Understanding and Managing Anger and dog/child care – Part 2

Thank you Coach.

I am interested in your choice to focus on the “I need to recentre and reassess” idea – can you explain? I thought the other ideas (like increasing curiosity and patience for the dogs, or of understanding the why behind my anger) were really important.

Ok over to your points now: “I need to recentre and reassess: What do you think that would look like for you in the moment?”

(1) Notice the anger, pause the situation (e.g. forget the pending command i have with the dog if it is safe to do so, find a way to make the situation safe in a way that doesn’t involve the dog’s response to a command or me being excessively physical). That is absolutely key.
(2) Then, breathing deeply looking away from the dog / the situation and even shutting eyes if it helps, wait until i feel calmer.
(3) Then, querying the situation: what matters here, what actually really matters? What next steps make sense to follow through from what has happened?
(4) Do those next steps (which might involve going back to step 2 if i feel still angry.

That is my idea for now. The weakest part of this is step 3.

“Think about the things you’ll notice” – tense hands, shoulder, teeth, jaw, heavy breath, frown, ready to shout
“the things you’ll say to yourself” – f***’s sake!, RAAAAAAAAA, just DO IT, you are really p****ing me off
“the things you’ll feel” – anger, rage, hot in head, tense in body and face, mean, nasty, snarly
“and the things you’ll do to create an opportunity for you to recentre and reassess.” – turning away from the dog and the situation, breathing, shutting eyes or focussing on something in the distance, listening to what’s happening around me, talking to myself ‘ok this is fine, just stop, breathe, we’re just breathing now, i got angry’

OK thank you coach! 🙂

“What comes up for you when you create your vision and come back to us so we can keep coaching on this.” – Thank you. What came up was: I am uncomfortable with the fact that this relies on me getting angry again and again to learn to get less angry.

 

Answer:

 

Why I chose to ask about recentring and reassessing is a great question! Your goal to reassess and recentre was the thing I identified as a direction to focus on and move in because it’s a place you mentioned wanting to be. But, you know yourself best, and if you think that exploring patience and curiosity calls to you most, let’s go exploring!

I’d like to model out the most recent scenario you mentioned and see what the IMs with ‘curious’ and ‘patient’ look like to you…

UM:
C: Gave dog command, dog jumped up on me
T: They are being insolent
F: Anger
S: Tense hands, body, face, hot in head
A: Lead yanking, squeezing, pulling, pushing
R: I am being insolent

IMs:
C: Gave dog command, dog jumped up on me
T:
F: Curious
S:
A:
R:

C: Gave dog command, dog jumped up on me
T:
F: Patient
S:
A:
R:

Start with some thought downloads of what you could think in this scenario to bring you to feeling patience and curiosity and identifying what Ts would lead you to feel curious or patient.

What do you need to understand about your UM to be able to make a transition to your IM? I wonder how the steps you outlined above can help you make this transition. What do you think?

You are doing some deep introspection. Approach yourself with tenderness and compassion – shame withers in the arms of love.