Welcome back to the blog. In this one, I'm going to talk briefly about something that impacts many people's lives, and it tends to come out regularly with a lot of people. Now. I'm talking, of course, about anger.

Now everyone gets frustrated, disappointed, annoyed, and some people have full blown rage, and they're all different forms of anger. Now there are three types of anger, and I want to talk very briefly about them here.

One of them is probably the most obvious one, and that's aggressive anger. Now, aggressive anger is fairly obvious. It's yelling and screaming, name calling, hurling things. It's basically any of these really volatile acts when people are angry or frustrated or disappointed or raging, whatever it is. So this one is generally from people who, they aren't able to articulate their anger, they are unable to articulate their frustration, their disappointment, their upset, the things that are ticking them off. So instead of articulating, they rage, they yell, they scream. And the sad thing with using this method is the person who's doing all the raging probably feels better at the end of it because they've vented, they've got rid of their tension. The problem is they've generally caused a lot of pain, a lot of damage along the way, especially if it's in an intimate relationship. You can cause damage. It runs very deep. It can cause security and safety issues with the other person. It can cause trust issues. It can cause all sorts of problems, that can take a very long time to repair. Sadly, this is a very common one.

It seems there's a lot of people that unable to deal with their anger properly or in a healthy way. So that's the most important one. Not the most important one, the most common one.

Another one, which is sort of the opposite end. This is a form of anger with people who are told to suppress the anger, that they're not allowed to show their anger. So what happens is they're a bit like a pressure cooker. They got all this anger inside them that seething away, and it comes out in little subtle ways, like a pressure cooker. I don't know if you've ever seen a pressure cooker. It's a big pot. A solid lid goes on top and have this little weight that sits on the top over the vent. And as the pressure builds, it tips to one side and lets a little bit of pressure out.

So people that use passive aggression, that little bit of steam that comes out, comes out in really sneaky, subtle ways. Basically what they do is they let this anger out in a little subtle way that basically says, 'F#*% you', it's a subtle wave of attacking you. So, a common one is, if someone's upset and you can see they're upset, and you ask them, "what's wrong?" and they say "It's nothing". That passive aggression that's basically saying "F#*% you. You can figure it out. You can mind-read. You can do all the hard work figuring out why I'm upset". Basically, anything that would come across as a way of saying, "F#*% you". Littering is another example. People walking along, they throw the litter down, they can't be bothered putting it in the bin. It's like "F#*% you. Someone else will pick it up". So it is passive aggression again, not a healthy way of doing it.

It's someone who, they can articulate it, they're just not allowed to. They feel that their anger is suppressed and it has to come out in these unhealthy ways. Again, it's not effective, doesn't get anywhere. It causes a lot of frustration, especially the people, trying to figure it out or trying to help you.

The third one is probably the most important one. That's assertive anger. Now, assertive anger, you could basically sum up as saying, "No, this is my line. It's not getting crossed". So it's where boundaries are firm. Someone is capable of saying that they're upset, that they're hurt, that they're disappointed, that they're frustrated and they can say it in a healthy way. It doesn't cause damage to the other person, and it ensures that they are heard, not only heard, but understood. Because it's assertive, the likelihood of it occurring again is dramatically reduced because it's assertive. It's delivered in a healthy, clean way.

Now I know for myself with my second wife, we definitely did aggressive anger. It was lots of yelling, lots of name-calling. It was very stressful, very toxic and I was very good at it. And so was she. We did that for years. I look back and think, what a stupid waste of time that was. So much annoyance, so much frustration. It was, not good, it was not good. Of course, now is it's a totally different story. I'll probably get upset with driving in the traffic more than I get upset with, like my wife or my kids or my friends or anything like that. I think that's probably my vent nowadays is on the road. When you get people who do stuff, that's probably not the most common sense thing. And then I vent at them. So I have some fun with it sometimes, too.

However, for you. If you fall into one of the first two, it's not a bad thing because everyone has. As I've said before, everyone does the best they can with the tools they have. And if the best tool you've got at this moment is aggressive anger, or if the best tool you have is passive aggression, neither of them is ultimately going to get you the result you're really after. Go and learn how to do anger properly. Learn how to understand it. Learn how to understand your emotions. Learn how to articulate your anger to the person that's frustrating you, or disappointing you, or upsetting you, because then you can actually move forward. You can minimise that happening again.

You'll have a lot healthier relationships, friendships, working environments. Really, really important to understand anger and be able to express it in a clean way that doesn't damage and actually fixes stuff. So I hope you've got something out of that. I hope some lightbulbs have turned on. Feel free to reach out to us, if you would like some help. We do teach people how to deal with anger.

I hope you've have enjoyed this blog and we'll catch on the next one and remember, here's to a good life.