The Mental Emotional Health Blog

Distractions are bad when they prevent you from concentrating on or doing what you need to.

Distractions are good when they help you manage or decrease anger, worry, or feeling down.

Have you ever wondered what you’re feeling? Sometimes it can be difficult to separate and identify one feeling.  So I’ve told clients over the years that feelings can be layered.

The top layer of feeling is what is expressed openly, or is clearly identified by a person if not being actively expressed. I’ll use myself as an example (hypothetical situation though). Number 1 will be the top feeling, and the underlying feelings follow:

1. I’m angry because the DVD player isn’t recognizing the DVD that the next episode of “24, Season 2″ is on, and I was really looking forward to watching it tonight now that the kids are in bed.
2. Before being angry, I was worried because my wife is on her way back from visiting her grandmother 4 hours away and it has been snowing all day.
3. Before that, I was angry because I warned her to be careful and not to push it when the roads might be slippery and dangerous.
4. Underneath that anger, I have been frustrated because she refused to go to the doctor to get checked out for the cough she’s had for 3 weeks, and then drove by herself to a place 4 hours away.
5. I’m actually afraid she might slide off the road or get hurt if another vehicle hits hers.

In this example, the layering breaks down like this: 

1. ANGER
2. WORRY
3. ANGER
4. FRUSTRATION
5. FEAR

Obviously, the DVD player is not the main concern here. But that can serve as both a trigger and an outlet for underlying feelings. Also, notice that anger came up more than once. People that are angry often may have a layered list of feelings that are more than 50% anger, which often is on top as well. That could be a reason why people who “need anger management” rarely express their other emotions; the other emotions are ignored or shifted to anger.

In relationships, people want to be able to trust and generally prefer to avoid anger. In trust situations for couples, demonstrating and holding trust can be tricky when emotions are up. But there are times that a person will actually damage trust by using the excuse of avoiding anger.

Example: Person A finds a credit card receipt in Person B’s car. The receipt is for a hotel in the city where A & B live together. A fears the worst, that B met someone at the hotel. When A asks B about the receipt, B replies, “Oh, that. It’s my co-worker’s receipt from the other day.” A doubts B’s story, especially since A’s name is the one on the receipt. So A waits for B to tell A what was really going on. At this point, trust is already damaged of course. After some more concerned questions from A, B tells the truth. B admits that the friend used the credit card as a favor since the friend forgot to bring a credit card and had just run out of checks. B didn’t use the hotel for anything improper. When A asks B why B lied, the response is, “I didn’t want you to get mad”, or “I thought you would get mad”.

In this case, Person B was innocent of the worst, and basically just made a financial decision without informing or consulting the other. Person A did not know that at first, but could tell something was being hid and lied about. Deceit and dishonesty are much more harmful to trust than anger over a questionable financial decision. Anger can come and go relatively quickly compared to the time it takes to rebuild trust that was lost.

I’ve been asked to give a few short presentations in a couple weeks at my workplace about Diffusing Emotional Situations. So I decided to write out some ideas here first.

It can be really tough to deal with a emotional person in a workplace, or anywhere else. For the presentations I will focus most on diffusing anger, although intense sadness and fear can come into play in certain situations too.

When you are faced with an angry person, you do have options. And that is also one of the most important things to remember for diffusing emotions: providing an emotional person with options. When a person feels stuck in a situation (no options), emotions can often intensify to the point that reasoning is severly decreased.

So here are a few tips on diffusing anger:

• Speak somewhat slower than the other person.
• Talk with an even tone, which means keeping your volume and inflections in the average range.
• “Listen with your eyes”. Using good eye contact lets the person know you are listening.
• Focus more on either the situation or the person, depending on which seems better in bringing down the anger levels or intensity.
• Act matter-of-fact and boring. It’s tough to stay angry with a boring person in front of you.
• Provide options. You will probably be the more rational one in the situation, so you have the better chance at presenting an option the other person didn’t consider.
• Emphasize the fact that you want to help.
• General statements like, “That’s tough” , or “That’s no fun”.
• Try to get on the same side by using “we” instead of “I” or “you”. (Example: “Okay, how are we going to figure this one out?”)
• Take time afterward to de-stress, relax, do some deep breathing, or whatever works for you. Dealing with strong emotions isn’t easy, and your body and mind need time to come down from the experience and readjust.

Remember: there are always options. Take care everyone!

All of the anger management strategies and skills in the world are worthless unless you use them.