How to Control Your Anger Using The CALM Method

So in today's video,

I'm talking about how to control your anger before you say something you'll regret.

So in this video,

I'm going to share my four step process that will help you manage your anger fast.

But if you're new,

My name is Michelle Ferris.

I'm a psychotherapist and I love helping people create relationships that work.

So most people right now struggle with anger,

Whether it's yelling,

Stuffing it,

Using sarcasm.

Unhealthy anger has become the norm.

And I want to change that because there is such a thing as healthy anger.

And that's when you can express your feelings without blaming or shaming the other person or making them responsible for it.

Because healthy anger is about what you decide to do,

Not getting somebody else to change.

So let's get started.

It's basically a process of managing your emotions before they get too intense for you to control.

Most people let their anger build up too long and then it's literally impossible for them because you're already about to explode and I don't want that for you.

So I've come up with this calm method and this is a four-step approach to anger I'm super excited about because I've taught it for years but chat GPT actually helped me come up with what the formula was.

The first one is C.

This is catch your anger early.

A is acknowledge your anger.

L is lower your anger and M is manage your anger.

This is a super simple approach that has helped hundreds of my clients heal their anger and be able to manage it with confidence and that's what I want for you too.

So the first one is C,

Catch your anger early.

And this is what most people don't do.

If you're angry or you find yourself annoyed,

Maybe somebody says something to you at work and you decide,

Eh,

You know what?

It bugged me,

But I'm not going to do anything about it.

It's no big deal.

And you talk yourself out of saying something.

Now,

In some cases that's appropriate because maybe that person is your boss.

But if it's something where maybe somebody made a really rude comment and you to say hey that's not okay but you don't.

What happens?

Well those feelings don't go away just because we want them to.

This is the mistake most people make when trying to manage their anger is they tell themselves it's not that big a deal I'm not gonna do anything or maybe I'm being too sensitive or you know what I'm just gonna let it go hoping it'll pass and some people let's face it don't want to say anything because they're afraid it's gonna blow up in their face and turn into a big conflict.

But the problem is is if you can't catch your anger early when it's not that intense It's going to be next to impossible for you to get control and manage anger effectively because when it's first starting out It's an annoyance.

It's irritability.

It's this is uncomfortable,

But you're still in control of it That's when you want to pay attention when your feelings of anger or irritation are starting to show up because Assuming that it's going to go away on its own never actually happens.

In fact,

In most cases,

It just intensifies and gets worse because anger stored in the body becomes stress and I don't want that for you.

So the next step is A,

Acknowledge your anger and this too people have trouble with because maybe you see anger as a negative thing,

Especially if you grew up witnessing any kind of rage or abusive anger,

You're not going to see anger as something to pay attention to.

You're probably going to see it as something to ignore,

But if you ignore it,

It tends to build and get worse over time.

So in terms of acknowledging it,

There's two ways to do that.

One is acknowledge it to yourself,

Which is honestly the first step.

Because most of us want to dismiss it and say,

Oh,

It's not that big a deal or make yourself wrong or tell yourself you shouldn't be bothered by something this petty,

But you are.

Not judging yourself is part of this work because we all have feelings.

We all get bugged,

But when we judge ourselves for it and make ourselves wrong,

That ends up hurting us in the long run because we're not willing to be honest anymore about how we feel and that always tends to hurt us in relationship.

Acknowledging it to yourself is number one.

Number two is acknowledging it to the other person.

And sometimes this is necessary and sometimes it's not.

Honestly,

Out of the two,

The first one is the most important one for you to start with.

Because acknowledging your anger,

Even to yourself,

You could do by going in your backyard and saying it out loud.

Or doing some writing.

Or you can call a friend and just let them know what's bothering you.

Anything you can do to be honest and acknowledge your feeling help it dissipate better than stuffing it or hoping it's going to go away on its own,

Because believe me,

It won't.

The next concept is L,

Lower it.

This is where you're going to want to have lots and lots of different tools for you to choose from the next time you get angry or annoyed at somebody because every situation is different.

For instance,

Say you're babysitting your grandchildren and your toddler is screaming and you're starting to lose it.

You're not going to be able to take a timeout and leave that toddler by themselves,

But maybe you can put on some music,

Call a friend,

Do some journaling.

Something where you're actually purposely trying to handle and lower that stress level or those angry feelings So another really favorite tool that I have is the anger scale from 1 to 10 1 is you're not really angry at all 2 to 3 is where you're starting to notice that you're getting upset,

But you're still totally in control When you get to a 4 or 5 that's usually the cusp where we start saying things we're going to regret and then of course 6,

7,

8,

9,

10 is when we're increasingly out of control and in a rage.

What I want you to do is start taking your emotional temperature by rating your stress level or your anger level from 1 to 10 each day.

This is a very quick powerful tool,

But for the sake of this video,

I want you to just use this very simple yet powerful scale because if you know your anger is at a 2-3,

Don't ignore it.

Do something about it because that is what's going to help you get control of your anger.

If,

On the other hand,

You wait until it's a 6-7,

You're going to realize pretty quickly that,

Oh my gosh,

Now I can't control it because I'm so invested in this argument,

I'm not willing to stop.

If you can relate to this,

Say me too in the comments.

You're not alone.

Now,

The last one is manage your anger.

And this isn't necessarily the same as lower your anger.

Managing your feelings is really about looking at the choices you make on a day-to-day basis that supports stress management.

Because what people don't realize is that sometimes when you're what I call an exploder,

You might explode in the heat of the moment and have no idea why you just did that.

And often it's because you have not your stress building for days or several weeks leading up to that.

So the manage part of this acronym is really about you looking at your lifestyle.

For instance,

Do you need to say no more?

Do you need time for yourself?

Do you need to start meditating or exercising in order to get your stress under control?

Do you need to stop working 80 hour work weeks because you just don't have the bandwidth anymore and your kids need you?

Whatever your lifestyle choices are,

We all have 24 hours to spend.

How we spend them is up to us.

And when it comes to anger management,

Sometimes we need to get some things off our plate.

Maybe you can't volunteer at the church anymore because you don't have any time.

Or maybe you need to start getting up 15 minutes early to meditate because that's the only time you have.

Whatever your schedule is,

Whatever your lifestyle is,

I really want to support you in looking at how calm can help you manage your anger more effectively.

Thanks so much.