Anger Management

The first mention of God's advice to deal with anger is quite early in the Bible.

Genesis 4:5-7
...So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

God says you must rule over it. The implication here is that if you don't rule over it that it will rule over you.

Indeed, once anger takes hold of the mind, it can hand off to its wicked brother rage. What is happening in the process is that you literally lose your ability to think rationally. Your thinking gets channelled by a flow pure emotion, and your higher nature, your "executive function," gets pushed aside. You are no longer subject to your own wisdom but have become subject to the unthinking rush of negative energy. Once you are in this state, you have already lost the ability to manage your behavior.

The time to manage anger is during the moments in which the triggers begin to fire. The trigger begins an un-manageable, cascading process, but the trigger itself is not unmanageable. The trigger can actually be quite easily controlled and is fully subject to the rational mind and can be analyzed, understood, and neutralized.

Galatians 5:
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

So we have 2 lists of things that will tell us if we are in the flesh or in the Spirit. If we find ourselves acting out in the things of the first list, we can be sure that we are in danger. We want to take ourselves out of the first list and into the second.

Here is a quick test to determine if your thoughts are of God or are not: peace. If a thought comes with a feeling of peace within, you can be confident that this is a good direction. If a thought carries with it a feeling of unrest, of unease, of disconnectedness, anxiety, fear, etc., etc., then it is not of God. That is your sign that you want to stop and pause and ask God "what is Your will in this place for me?"

When we first encounter an emotion that brings us out of peace, we should stop and question what that was triggered by. We are on a hunt for triggers now. One of the ways we can interrogate triggers is by asking ourselves "what am I afraid of?" What is your deepest fear? Because many times, anger is a defense mechanism against fear.

You will notice that triggers are often layered and built up on top of one another. Typically anxiety forms a base layer that causes every other trigger that forms on top of it to become intensified to a whole new level. So once under the influence of anxiety, we basically lose the ability to rationally examine all the other triggers.

Therefore, the feeling of anxiety should be considered as the first and most dangerous trigger.

Philippians 4:6-7 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Now, whenever you feel anxious or lack of peace or anger or using profanity, consider that your most important job. Acknowledge your lack of peace before God and bring to Him your requests. Give Him thanks for being with you and for showing you this thing He's brought to your attention. Ask of Him to take care of what you are worried about and believe that He hears you.

1 Peter 5:7
...casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

So if He hears you and cares for you, you can leave your worries with Him and rest in His love.

Whenever your peace is again disturbed, ask where that came from; what are you afraid of? If you're afraid that something fairly trivial might happen, then ask why that thing should make you so anxious? It's because there is a deeper fear hidden beneath. Track down your fears; trace them.

Fear might have a root cause that you can't even figure out. When was the first time your remember feeling that particular fear? Maybe that's when a coping mechanism was installed, when you were young and highly impressionable.

But whatever the root cause, we live in the now, not in the past.

So in the now, ask God to be with you. Ask God to fill you with His Spirit and His grace. And in order to facilitate God's doing that, submit yourself to Him. All of these things are in the now, in a moment-by-moment basis.

So when you notice a trigger--and you will only notice it because your reaction will show you--notice what that trigger is, what it's caused by, and what reaction it triggers.

Here are some examples I've noticed in myself lately...

- disappointment
- pain
- unexpected event
- stacking in a cumulative way
- stacking in a sequential way

Stacking multiplies the power and intensity of triggers.

Stacking in a cumulative way would be like first having some feeling of anxiety or whatever is a trigger--and it has an underlying reason: figure it out--and then having other trigger(s) happen on top of that.

Stacking sequentially just means several triggers happening one after the other. What happens with this is that if you don't clear the first one, then a second one will be seen by the brain as if being cumulative rather than sequential. Your brain starts stacking these events on top of one another instead of treating them as separate events. So the fact that they are stacking multiplies their intensity, but the fact that multiple events are triggering sequentially also represents a new trigger on its own. Your mind will look at this sequence as a "thing" and will begin to complain about the rapid-fire sequence of triggers and create a justification for over-reaction.

When we encounter a trigger, recognize the emotion. Name it. Name the trigger. Stop and reset before moving on. Ask God to help you. If you have sinned, confess it to God and repent of it and quote the verse to yourself "the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin and unrighteousness (1 John 1:7)" and "when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins (1 John 1:9)."

When we blow past and get into a feeling of rage, stop and ask God to help. We've likely loaded up on frustration, maybe with some un-met expectations. But again there is probably a fear at the bottom of this intense reaction. Why is it so terrible that this situation is happening right now? How is it affecting me in this moment? What if it never gets fixed to my satisfaction? What would be the outcome? Is there any way I can pray for God to help me to accept this situation the way that it is and to give the solution to Him? Maybe I can't fix it right now. Is that okay? Can I pray for peace instead of insisting that it get fixed right away?

Thank Him for bringing this to your attention. Every time you acknowledge God and thank Him for reminding you of your goal, you are transformed even more into His image, from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).