Anger: It’s All In Your Mind

Is your thought life controlling you or are you in control of your thoughts?  Letting your mind run wild without setting barriers and controls can result in tragedy.

By: Theresa Tan

In an ongoing court case this week, an 18-year-old young mother has been accused of abusing her maid.  The torture extended to the pulling out of her maid’s teeth.  When questioned, the accused said, she could not help herself. When she saw her maid she would get angry and, she said, her anger would take over.

In another case, a two-year-old’s heart stopped beating after her father beat and stamped on her … for the last time.  The forensic pathologist found over 20 old scars on the toddler’s body.  She had been severely beaten and tortured by both parents, literally from head to feet. Her father faces the death penalty if found guilty.

To many of us, such extremities are somebody else’s temper problem.  But think about this:

Anger starts off as the tiniest of flames.  It can grow into a furious furnace if we are not conscious of our thoughts and do not put out the fire while it is small.

Yesterday I found myself walking around with a thunder cloud over my head for a full half day.  I was mad that another person’s indecisiveness had cost me to waste many hours over the past two weeks, and caused stress to me and the team I worked with by now asking for work to be done last minute when it could have been done two weeks ago.  I was not entirely conscious of how unhappy I was until I found myself throwing books against the wall because my anger had now grown into an unhealthy bonfire and needed “feeding”.  The more I gave in to the feeling, the bigger the fire grew.

I stopped, stood still and became conscious of my thoughts.  I wrote them down one by one. What started as a seed (“My time was wasted and I now have last minute work to do”) had become a giant tree with spiky fruit (thoughts not fit for print).

To be honest I was quite shocked at myself, as I usually am quick to forgive and quite easy-going, if I might say so myself.  Because I had written down my angry thoughts, I could go through them one by one and strike each one out with a marker, and reason that my anger had grown disproportionately to the offence. As I did that I found my anger subsided, and by the time I got to the last one, I was more focused on getting the work done than on the offence.

James Allen’s classic book As A Man Thinketh is a powerful little tome.  As a man thinks, so is he — the person who thinks he’s going to be a failure and the one who thinks he will be a success are both right!

A wise friend once described thoughts as salesmen that come to your door and ring the doorbell.  You can peek out and see if the thought is positive or negative, and you can decide if you want to buy into it or not.  “Some thoughts are not good for you so why let them in?  You don’t have to accept every thought as yours!”

Trouble is, most of us leave the front doors of our minds open, so any thought can come in. I have learned in the last five years to become more conscious of what thoughts I am having and to exercise self-control in my thinking.

I’ve discovered a few techniques that work for me.

I don’t doubt that that 18-year-old mother and the father of that little toddler regret what they have done.  But regret can do nothing to reverse the harm done.  Keeping a tight rein on your thoughts and exercising self-control is a much better way to live.