How Can I Manage My Anger?

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The anger activation formula is vulnerability plus perceived threat.

Anger creates entitlement—my rights are superior to yours—which makes us vulnerable to ego-threat.

The intense aggressive impulses of rage flares from perceived violation of rights, status, or boundaries.

Vulnerability plus perceived threat activates anger. The more vulnerable we feel, the more threat we perceive, which is why starving or wounded animals tend to be more ferocious. In humans, anger evolved for the defense of emotional bonds, territory, and self. But most of the anger we experience today comes from threats to the ego. As our egos expand, we experience more insult from a world that simply will not accommodate our inflated egos.

Anger prepares us to control or neutralize perceived threats by warning, intimidating, or inflicting injury.

In relationships, chronic anger creates power struggles, turns partners into opponents, and eventually destroys intimacy. At work, it increases errors in judgment and task performance. We’re never as right or as smart as we think........

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