How to stay rational even when you are angry

Did you know that when you get mad your logical rational brain gets disconnected from your angry emotional brain?

Listen to Dr. Raymond's radio interview on Transforming Hurtful Anger into Healthy Anger

Natalia couldn't let him get away with trashing her!
Natalia sent her colleague a stinking email. She was furious at Julio for saying that going through the sales manual was a waste of time. She felt that all her hours of hard work and commitment were being trashed. How dare he put her down like this! It really hurt! At the moment she felt small and attacked, so chewing him out in the email was her way of defending herself.

Rational Natalia Can't Reach Hurt Natalia
Logical Natalia knows full well that Julio said nothing about her or her dedicated efforts to promote their company. But angry Natalia was hijacked by her over active right emotional brain. The right side of her brain was pinging so loud and so frantically that it cut off the information from her left rational brain. She lost access to her intelligent judgment because Julio's comments triggered a very sore spot. When that sore spot was poked, Natalia lashed out.

Natalia takes it personally
Julio's comments triggered memories of Natalia's father telling her she would never graduate high school, never get into college and never make anything of her life. Those mean and discouraging comments hurt a lot. When Natalia was a young girl she had no way of sticking up for herself. She couldn't risk her father's anger. So she never dealt with her awful feelings. When Julio triggered them, all those old feelings got stirred up. These feelings were so overwhelming and powerful that her right emotional brain got disconnected from her left logical and rational brain. The information flow stopped. All she had was raw emotion. So she retaliated as if Julio were her dad, putting her down.

Natalia is so agitated she thinks she is the same thing as a sales manual
When Natalia came back to earth, she felt embarrassed and a little ashamed. She didn't want to act like a tantruming child when she was at work. Natalia wanted to get to the bottom of this and consulted with me. She understood that Julio wasn't talking about her, or her efforts being useless. He found it more efficient to go directly to Internet marketing professionals to get the company the exposure it wanted. Natalia realized that when Julio spoke, she and the sales manual had become one and the same thing. That's when her rational intelligent left brain got disconnected from her right emotional brain and prevented her from seeing that he wasn't talking about her.

Once Natalia saw what was happening to her in these situations she stopped to ask herself what sore spots she was reliving. That helped her stay connected to her intelligent left brain, and it helped her make good decisions. She stopped taking things so personally because she kept the path open for her rational brain to feed information to her emotional brain and balance it out.

Listen to Dr. Raymond's radio interview on Transforming Hurtful Anger into Healthy Anger

Copyright Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Give Me Your Attention Or Else I'm Leaving!

Felix is Irritated By His Wife Having Fun






A nice full stomach and well pleased taste buds tickled Felix’s tongue. He had enjoyed the dinner, but there was a price to pay. He had to hang around and make small talk while his wife sang songs and played the piano with her friends. He stuffed his irritation, told himself it wouldn’t be for ever, and tried to pass the time in a tolerable way. They had agreed before the party that when he was ready to go, he would signal her and she would bow out of the group. That was the condition on which he had agreed to go to this party given by her friends that he didn’t particularly like.

Felix is Restless and Restentful
A half hour later he had discovered every book title his hosts owned, every CD they stacked near the stereo and read a stray magazine. He looked over at his wife who was in her element enjoying the camaraderie of her friends as they sang familiar tunes. Felix made faces at her, pointing to his watch and making head movements suggesting it was time to leave.

Another ten minutes into the signaling back and forth made Felix hopping mad.

“One more song” she said and turned back to the group. Her procrastination infuriated him. It pushed his buttons so hard that he threatened to leave without her. He threw out a challenge. Them or me!

Monica withdrew in embarrassment and left with Felix. In the car on the way home she asked
“ Why do you always have to spoil my fun?”

Envy and Fear Trigger Felix’s Hot Button
Felix was consumed with envy. His hot button flared up when he felt the absence of Monica’s attention. It touched that nerve that throbbed with fear that without her focused attention he didn’t exist. That primal fear triggered his hot buttons and he acted accordingly - making a scene that demonstrated his distress and need for his wife’s full attention.

Managing the Hot Button and Saving The Marriage
Felix risks sabotaging his marriage if he doesn’t attend to this hot button. He can begin to deal with his fears by following these suggestions:
· Give himself attention by setting up activities that he enjoys
· Find separate interests with new groups of people and then share them with his wife, so that both can have lives outside of one another.



Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.