Do you ever get frustrated with yourself and your anger? Do you find yourself getting angry and really regretting the things that you do? I know I have. I have lost it! I have lost it as a parent, and, well, mostly as a parent. Parenting is hard. My buttons get pushed and I blow my top sometimes. 

My Prayer was Answered

So I have a story of one time in particular I remember this happening. I think I only had three of my kids at the time. They were little and busy and I was tired and it had just been one of those days and I went to bed and I was so sad. I was so sad because I looked back on my day and I had yelled at my kids a bunch, like pretty much all day. So, I prayed. They say when you can’t do anything else you just pray. So, I prayed. And I said “Heavenly Father, I don’t want to yell at my kids anymore. I don’t want to yell at my kids anymore. Can you please help me?” You know what happened? Seriously, no joke. You want to know what happened? I woke up the next day and I couldn’t speak above a whisper. I had totally lost my voice! Was it because of the prayer or was it because I had literally yelled myself out of a voice the day before?!?! We may never know. I think probably both. I’m hoping it was because of the prayer and that I hadn’t literally yelled that much, but, I don’t know. 

It wasn’t good and I didn’t like it and I wanted to change.  Do you want to change? Do you want to stop yelling at people? Do you want to stop blowing your lid? Do you want to stop releasing your anger on others? I have other methods that I have learned since then that are much better than losing your voice. That was a wake up call for me. It really woke me up and it really helped me to start managing my anger better, and to not yell at my kids so much. But I’ve learned other ways of dealing with this, and I think some of them could help you. 

A Better Way to Manage Your Anger

So there’s something called anger transference. The idea is that one person gets angry, and then they yell at someone else because they’re angry. They yell at someone, and then that person goes and yells at someone else, and then that person goes and yells at someone else, and on and on. It’s just a cycle of anger being transferred from one person, to another person, to another person. 

What if there’s a better way? They say that hurt people, hurt people. That makes so much sense. When you’re angry or hurting or sad or whatever, you don’t want to keep those feelings. You want to let go of them, and so the natural way to do that is to just let go of them, and when we release them we sometimes do that on people. Sometimes we take it out on other people. 

I have learned a way to get rid of my anger without hurting anyone else or transferring that anger onto anyone else. The way that I do that is I get a piece of paper and I take my anger out on paper instead of on people. I pull out a piece of paper, and I get a pen or a marker. Sometimes I just want to do it with a red, anger marker to just really, really hit it home that I AM ANGRY! And I get that paper and I write. I write about all the things that I’m angry about. I don’t want to hold it inside and I don’t want to put it on other people. So I take it out on the paper. I scribble, and you probably couldn’t read most of what I write because it’s mostly all scribbles. Scribbles of anger, emotion, and frustration. I take it all out on that piece of paper. Then I take the piece of paper, I rip it up and I throw it in the garbage. And then I’m done.

It Worked!

And you know what? I feel better! I feel better, and nobody else had to take it from me. I was able to take it from inside of me and put it on a piece of paper and throw it in the garbage–where it belongs.    

It’s awesome, you guys, it’s awesome, and it totally works. And you know what? Since that day years and years ago when I lost my voice, I have not lost my voice from yelling at people again. It’s a success! I have had success with this. I have had major success with this, and I have been able to intelligently and maturely handle my anger and not transfer it on others. 

What would happen in your life if you tried this exercise? Would those you love be happier? Would they be less likely to receive your anger when you reached your limit? Would you feel better because you’re not holding it all in all the time? I think some good things could happen in your life also. I invite you to try it.