Are you prone to anger, ready to explode with rage at the least provocation?
Do you simmer and fume for days, nursing a deeply offended spirit whenever someone slights you?
If so, you may be doing more than venting your frustration. You may be alienating those around you.
How has your anger affected the following?
- Your relationship with a spouse or partner?
- Your relationship with your children?
- Your relationship with your family of origin (e.g. parents, siblings, cousins, extended family)?
- Your relationship with co-workers and colleagues?
- Your friendships?
- Your job?
- Your consumption of mood-altering substances (e.g. alcohol)?
- Strangers (e.g. people encountered in day-to-day situations like traffic or while shopping)?
- Your driving?
- Your financial health (e.g. bad financial decisions made in anger, material things broken or damaged)?
- Your physical well-being, safety, or health?
- Your spiritual self (e.g. have you displayed behaviour that goes against your sense of right and wrong)?
- Have you had any legal problems because of, or worsened by, your anger?
Now, think about what you just answered to each question
- Which of the areas of your life is the most negatively affected by your anger?
- Are there aspects of your anger that you did not recognize in yourself (i.e. things that were brought to your attention by someone else)?
- How do you typically express anger?
- Is there a situation or person that tends to be a trigger for your anger?
What is the most destructive consequence of anger to your health and well-being?
- To your relationships?
- To your work?
- What do you want to achieve through anger management?
Next: The warning signs and triggers of anger
Learn More
For more information about anger and conflict, the following resources may be helpful.
- Understanding Anger and Anger Management. https://ontario.cmha.ca/documents/understanding-anger-and-anger-management/
- Feeling Angry? https://ontario.cmha.ca/documents/feeling-angry/
- Anger. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/anger/index.aspx
- Eight steps to effective conflict management. Government of Canada. https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/gcc-bdm/8etapes-8steps-eng.html
- Preventing and resolving workplace conflict. https://canadabusiness.ca/blog/preventing-and-resolving-workplace-conflict-1/
