It generally begins as we become triggered and attached to mental reactions and beliefs producing emotionally dysfunctional responses which often end up ruining our relationships, our marriage, our career and our health.

Often, anger is merely the outward expression of fear. At the core of our anger, we tend to find another emotion and set of beliefs based on an intense sense of vulnerability, fragility, sadness and terror. This set of feelings relates to our childhood experience, because these core emotions of intense wounding become established during childhood, usually from some form of emotional and verbal abuse or abandonment. In order to adapt in adulthood, we react in a pattern of defensive and ways in order to protect ourself from further wounding.

Buddhist Contemplative Psychology

In Buddhist contemplative psychology, the belief is that these causal connections from childhood are a form of delusion which end up causing emotional suffering. In order to change these habitual patterns of anger, is helps if be can become aware and understand the dynamics of our responses until it becomes second nature.

Although resistance can sometimes serve a purpose its primary use here is to help us identify that it is something we must pass through. The key to changing our beliefs, thought patterns, and responses is not to battle them or try to mask them, but instead to focus on modifying and resolving the underlying emotional energy that causes the beliefs and thoughts to have such a powerful effect. This requires an attitude of radical self acceptance and openness. In order to heal the underlying hurt and fear that powers our anger reactions, we must face ourselves with compassionn not aggression.

Mindfulness Therapy

Mindfulness Therapy, often used in Buddhist contemplative psychology, involves three basic phases; recognition, relationship, and resolution. The first phase of mindfulness, recognition, is the process of awakening to an awareness of the impulse to react with anger as and when it arises. The second phase, relationship, is where we begin to learn to sit with the inner pain that is driving us to react. In this stage, we practive being mindful of the feelings that want us to react and responding to them in a compassionate rather than aggreesive manner

The third phase of mindfulness in relationship to anger is resolution. This is the place where the anger begins to change and to shift into a form of more constructive communication. In this same space that we create around our anger through mindfulness, and become free to interact with the anger and bring compassion to it.

Mindfulness Therapy teaches many useful life skills for handling emotions of all kinds and learning to work skilfully with anger is perhaps the most important activity that we can engage in.