How to Handle Explosive Anger

Getting angry can sometimes be a good thing. It’s an emotion that allows us to free ourselves of the frustrations and we’re holding in. It’s an emotion that arises when we’re faced with a difficulty.

Getting angry is something that comes and goes, and can play out in different ways. It doesn’t necessarily imply screaming; it can be a much more controlled reaction that helps us reestablish boundaries.

“If one isn’t allowed to express anger, or even recognize it within, one is by simple extension, deprived of both strength and control.”

-Carolyn Heilbrun-

Are you someone who knows how to express your anger? Or do you hold it in until you can’t stand it anymore and have no other choice but to explode?

The former is the healthier option, but if you’re not capable of it, today we’ll give you some tips to know what to do when you’re about to explode.

Losing control

One of the consequences of not letting your anger out in small doses, is that anger accumulates. Everything we repress, that we don’t say out of fear of how someone could react, everything that bothers us and we don’t express — we save it up, but we don’t eliminate it.

Ignoring things that bother us doesn’t make them disappear. For example, if a certain attitude from one of my friends bothers me, my family situation is strained, and I have problems at work due to stress, this sooner or later comes out. This is when we explode and lose control of ourselves. Surely, if you’re one of these people, you’ll surprise the people around you with these reactions. You might even surprise yourself.

During these losses of control over yourself, you may not even remember what you did or said. Everything simply comes shooting out of you uncontrollably. This makes you completely unpredictable. You can explode at any second, you can’t determine when you’ll do it. You’re like a ticking time bomb that will go off at any moment.

I’m going to explode, what do I do?

It’s hard to determine when we’ll explode, but if we know ourselves we’ll begin to recognize that there are signs when we’re about to lose control, though it might already be too late.

The best thing to do is to practice expressing our emotions when we feel them, or at least not allow that bomb to start building up, which will sooner or later explode.

Thus, we should keep in mind the following advice:

Ask yourself, is this worth the anger? Is there a reason behind it?
Learn to talk, learn to ask, learn to single out and manifest the things that bother you.
Get some distance and get some air.
Start to find solutions to the things that bother you.

Think of solutions, but never think that the solution is to ignore and what to see what happens.

Also, when you find yourself in a difficult situation, learn to get some distance. Out of habit, people will ask us questions or tell us to calm down. That will only raise our level of anger and make us go blind with rage.

Start to learn from these moment. This way, you’ll feel better about yourself and you’ll avoid losing control, which could happen in very inopportune moments.