden psychological demands that you have been operating from without you knowing.

Doing all this is a very powerful way of turning the lights on in your own thinking and often makes it so that you don’t even need to “manage” anger, it simply doesn’t appear.

If you are still thinking… “but does hypnotherapy really work?” Then check out my blog that explains how it works and what it is.

 

#hypnotherapy #hypnosis #rapidchangeworks #angermanagement #anger

Would you like to explore how hypnotherapy can help you deal with anger ‘management’? If so, then schedule your FREE 15-min initial chat where we can explore how this can work for you.