Tag Archives: change
I’m angry! Are you?
June 11, 2019
Happy summer to you! I sometimes talk about myself in sessions and I always get looks of relief to know that yes, I get mad at my husband, my kids, my family and YES, I am human.
Here’s the trick to anger, at least for me. It’s really how you deal with it that is how you feel afterwards.
I’m kind of a sensitive person and I take things to heart. I’m also a giver and I love to make other people happy. I know these things about myself and I also know that I’m a yeller and my husband is the quiet one.
I really don’t like being the yeller in the family. If you meet me, you wouldn’t think I’m the yeller so you know what I did one day? I decided I wasn’t going to yell anymore! You ask me how I did that? I really didn’t like the way I felt after yelling was over. Besides the fact that my throat was hurting me, I really didn’t like who I was. Yes, I was a bit scary.
How do you change?
So, how do you change something about yourself when you want to? Let’s break it down.
Know thyself!
I couldn’t really do this if I didn’t understand why I was yelling. I could blame my husband for this because he’s the silent one and I need communication, but what good would that do. I had to really look deep into myself and figure out the reasons I was yelling. Once I did that, I was able to change the way I spoke when I got angry.
No blaming
As I just said, it’s so easy to blame someone else. “Well, if they would talk more, I wouldn’t yell so much.” Nope, no way, that’s not how it works. Nobody makes you do anything. If I want to change myself, I have to change myself. Changing the people around me is not going to work.
Less stress, more calm
I like to think I’m a calm person, but if I’m yelling, am I really a calm person? Nope. So what can I do to calm myself when I feel like yelling? I can exercise, take some deep breaths, read, or anything to calm me down instead of yelling.
Trial and error
Anytime you want to change something about yourself, it is tough stuff! Even if you know it’s good for you to do, give yourself some breaks, please. We are so hard on ourselves and we need to be gentle. If you mess up, try again. Eventually, you will get it if you work hard enough on it.
So, do I still get angry?
Of course I do, it’s part of life and I’m only human. Do I yell still? Not so much and I feel as if I’ve grown from it. Yes, it’s possible to evolve if you want to.
Do you want to change how you deal with anything? If so, give me a shout and let me know.
Learning from mistakes
September 5, 2013
It is the Jewish New Year and that means you get to throw out your sins and start anew for this year. If it was only that easy. How do you throw out your mistakes? Better question is how do you learn from your mistakes. How many times have you been pulled over for a speeding ticket? Do you tell yourself that you will not EVER speed again! Ha, how long does that last you, a week a month, a day? So, what is the motivation to not repeat the same mistakes?
If you are married or live with a partner I am sure you are always wondering when your partner will learn from their mistakes. Seriously, how many times can one person do something before it can change. I think the route of change is that the mistake has to be big enough and hurt enough in order to want to change. Take the speeding ticket, okay you had to pay it and it was not fun, but did it affect you for the long run? Does your partner/spouse forgive your mistakes when you say you are sorry and will try to do better? If so, then where is the motivation to change?
I am a believer that people can change, hence I am a therapist and talk to people all the time that want change in their lives. The people that come to therapy seeking change are the ones that do the best in therapy. It is the ones that want others or their environment to change that get stuck in the therapy room. Does not matter how you get to therapy, just matters what you do once you are there. The only person that can change is you and even if your motivation is driven by your spouse or partner, they cannot help you. If you lie and want help to stop lying it resides in you to change.
So, I guess the moral here is that it’s not learning from your mistakes, its learning to change so you stop making mistakes or you fix those mistakes and find new ones to make!
If you have any ideas on how to change or fix your mistakes please leave a comment.