I am astonished that the general masses are still mislabeling anger. Because they don’t understand what it is, people continue to try to deal with their own anger and with other difficult, angry people with techniques that have never worked.

When I finally came across this research for the first time, over 15 years ago, I thought I was almost the only one who hadn’t heard and realized that anger really isn’t an emotion. Now I’m finding out that there are a lot of people still out there trying to handle anger in a way that isn’t working.

So here is my first EBOOK! Cool! I have a number of regular best-sellers but this is my first EBook What Is Anger? The Most MisUnderstood and MisUsed ‘Emotion’!

If you are dealing with any difficult people, at all! OR if you are trying to conquer your own anger, you will get good, easy answers here.

Order your copy now!

My self esteem is mine. A perceived threat to my body, property, values or sense of entitlement is exactly that — perceived! And if we only change our perception, we WILL handle the situation without anger! I read a really interesting statement in “The New Psycho Cybernetics” just yesterday that gave me an “AH HA” moment.

“Those instances where we respond with irritation, frustration, annoyance, anger — those responses are learned behaviors.” I definitely learned them very, very well. But any learned response can be relearned. I’m going to put some extra effort in over the next few weeks to respond with chuckles, jokes and my sense of the ridiculousness. I think I’ll have a lot more fun that way.

How can we teach children to handle those incidents in their lives with humor, calmness, a sense of acceptance as opposed to attacking others with our anger??

Look for my new ebook What is Anger? The Hidden Secret Finally Revealed

100% OF THE TIME, NO EXCEPTIONS, WHEN PEOPLE ARE BEING DIFFICULT THEY ARE SCARED

 Something in the situation triggered their safety brains to say, It’s not safe! Slam goes that gateway in their brain, shutting off access to their Thinking Brains. Their Safety Brains take over and decide, based on illogical, irrational thinking, how to get safe.

 What Is Anger? Anger is NOT an Emotion. Anger is an attack. Always, 100% of the time, when you get angry, you were scared of something, your safety brain took over and decided that the only way to get safe is to ATTACK.

I’ll bet you’ve even had the thought or said it to someone after you dealt with an angry person, “It felt like he was attacking me.”

What is anger? It is ALWAYS our intent to attack. You cannot feel angry without having someone in your head as your target, even if it is yourself!

To fully understand what anger is, grab my newest ebook being released this week: What Is Anger?

Is your spouse/partner being difficult right now? How about one or more of your children? Is your boss difficult? Coworkers? Staff? Do you have the mother-in-law from hell? How about the father-in-law from hell? Mother from hell? Father from hell? What about your brothers and sisters – any of them being difficult? Any difficult neighbours? How about difficult cousins, nephews, nieces, other extended family? Do you have specific friend(s) that are difficult? Difficult customers? Difficult clients?

(How long is your list??)

What are some of the difficult behaviours they engage in?

Anger. Raging. Do you have any whiners and complainers? How about blameless Bettys and blameless Bobs (it wasn’t MY fault!) Aggressive behaviour. Yelling. Shouting. Bullying behaviour. One-up-man-ship – they always did it bigger, better, worse, smarter. People who won’t make decisions. People who won’t do their jobs. People who are always late. Do you have any “poor me” people in your life? Victims? Everything, everybody is always against them? And the list goes on and on and on and on and on….

100% of the time…when people are being difficult, they ARE scared!

To explore this further, grab my new ebook WHAT IS ANGER coming out this week!

This weekend is Canada’s Thanksgiving. I’m starting today to make a written list as long as possible of everything and everyone in my life that I am grateful for. I’m doing this for two reasons.

1. When we express gratitude, with our full feeling of gratitude behind it, we raise our own personal vibration and opportunities and doors open that we would never expect.

2. But the bigger reason is this: I don’t feel thankful or gracious or particularly happy when I am waiting for others to express their thankfulness and gratitude towards me. AND I FEEL AWESOME when I take the time to express my thankfulness and gratitude towards others — either silently on a written list, or verbally to their face.

I am feeling great ALL THE TIME and this is one of the best ways and reasons — constantly expressing gratitude keeps me in a very positive, happy mood and then there’s no room for anger or negativity.

Come on my Canadian friends – this weekend has been DESIGNATED as our weekend to be thankful – so let’s put some personal effort into being thankful for everything in our lives. I think I should be able to make at least 20 pages of things I’m grateful for, how about you?

At the same off leash, in the same place, the rabbits, jack rabbits, play. And my girls KNOW where those rabbits like to play. And Richa, our beautiful black Fila Brasileiro checks out the rabbits every morning.

Yup, they were there this morning. Problem is, when the rabbits start running, they run across the street, down the back alley, and don’t stop running – it’s a bit worrisome! And YES, normally, I’m getting a bit irate by the time I corral all the dogs back in the car.

And then I realized…all 5 dogs ran at their top speed for about 5 minutes this morning – around and around and around and across and through and between, in the fully fenced parking lot where the rabbits are.

Some days I feel guilty because I don’t get the dogs out walking as far or as fast as they might need. This morning…they walked themselves…well they RAN themselves! They had GREAT EXERCISE!

Thank you rabbits! Let’s do it again tomorrow!

Change your thinking and you can gain FULL CONTROL on your anger!

Just driving a few blocks to the off leash to walk the dogs and “What IS THAT SMELL?” Realized…where did YOUR MIND GO????

It was the car in front of me, engine overheating. I followed her. And when she pulled over, I ran over to her car and had her turn off the engine. We put a bit of water in, and there was a mechanic only a couple of blocks away.

You know, it feels really good to take time out of my day and out of my way to help someone else…I think I’ll hug that feeling close all day and be happy! And I know when I’m happy, I don’t get angry at anything so I’ll have perfect control on anger today!

I really hope all it takes is a bit of antifreeze to get her up and running again – no engine damage!

I love the summer. I love everything about the summer. And a few years ago I remember hearing everyone saying how fast the summer flies by — sound familiar?

I remember driving home and looking, really LOOKING at the trees and noticing how the sunlight absolutely sparkled off all of the leaves. And it was the same on the next tree and the next and the next.

That summer didn’t fly by for me. I enjoyed moments everyday BECAUSE whenever I looked at the trees I would notice how the sunlight sparkled off the leaves. It’s not about loving how the sunlight sparkled off the leaves; it’s not even about stopping and noticing the sunlight sparkling off the leaves what REALLY WORKS to keep me happy (and when I’m happy I’m not getting angry – so this is a TO anger management tip!)

What really works is, every time I see the sun sparkling off the leaves to stop and remind myself how much I love that!

So don’t just love the roses. Don’t just stop and smell the roses. What works is every time you stop and smell the roses REMIND YOURSELF how much you love that!

How many things could you possible notice in your day TODAY that you love? Stop and remind yourself how much you love him/her, it, that, them! I promise, you won’t have time to get angry today – you’ll be too busy enjoying your life!

All four communication styles learn differently and implement differently — often leading to anger with each other, cause they are different! When you understand the differences it’s a TOP Anger Management Tip!

I was reminded of this just this morning, reading Jenny Hestons’ http://lifeloveandlandslides.com/kids-and-pets/what-do-you-want-to-learn. She alluded to the fact that “if you don’t get it right away…”

That’s a problem for Activists. They learn quickly, think on their feet, and often the first time they try anything, it doesn’t look like the first time for them. “You’re a natural!” is the often heard comment. EXCEPT because it came so naturally, they didn’t have to think it through, put the pieces together, and understand how the pieces fit…so the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, time they try something, it’s BAD, because they didn’t understand how it all fit together, and there’s nobody there talking them through it this time.

Often, with Activists, if it doesn’t “come naturally”  the first time, they won’t try again. And if they don’t figure it out the second or third time, they won’t try again.

Pacifists — just don’t like learning new things. They LIKE the cosiness of familiarity. When they are learning something new, they will ask the same question a hundred times. They need the reassurance that they are doing it right. Grab some patience and give that reassurance!

Enthusiasts – learn new things quickly because “Hey! Everything is a game!” They often learn quickly and easily WHEN someone is explaining things to them. They don’t learn so well from books or having to google it. They LOVE the public recognition of being one of the best. As long as it’s fun, they’ll continue to learn it, and implement it. Once it’s not fun anymore, the likelihood that they quit and start looking for the next fun game is quite high!

Strategists — need to understand something completely before they try it or use it. So they will ask TONS of questions, think it through slowly and completely and then finally, after asking even MORE questions, and thinking even longer…they will finally start doing…the cool thing is that they WILL follow through and master it.

Which learning style do you have? Do you see the impatience that has occurred with the other communication styles? Does this help in getting rid of the impatience, understanding where they are coming from, and giving you a couple of tools to deal with each of the other communication styles? This is a GREAT Anger Management Tip!

1. Is your youngest child starting First Grade?       YES              NO

2. Have you found yourself consistently arguing/fighting more with your spouse/partner in the past 6 – 24 months?        YES            NO

3. Are you becoming more and more dissatisfied with your marriage and starting to think separation/divorce?        YES            NO

4. Do you find yourself looking at different career and/or volunteer opportunities, seriously considering getting into something brand new OR having another child?        YES              NO

5. Are you, in general, restless and dissatisfied with your life – feeling stuck in a rut?        YES             NO

6. Are you depressed? Listless? Unmotivated? Unhappy? or have been, more so, in the past 6 – 24 months?        YES             NO

7.  Do you find yourself unhappy and talking and thinking more negatively about friends, coworkers, work, hobbies, family?        YES               NO

8. Do you get angry or weepy for no reason?        YES              NO

9. Are you seriously considering making a major relocation of your family – not just to another house in the same neighbourhood?        YES              NO

10. Are you fabulously rich, gorgeous, married to Tom Cruz and living a charmed life?        YES             NO

If you answered YES to four or more of the first 9 questions (number ten was just for fun!) then you are far more like Katie Holmes than you maybe thought you were.

If you found yourself answering YES to four or more of the first 9 questions, but DO NOT have your youngest child entering First Grade then I’d suggest you are going through one of these OTHER life transitions:

Did you recently get married?  Did you give birth to your first child within the past 8 months?  Did your youngest child graduate from high school last year or will graduate this year?  Have you or your spouse retired within the past 18 months or will retire within 18 months?  Are you in the midst or tail-end of menopause? Have either of your or your spouse’s parents died within the past 24 months?

You will go through major transitions in life. Those major transitions in life WILL unsettle you – GUARANTEED! It’s how you’ve learned to handle your emotions that will be the telling point.

Katie Holmes, you’re in transition – a major transition of life. Suri is going to school. I don’t really know if you’re going to home school her, or if she’ll have tutors, or if you have a wonderful private school picked out for her. It’s not the school. It’s her age.

 This happens to ALL WOMEN when their youngest (or only) child heads to First Grade. As the mom (and for some reason, women face this far more often than men – probably because mom is the primary caregiver) you now have to find meaning in your life. Your role as primary caregiver doesn’t end here, but it sure changes. Suri will form lots of strong attachments to teachers and friends.

And all moms are left with trying to find new meaning in their lives. “What do I do now?” “Have another child?”  (and many women do!) Some women are targeted, specific, and ready to get on with their careers, so the emotional upheaval is minimal. However, other will find a part time or full time job if they were stay-at-home moms. Change careers. End their marriages. Do a major relocation of house and family.

The problem is that women don’t understand what’s going on. All they understand is that they are dissatisfied with their lives and are looking for something. Women understand that they are going through a transition of life, but we don’t understand the full impact.

We are dissatisfied. Unhappy. Restless. Searching. And IF we have never been trained to look inside of ourselves at our emotions and feelings and thoughts and realize “Hey, I’m scared. What in the world am I supposed to do now?!” then we end up looking outside of ourselves at the cause and a huge number of women do exactly what Katie has done. They look around in their lives at what could possibly be the problem and lo and behold, Hey, there’s the husband! We are very used to blaming others, and we teach our children to do it as well.

 “You make me so angry…”  “I get so upset when you….” “I’m so frustrated that you…” “Your dad makes me so angry when he…” Do any of these sound familiar?

We are so used to blaming someone else for our emotions, that when some deep felt emotions, like fear during a major transition of life occur, we look around and find someone  to blame. This will build up over months or a couple of years.

It’s an EXCELLENT DISTRACTION strategy. Who wants to take responsibility for our crap? Nope. Blame someone else and/or situations/circumstances that are totally unconnected (yet irritating). And over a few months, a lot of months, or a couple of years (when the youngest starts preschool or kindergarten) we build it so big that too many women turn to divorce instead of trying to figure out what’s really going on inside of them and finding a true solution.

When our youngest starts school is NOT the only transition of life that causes this. Birth of the first child is another time when divorce rates soar. When the youngest child starts school, divorce rates soar. When the youngest child graduates from high school, divorce rates soar. When the first spouse retires and then again when the second spouse retires, divorce rates soar.

And just to add fuel to the fire, you’ll find that when one or both of you is going through a major transition of life, any old poor communication patterns that you thought you had dealt with and deleted, will come back full force! This makes it really easy to look at your spouse and decide that divorce is the best solution.

It’s not. Katie, it’s not the best solution.

A survey done by AARP (Association of American Retired Persons) published in January 2007, states that

In New Jersey, for example, 46 percent of divorced people reported that they wished that they and their ex-spouse had tried harder to work through their differences. … Sixty-six percent of currently divorced Minnesotans answered yes to the question, “Looking back, do you wish you and your ex-spouse had tried harder to work through your differences?”

 Another important finding was that most divorces (74%) happened to adults who, just five years previously, had said they were happily married. Combined with the evidence of marital turnarounds — unhappy marriages that became happy — this argues that marriages can go through multi-year up-and-down cycles. Did the people who were happy, but later got divorced, just fail to outlast a (relatively) temporary problem? We can’t tell, but it’s likely.

Because it was never about our spouse. It was about our deep seated fear of change, and changing who we see ourselves as…We can no longer see ourselves as that “primary care giver” so who am I now?

Katie, it’s probably too late for you now to go back. Although, I’ve never met you so I really don’t know. In general, what I do know is that we have two ways of leaving a situation. We stay balanced and calm and weigh the pros and cons and decide that, while it was great, it just doesn’t serve us anymore, and we move on. This only happens 5% of the time. The other 95% of the time, we focus on the negative in a situation (like a marriage) to the point where we are blaming the other person and angry and talking negatively to friends about our spouse all the time until we’ve done it long enough to make it 100% dangerous (it’s not physically dangerous – this is all psychological and emotional). At the point where it becomes 100% dangerous, then we make the decision to move on.

I’m sure you’ve heard it – we make changes in our life by either moving towards pleasure or moving away from pain. Katie, it sounds like you’ve fallen into that 95% make your marriage so dangerous that you have now made the decision to divorce. Once we go that far, it’s a long, focused process to bring our thinking back to neutral. Until you’re well and truly out of the marriage.

So Katie, I’m not calling you right or wrong in your decision to divorce Tom Cruise. I’m just saying you’ve fallen into a very common thought pattern that affects many women during the course of their lives as we face a transition of life.

I’d love for other women to learn from your example and maybe, instead of building up the negatives towards their spouse when they face a major transition in life to the point of divorce, instead, they can recognize that they are going through a major transition in life and use this time to create intimacy with their spouse. Maybe, instead of being negative and pulling apart from their spouses, they can ask their spouses to help them talk about what they are feeling, help them understand what’s really going on, and work towards a solution that is built on positives like respect and love and support.

Maybe their spouses aren’t equipped to help them do this. Maybe they need to discuss it with a girlfriend who DOESN’T buy into the negatives of “he’s so blah blah blah.” It has to be a girlfriend who doesn’t allow you to blame anyone or anything while you’re working through it. Or maybe you need to find a professional who helps you find the truth of what’s going. (Even some counselors and therapists will buy into the negatives of “he’s so blah blah blah…”)

I retired 3 years ago from my wonderful career as a professional speaker. My husband retired two years ago from his job at a college. And YES we’ve been facing this exact same issue. However, even though, initially, we were in the midst of the negative emotions, negative thinking and old icky communication patterns that we thought we had conquered, we were aware enough to recognize what was going on. Here we are, a year, two years later, and our marriage is better than ever. We took some classes to help us grow and find new purpose in our lives, TOGETHER. I love him more now than when I married him 20 years ago.

A transition in life can tear a marriage apart or you can use it to build a closer, more loving, more supportive, more intimate marriage. Once you understand what’s really going on, you’ll be able to make a more positive choice.

Katie, next transition in life, maybe it’ll be different.