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Overcoming Anger Do you ever get angry? Feel your anger gets out of control? Can anger even be controlled? What if you were told you didn’t even have to get angry? In the following interview, anger is the topic of discussion between Jim Thorn of 103.9 WYAB Radio and Dr. Perry Sanderford, a licensed professional counselor at Crossroads Counseling Center. Jim Perry, everyone has found himself or herself getting angry. From your perspective, how is anger defined? Perry Anger is an emotion of the body that is designed to reach a goal. Anger has an objective, it wants to accomplish something. Jim Is anger natural? Perry I would say, yes. It is instinctive. We begin in early infancy to use our body to get what we want. Jim Are there any times when it’s healthy to be angry? Perry We want to think that anger is good. For example, the recent act of terror in Paris. Anger was our initial reaction–one that we may think should accompany the response to such a horrible act. But the truth is that anger, itself, is not necessarily the most effective tool for responding. We can and should respond decisively to such horrific acts of violence, but most of the time the anger, in itself, doesn’t really accomplish all that much. What you can do with anger, though, can be just as effective, or perhaps even more so, in solving problems–even very large ones. Jim How can we suppress the anger emotion that bubbles up so quickly? For example, when we are on the road someone unexpectedly pulls out in front of us. Perry I don’t believe it’s possible to suppress anger surging in the moment–simply because anger is a trained and instinctive reaction of our body. To not instinctively react in anger, we have to have something in place internally before the incident occurs. Again, I want to make it clear I am not saying that we do not act. I am simply saying using anger is not necessarily the most effective problem solver. Jim Are you saying we can eliminate anger altogether from our lives? Perry Pretty much. But to do so, one has to have confidence they have the ability to think and the ability to respond purposefully to solve the problem. Without that kind of confidence, we instinctively resort to anger. For example, a spouse who feels disrespected or controlled by an angry spouse often responds, in return, with anger. The problem here is that we now have two angry people–which, more often than not, creates an even greater explosive situation. On the flip-side, when a spouse is confident they can think and act appropriately to the reality of the situation, they then are in a position to respond with greater clarity and decisiveness. Jim From a Christian perspective you mentioned replacing anger with something else. Talk about anger from a Christian perspective. Perry Therein lies the very essence of Christianity. Christians have a great confidence in the sufficiency of God to provide for our every need. Christianity is not just a label, it is “trusting in God”. If Jesus can be crucified, placed in a grave, and then come back to life, then Jesus can certainly be trusted to protect us in any given situation. Confidence in Christ is what keeps us from being angry. And by the way, we don’t have to win every disagreement. In fact, Jesus said we can lose and still win. Now that’s powerful. Jim Often anger comes up because we defend our perspective and what we think is right. But are you saying that sometimes it’s best to kind of back away even if we stand firmly on our position? Perry I’m saying we can be powerful in the story. We don’t have to be a doormat. But we can be more powerful if we remain calm. We can think, and then if necessary, express ourselves with confident actions. We are not asking people to be stupid. You can distance yourself from someone that wants to harm you. Don’t make yourself available to somebody who attacks you. But at the same time, you don’t necessarily have to respond immediately with a fight. For Christians, there is a greater force within us and we can trust Him. Jim I would imagine that someone who gets angry fairly regularly would take a little more time to re-program in order to get back to the position that you are talking about. Perry Getting angry regularly is a way of saying we have programmed our body to use anger to problem-solve. But we can ‘un-train’ ourselves, too. It requires confidence and practice. It’s like jumping out of an airplane. You believe the parachute is going to hold you up–but you really don’t know until the ripcord is actually pulled. You hope life will go better if you don’t respond in anger, but you are not 100% sure until you try it. The more you practice trusting God and not attempt to solve problems with anger, the more confidence you build in this process. It’s a matter of learning how to do life in a way that works better. But, you may insist you can do life better with anger, and if so, then keep doing it. But my observance in everyday life is that people not only accomplish very little with anger, but they actually make the situation worse. Jim What would you recommend for someone that struggles with anger? Perry: Chronic anger means something in life is not working. If something is not working, you don’t want to keep doing it. A lot of people do, however. They go to their grave using that same anger that has accomplished very little. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. If anger is not working for you, consider doing something different. However, you may not know what to do. If I know where I want to go but am not sure how to get there, I use a map plotting the pathway to the desired destination. If you want to overcome anger but don’t know how, then find someone who knows, and ask. A good Christian counselor is actually a life-coach who can teach you how not to be angry. Remember, lots of people say they know the pathway to living well, but they may only be guessing. Guessing, when in error, has its own negative consequences. That’s why I think Christian counseling is the finest source of information available to the world. Jesus was the smartest human that ever lived. He knows how to live well. This information has been proven reliable for thousands of years or it would have died out by now. A confident life in the pathway provided by Jesus Christ is truly living well–even in overcoming anger. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ For more information, please contact Dr. Perry Sanderford at Crossroads Christian Marriage & Family Counseling. 601-939-6634. <strong>Hometown</strong> <strong>Rankin</strong> • 11
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