1. ANGER -iLa-

2. When I'm angry….. I feel more alive. I'm fighting back against a world that wants to squash me .

3. Anger makes me feel more important. I am more aware that I matter, that I have rights.

4. Anger is a way of…. asserting my rights…. and my opinions, a way of pushing back when I feel threatened.

5. I can reinforce my anger…. by focusing on how I see a situation. Sometimes I go over my arguments repeatedly, explaining to myself — or to anyone who will listen — why I am justified in feeling the way I do, justified in doing what I did or in saying what I did.

6. I may express my anger quietly in stony withdrawal, over time in little verbal jabs, or I may explode abruptly.

7. The desired effect is the same: those around me have to pay more attention to what I think, to what I feel, to what I want.

8. Getting angry clears out the space around me. It gives me a bigger sense of myself. It pushes other people away.

9. At it's best, anger can energize me to make things different, to improve my situation.

10. Anger is our own attention-getter, arousing us to respond to something that may hurt us or those we care about.

11. When serving its true function — when it's healthy — anger is brief in duration, appropriate in intensity to the situation, and it yields constructive action.

12. But healthy anger is a rarity

13. Instead of being clear, direct, focused, and brief, our anger lingers, comes out in inappropriate ways, damages our relationships, and makes life unpleasant

14. We seethe for days, months, years, even life-times. We explode over trivial incidents. We're sarcastic and derisive. We pout and complain

15. Why is anger such a problem in our lives? Because we have a real reason to be angry: our lives are not filled with the love and satisfaction that we crave.

16. We are angry because we are not getting what we want and need out of life.

17. that we want. We are not getting the love, the respect, the attention, the caring

18. Whether or not we believe that…. we deserve it, we all want it. We all need it

19. No one can give us all that we need, and we cannot give anyone else all of the love and caring that they need. We just don't have it in us

20. Why is there this deep, painful need within us that never gets fully satisfied? Why not?

21. Is there anything we can do except continue to get angry?

22. but it doesn't address the root issue, the reason for the anger Trying to control anger by behaviorial techniques may provide some help,

23. We all have reasons to be angry: people haven't treated us well; we aren't understood by those around us; we had difficulties in our childhoods; we haven't gotten to live out our dreams; and so on.

24. We believe that we should be treated well, should have what we want, should have things the way we want them. When our lives don't go that way, we get angry.

25. Anger is our response to the difference between what is and what we think should be

26. We think that.. the way to deal with this discrepancy is.. to try to get the world to change, and to punish it with our anger when it doesn't

27. That is a dead-end situation. The world simply won't give us… what we want when we want it. Even the most wealthy and powerful fail to create that kind of environment around them. And their anger and frustration are often magnified by their failure

28. The way out of our anger is.. not by changing reality But.. by seeing it as it is.

29. The truth is… you are not the center of the universe. That's the bad news !!!

30. The good news is.. that the universe was created for us -- for all of us –