3 Effective ways to deal with a person who is angry — Follow Your Own Rhythm

You’re driving in your car with your husband and someone cuts you off.  Your husband gets angry, starts yelling at the person who cut you off, and then starts yelling at you for being a “bad driver.” What do you do?

Or you come home from work, and your wife gets angry that the house is so messy, and that you never do anything around the house.  She is yelling and calling you names. What do you do?

Normally what we all tend to do in these situations is react and respond with anger.  We get angry because we don’t like to be yelled at, because we feel we have to defend ourselves, because our peace is being disturbed, and because the other person can’t control their anger.

But is that really the best way to deal with this situation? 

I know that in the moment when someone is angry and yelling, it’s easy to get triggered and yell right back, but then, we are just adding fuel to the fire.  I think we can all agree that when we react with anger to a person who is angry, it just makes things worse, escalates their anger, and then things that shouldn’t be said are said and more unnecessary problems are created. 

So what CAN we do?

I will give you three ways to deal with this situation in just a sec, but first, we have to understand something about anger. 

Anger is a human emotion, and anger isn’t necessarily bad.  We have been conditioned to think that anger is bad, but the energetic boost that we get when we are angry can be used for good.  Anger can propel us to make positive changes in our lives and in the world. 

Imagine watching an eye-opening documentary about the food industry and how big corporations are genetically modifying our food to make more money at the expense of our health and our planet.  Your response to this is complete anger and fiery as you wonder how people can be so greedy and cold.  You then use this anger as fuel and energy to make a difference, educate yourself and others about food, expose the food industry, start eating organic, or try to solve this world problem.  The passion driven by anger CAN be used for good as long as you don’t remain in that angry state forever and as long as you don’t let your anger control you. 

Anger becomes a problem when it becomes our go-to response for almost anything inconvenient that happens to us, when we struggle with expressing ourselves without anger, when we say things we don’t mean while angry, or when we hurt other people because we are angry.  This is when it starts to take over our mind and forces us to act in uncontrollable and irrational ways.

So the thing we have to understand is that when a person is under the spell of anger, they cannot think clearly, and they are not being themselves.  This negative emotion, stemming from a conditioned pattern they have picked up, has taken over their sense of clarity, and they can no longer be rational.  What people say when they’re angry is not necessarily what they mean, because it is anger, not truth, speaking through them.

So when you notice someone around you who is really angry, it is best not to add fuel to their fire by yelling at them, telling them to stop, criticizing them, making fun of them, belittling them, or telling them to calm down.