by Lee VanAmee

Created on: February 22, 2010

Venting out anger incorrectly and indirectly is never a healthy solution. Everyone has been negatively affected by someone else's angry outburst or overall mood at one time or another; even if you were there at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Anger can be a very energy filled emotion and therefore people tend to "leak out" angry energy at times when they don't even realize they are doing it. If someone is constantly leaking their anger on you, by all means you must make them aware of how their behavior is affecting you. But, the only angry energy that you can really control and or contain is your own; so that is the best place for you to concentrate on.   

Here are a couple of ideas that may work for you: 

Any physical exercise that is realistic for the situation:

It really does work wonders if you are all pent up in anger or rage and you can just swing by the gym or grab your bike and ride; because again, anger is energy and exercise releases that energy. But, if you only have 20 minutes before an important meeting, etc. its hard to get to your usual workout area or gym conveniently. But, you can always grab a walk around the block, up or down stairs, up and down a hall, maybe even through a parking lot. If you cannot leave your desk or office; try to move your body up and down in a squatting motion or keep moving something heavy on your desk (like your printer or monitor) back and forth taking it apart and putting it back together. Anything to get your body distracted and also your mind calmed down, until you can rationally deal with the situation in a calm manner. If you are someone who gets more heated and angry by doing these exercises of course this is not for you; as you don't want to exasperate the problem but to diffuse it and let it drain away instead of heating up.

The Letter or Message that you write in anger but NEVER keep or send:

Handwrite or type a letter or any other type of document just stating how you feel right at the point when you are boiling over or raging at someone. This is a process only for you and no one else. Do not play editor in this process; do not hold back or check on any of the punctuation, the spelling, the swearing, the other person's reaction or the emotions behind this process; just let all of whatever is in you fly out like liquid. Then once you are finished with this process stop and see if you feel like you have let at least some of the over charged emotional energy out and are starting to feel relieved. The sign to look for if this process has worked for you is that the issue or person that you were steaming at a while ago; now does not really even bother you in the least or you just don't care about it any more because this process has taken the "steam" out of your thought process. Once you are done make sure you destroy all evidence because all this was just a process of leaking out words and emotions and if anyone ever read it they should not be expected to understand how intense this felt.

The goal when someone is over excited with any emotion is to try bring in some type of distraction or an energy drain to bring the person back to a more realistic level emotionally. Then you can have a more calm experience to deal with whatever issue has brought on this reaction in the first place.

Learn more about this author, Lee VanAmee.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.