It is your job to calm yourself—and you can do it. Stay with me on this, please. You may be having a surge of anger sweep through you that is so powerful that you scare yourself. You are not sure what you could do. And you don’t know where it comes from, or why. You usually don’t want to hurt anyone, but for those few seconds that Big Rage takes over, you could really get yourself into a lot of trouble. Is that right?

If that is you, and especially if you are going through this right now. Please continue to read and follow these suggestions. They have worked for others, and they can work for you.

First breathe deeply, then stretch

Start taking some deliberately slow breaths that go way down into the bottom of your lungs. If your belly sticks way out on your inbreath you are doing it right. Continue to take these deep, slow breaths—which will activate your Relaxation Response—as you read on.

Stand and begin to stretch some of your muscles gently and slowly. Take notice of some that you might usually overlook. One that brings me real joy is to stretch the muscles to my feet. One at a time I stetch my foot down to open up the muscles on the front of my lower leg. Then I pull my foot way up to stretch my calf. About 15-30 seconds feels good to me. Then I slowly rotate my ankle with my foot stretched forward. I find this brings my whole lower limb to life. It tingles with pleasure and I always ask myself the same thing: “Why do I wait so long to bring such comfort and joy to my body?” Does stretching your foot feel that good to you? If not, since you are switching over from considerable distress, give yourself a little more time. And when you ‘get it’ and stretching starts really feeling wonderful to you, then just keep going. Do the big familiar muscles, and then go looking to release the small ones where you may be holding more tension. Your forearms, your neck, your abs. And keep up those nice, slow breaths.

Why?

Quite likely this occasion, like others before, has to do with your feeling powerless as a child. In fact you may be raging much theyou’re your grandfather did to your dad, and your dad did to you. Really. This may go back for generations in your family, like it does in so many others. The abuse of male power, with your family’s own signature style.

You are still breathing deeply and stretching, right?

You likely do not realize how scary you are, and when you are excited, how much damage you are doing to your family. Even if you don’t hit or hurt them physically, you can bruise them emotionally by asking, expecting them to tolerate the full brunt of your category-5 rage. You don’t have to be a terrorist very often to keep your family scared of you all the time. Want to stop this legacy of fear and pain? Want to help create an environment where your grandchildren grow up in joy and wonder, rather than fear? These questions may help nudge you in a more healthy direction…(Keep doing the deep breaths and stretching as you continue)

The angriest person from my childhood was

When he/she was angry we would all

Some of the times when I was most scared include:

I remember thinking that I never be like him/her and act

When I am honest with myself, I remind myself of that angry person when I:

You are still breathing deeply and stretching, right?

Now I would like to invite you to read the following chapter from my 10 by 10 workbook. It will not only enlighten you about how you got to have this problem, but it will also point the way to feelings and behaviors that will bring you and your family a lot more joy and peace.

You can keep breathing deeply and stretching as long and as often as you like!

Click here to read Chapter 5 of the 10 by 10 Workbook