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Originally Posted by bigadam  I find myself often reacting to minor circumstances in my life with extreme anger. Does anyone have recommendations on how I take the steps to diagnose myself to correct this behaviour?
I also use sarcasm with others and justify the behaviour as being part of my sense of humor but realise that's only an excuse and I'm hurting those I love.
Any recommendations of books or articles to read would be most welcome.
Adam |
Whenever I can maintain my conscious awareness, everything's great. When I can't, however (which is most of the time), I can often be very reactive or automatic, usually to people I have a lot of history with (which makes things hard).
From my observations of my own life, you'll do best to work on a combo of reconditioning your current responses to things as well as improving your internal "set point" or habit relevant to whatever is bothering you.
This is something that will probably take conscious effort to some degree (mostly the inner work, I'd say). I have lots of things in this area I'd like to deal with, but I live with some very challenging people. When I'm living with less challenging people, I'll probably take a shot at some major changes in the area of stimulus/response. I've tried making changes before, but it's like climbing a mountain with a heavy pack on -- it's easier to just take off the back (ie. move away from the challenging people). As such, I direct my efforts to other areas. Don't justify a lack of action, but don't beat yourself up when it's not intelligent for you to be directly trying to fix the issue in non-ideal circumstances.
As for your sarcasm... I have a very cynical sense of humour. You can be cynical if you like, but understand that those actions have certain consequences. For example, when I'm very centered in the moment, I choose not to be cynical because of the effects it creates. I'd rather consciously behave in another way. But when I'm not centered in the moment and am trapped in thinking, I'll opt to my default cynical behaviour.
Oh, I'll also note that if you react to something with extreme anger, it's probably because you're seeing it through the lens of a past event, or some sort of feeling you've acclimated to in relation to a certain subject. And one feeling can influence a
lot of different things, from what I've found.
I don't have time to go into more detail, but I'd recommend the stuff from Eckhart Tolle and Abraham-Hicks. I'm yet to come across material that covers subjects such as this better then they do.