#channeling

I use to have a terrible temper. Eventually I just realized that 1.) no one would like me if I was like that, and I was tired of losing friends, so I fought within myself to keep calm. 2.) I began to grow up, realize that life goes on even when someone gets me mad. As a result I now can give myself time to think if its really necessary to even react at all, and to what extent I should. Getting away from my antagonistic and uber competitive brother also helped, as I felt less pressure in life, and was thus able to control myself better. As a result even around him, and those like him, I can generally keep calm. I should also add the humiliating jokes I often got from other kids when I was mad played a large part in that. I realized I was hurting myself much more than anyone else. I'm a much happier person now, and have a lot more quality relationships, and my friends don't have to worry about when I'm going to lash out next. I recognized that most of the time I lost my temper, it was due to either lack of sleep, lack of food, or a combination of the two. I started sleeping/eating better, which helped me keep my temper in check. I was also quicker to calm myself when I did lose my temper, because I knew it wasn't usually the fault of the person I was about to yell at. Okay, well, sometimes it WAS their fault, but whatever they did, but yelling at people is rarely productive.
Whenever I get a very strong emotion, I try to take a step back and analyze whether it's justified. If it's not, I don't know how to turn off an emotion but I DO know how to get the hell away from people and avoid making decisions for a while.
A lot of the tips given (breathing in and out slowly, counting from 1-10, etc) didn’t do the trick. I started coming up with my own strategy. When something is done/said that would normally push me over the edge I’d stop, think about the situation and ask myself “does this merit the energy?” It becomes a state of mind. You wanna be angry? You can, but you don’t have to it’s a choice. People say they can’t help it, I beg to differ. A lot of the times you’ll find that rushing towards anger doesn’t fix anything and those emotional releases don’t help at all. Other emotions are better outlets.
Choosing a couple of people that deal with situations the way I wanted to handle them: A) humor B) distance and calm. And then channeling them during the day. I think that the little changes are really important. If one waits for a “big crisis” is too late, so starting with tiny moments and doing the “what would X do” kind of approach. Soon, it all became way better. And because I could see the change in so many situations, it made it easier to become the person I chose to be - at least temperament wise.

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