Powerlessness: Why It Triggers Anger and How to Overcome It

Does this describe you?

• Everything needs to be exactly your way in order for you to feel in control
• If things were not exactly the way you wanted them to be, you would feel out of control
• When you can’t control a situation, you would feel powerless
• When you feel powerless you would experience a surge of anxiety

What happens next?

You’d feel tremendously angry and this anger might even turn to rage.

And before you realise, you would have lashed out verbally or physically at the person who made you feel powerless.

This person could be…….

Your spouse – who could be cowering in fear

Your child – who would avoid you for the next few days

Your co-worker – who might complain to your boss and jeopardize your career

You see, the real cause of your anger is this sense of powerlessness.

POWERLESS ⇒ ANXIETY ⇒ ANGER/RAGE

Now you may ask, ‘why on earth would I feel powerless?’

Do you recall that as a kid, there had been things that you wanted but had been denied from you?

These things could have been a toy, a word of approval for something good that you did, or simply some warmth and attention when you got hurt.

However when you had failed to get what you wanted on a regular basis, you would have come to either of these conclusions:-

1. I am not good enough to get what I want – which leads to low self-esteem
2. I am powerless

When you form this second belief – ‘I am powerless’, your innate sense of survival is threatened.

The most common form of survival strategy that you could have adopted would be:

“To be powerful, I must have exactly what I want’”

When this sense of survival is being threatened, guess which primitive form defense mechanism gets activated?

You are right if you say ‘ANGER’.

Anyone who has seen an injured animal is wise enough not to agitate it, for an injured beast is an angry beast. It would do anything to ensure its survival, sometimes even at the expense of its off-springs.

Based on my experience in anger management, I know that in order to remove anger, the belief that ‘I’m powerless’ must first be eliminated.

Don’t you agree that if you believe that you could do something to change an unwanted situation, you would not feel angry?

So call me now @ +65 96980688 if you wish to restore power in your life and stop feeling angry all the time.