Six Months On.

It’s been six months since I went on Mike Fisher's British Association of Anger Management (BAAM) course. Six months since I sat in a room with six strangers and revealed proudly to the world, I get angry and I'm here to do something about it.

I remember it well. 

Mike Fisher has been running weekend workshops for over 17 years and has averaged out to have helped a 1000 people deal with their anger, for every year doing it.

I love Will Storr's description of anger, which he wrote for the Observer newspaper having been on Mike's weekend course in 2007.

“I can feel my rage. It collects in the centre of my throat. It's like I've swallowed a cannonball and it makes me want to scream. I am brimful of anger, and when it sloshes out, it does so in the only direction it's allowed to - at inanimate objects. I shout at keys I can't find, at carrots I drop on the kitchen floor, at doors I stub my toe on. Last week I called a spilled glass of elderflower cordial a cunt.”

There are six ways we express our anger; intimidation, interrogation, poor me, distancing, winding up and blunder bussing. I'm a bit of everything when I get angry. I'm a big man who looks scary in an aggressive, 'I can kill you' stance. I'm good at machine-gun spraying questions, while being a victim the next moment. I often walk away from situations having dropped an anger grenade in the room, leaving its victims to clear up the emotional mess.

For many people Christmas can be the most stressful time of year. So, BAAM decided to give away a PDF of Surviving Christmas filled with useful thoughts and tips to help you along the way.

When I'm angry at seeing my shadow face to face, I often take the mickey, and shake off my cruel remarks as a joke, and tell the recipient not to take it seriously. Though last but not least, my anger is best released as blunderbuss. 'He's like a bear with a sore head,' my partner would say politely, while in private, complain I have tantrums like a 3-year-old, cursing, slamming, banging, cussing and swearing about the house.

What's wrong with Shouting?

As a kid I used to shout when my sister stole my bike or broke my toys. It was what I did to vent my fury at having a horrible sibling. My mum never checked me for it, except to say to the people at the receiving end, “Let it go through one ear and out of the other and ignore him!”

I was brought up to think shouting was an acceptable way to express anger and I carried it onto adulthood, as any child would. 30 years later, with kids, a partner and pets, I've come to realise it isn't.

My partner hates me shouting, but I justify doing it, by blaming her for making me angry by telling me to stop shouting in the first place. It’s a catch 22 situation. I've been shouting all my life to express my anger and now I have to stop? How do you break a habit of a lifetime? Though my partner would say I'm missing the point. The big question remains, why am I angry?

Over to Mike Fisher.

“Anger is the symptom and shame is the cause. Everyone here suffers from what I call "toxic shame". Shamers feel like they have been somehow cursed, that they're not like other people. They think, "I am flawed and defective as a human being", and, 'If you really knew me, you wouldn't like me."'

As Will Storr wrote from his own experience, “I'm concentrating all my efforts on trying not to cry,” as I can testify at having grown men either side of me break down in tears during a Mike Fisher weekend workshop. I was close to tears myself.

“We avoid facing our own shame,” Mike continues, “by using such behaviours as perfectionism; control; resentment; criticism and blame; moralising; self-contempt and contempt for others; patronising; envy; indifference. Each of these behaviours focuses on another person and takes the heat off us. You need to practise what I call "radical authenticity". You need to accept that the authentic self is often not very nice. But by accepting your shadow-self you're accepting your humanity.

The Jungian concept of 'Shadow-Selves'. 

“Have you ever had the sensation of a stranger walking into a room and feeling suddenly gripped by absurd levels of hatred?” says Mike Fisher, “this is what happens when we encounter a person who is exhibiting one of our 'shadows', those qualities we possess but which we repress or deny in ourselves. Do you hate arrogant people? Greedy people? Or is your bête-noire the obnoxious, ungrateful or slutty? Well, welcome to yourself. You may have been taught, since before you can remember, that 'showy' people are bad. In response, you've spent your life deliberately avoiding designer labels or boasting about your holidays. Then in stroll Flash-boy Godwin, all bespoke cuff links and diving safaris in Micronesia. And everyone aahs and coos. How comes he's allowed to do that and you're not?”

I've come to realise that while I get angry at being told to keep quiet by my partner, I tell her to do the same when she's trying to express her feelings to me. We each have our own emotional needs which need replenishing. We get angry at our own behaviour.

It’s ironic really, but super liberating all the same. Once you understand the mechanics of anger, you control the anger. Or as Will Storr puts it better than I, “Mike Fisher's course is part theory, part a process of unpacking his pupils; taking their rage to pieces and seeing what its motors look like. If there's one single goal of the intensive three-day course, it appears to revolve around teaching us how to understand and then accept ourselves in all our fallible glory.

We need to learn how to decode the language of our emotions, to be wise about hunting down their causes and bold about stating them. If we know what we're feeling and why we're feeling it and are unafraid to tell the rest of the world, we'll suddenly find we're in command of ourselves. It takes away some of the terror of being human.”

Make no mistake about it, people who have been hurled into the very troughs of despair by their explosive rage.

Reading Will Storr's article brought tears to my eyes, because it spoke of an incident in his childhood with has left a lasting impression into adulthood.

'We were in the car, on holiday, looking for a bike rental shop. My dad was angry because we couldn't find it. He was saying, "Somebody help me." I saw a road we hadn't been up, a narrow one on a steep hill. He tried it and scratched the paintwork on the door. Then he started shouting - saying it was my fault. My mum told me to apologise, which I did. Then, later that day, she called me downstairs, from where I'd been hiding in my room. I thought she was going to say sorry to me, because it obviously wasn't my mistake. But she scolded me some more and made me go out to Dad and apologise again. I just felt totally unsupported. Totally alone.'

And this is the crux of Mike's anger management course. He takes you to places you might otherwise would not have known about.

For example, I never realised that the shame of my mother being certified insane and committed to a mental asylum for 6 months, when I was 6 years old, had left such a lasting impression on me! But alas it has. Its left me an angry man and ashamed of my childhood. As Will Storr reminds us, “We must learn to accept ourselves in all our fallible glory”.

Mike Fisher would say at least twice during the course, 'Listening to you makes me very sad,' with a noticeable twinkle in his tear-shot eyes, followed up with, 'Let's see how the weekend unfolds,' if the person he is saying it to becomes defensive. Mike would smile dreamily and assure us, 'You've got to trust the process.'

The benefit of Mike Fisher's hard-won wisdom.

So, six months on, where am I? Well, I'm still here and I'm happy and not angry at all. When I do get angry, which I still do, I look at the bigger picture and think how it’s going to affect me in 5 minutes. If it isn't going to matter, I let it go and don't take it personally.

Now I just wish my partner would go on a BAAM course too!

If you are having anger issues like I am, why not get in touch with BAAM. Mike's team are on call to book you on the next available three-day course, taking place throughout the UK.

Call BAAM on 0345 1300 286 or check out their website www.beatinganger.com, or emailinfo@beatinganger.com

In fact, its National Anger Awareness Month 2013, from 1st - 31st December 2013, so there is no time better to do it than now.

National Anger Awareness Month is all about learning to take control of your behaviour. 

Everyone feels angry at some time; what matters is how you express that anger.

Keep Your Cool Over Yule.

As part of Anger Awareness Month (December 2013), BAAM are giving away an updated Keep Your Cool Over Yule, a PDF with ways you can keep your Christmas as stress free as possible.

Click here to download a Keep Your Cool Over Yule Kit.

A-Z of Surviving Christmas.

Click here to download the A2Z of Surviving Christmas booklet for free.

That's about it from me; except to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

And before I forget, please read Will Storr's excellent article about Mike Fisher's weekend workshop course by clicking on the link. It brought tears to my eyes!

ANGRY COUPLES.

When the opportunity came to attend one of Mike Fisher's British Association of Anger Management (BAAM) weekend courses, I grabbed it with both two hands.

I'll be totally honest with you. I've been in a relationship for eleven years now and since having kids, its fair to say that I've been angry everyday since. Don't get me wrong, I love my partner and I love our kids. As is the case in many relationships, its not an issue of love, sex or attraction, but rather how couples react to anger and disappointment, which dictates whether they live in joyful bliss or abstract misery.

We get on like a house-on-fire when the kids are at school. When its peaceful and quiet, we love each other as friends should, but come breakfast, lunch, dinner, bath time and bed time, we're stressed out and getting angrier by the minute; and more often than not, we end up bickering like brother and sister.

And that is exactly what Mike Fisher touches upon during his course. He got us to think of the last time we were at boiling point, and then stopped us and asked how old we were feeling at that precise moment. We all confessed to feeling as if we were kids again. Seven years old being shouted at by mum, feeling ashamed and scared, nine years old and having a fight with our sister or ten years old and on the verge of tears while dad shouts in your face over a minor misdemeanour. Its true, we all revert back to being kids when we get angry with each other; we “regress” as Mike would say.

So I jumped at the chance of attending Mike Fisher's anger management course because my anger was ruining my relationship and scaring my kids. Something, meaning me, had to change.

Don't take things personally.

I've lost count how many times my partner said something to me which I've assumed to mean something completely different? All of a sudden my back is up and I'm in defensive mode. Without double checking exactly what she meant, I'm assuming the worst. As a consequence, she takes it personally and all of a sudden the Cold War is in full swing and we've put up our Berlin Walls to protect ourselves.

This is just the start; without Mike's help I would have escalated the situation by launching into a verbal assault of anger and fury. Name-calling is always easy, recollecting past offences always fuels the fire, so does swearing, slamming things, throwing things and punching things. More often than not physical violence ends the battle but prolongs the suffering for the couples and their families. Of-course the battle wounds last forever especially for the kids.

Mike reminds us to 'don't take anything personally' but its hard when the person we are meant to love says such cruel and heartless things to us. But what we have to remember is that everything said during the red mist of anger, is only spoken until enough rage and fury has built up to force them out.

Mike would talk about our primary needs, that we all need to be valued, appreciated, safe, acknowledged, held, trusted and loved. We look at our partners to provide these 'needs', and when they aren't met we get angry and scared.

So what does Mike say about getting what you need from your partner?

Its about “Expressing your anger cleanly” he'd say, and recommend the clearing technique which I've used on many occasions to control my anger.

Here is a quick version of The Clearing Progress to help you. Make sure you know the facts relating to the conflict, assume nothing and don't take things personally!

Fill in your own words as you say....

I feel..... angry with you.

Because..... I have asked you ten times to clean out your hairs from the plug hole!

When..... my mum and dad had argument about this I felt really scared and confused.

What I want is..... when I ask you to do something and you say yes, please do it!

What I am willing to own about my behaviour is..... often I do not follow through on commitment that I make.

Words of Wisdom.

I'll leave you with some words of wisdom as told by an ancient Indian sage.

A question was asked, "When people are angry, why do they shout at each other?"

“Because when we lose our calm, we shout," came an answer.

"Granted," said the sage, "but, why should you raise your voice when the other person is just next to you? It's not that he's hearing you better that way. You can still make your point without shouting at the top of your voice.

Anger immediately creates a distance. When two people are angry at each other, their hearts are no longer close, their emotions are divided and they go miles apart. To cover that distance they yell. The angrier they are, the louder they shout. They are no longer in mode of love, of acceptance, of proximity. They are unable to hear each other, shouting is how they believe they can be heard.

And! what happens when two people fall in love? They don't shout at each other but talk softly, they almost whisper, because their hearts are very close. There's little or no distance between them.

When they love each other even more, they exchange even less words, more softly, they murmur, they whisper, yet they hear each other better, their bond strengthens, their love prospers. Finally, they may not even whisper, they only look at each other, silence becomes more potent than speech, that's how close two people can get when they are in love.”

Mike Fisher's anger management workshop saved my relationship by teaching me to understand my anger and to deal with it in a way I never knew possible.

If you are angry like me, then check out Mike's websites at www.stressexperts.co.uk, www.beatinganger.com and www.angerguru.com and get the help you need.

ANGER IN PRISONS

Two pieces of news this week got me thinking about anger in UK prisons. Number one follows comments from the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer QC, who says its time to make benefit cheats serve longer jail terms of up to 10 years. The second follows a Commons Justice committee reports that says more elderly sex offenders are being jailed than ever before.

Two pieces of news that make me wonder what effect it'll have on the well-being of all prisoners in the system. Will an influx of elderly perverts tip the balance or will an increase in swindlers break the camels back and push the UK prison population into the red mist? After-all, convicted criminals aren't exactly known for their gentle dispositions and tolerant natures.

Being deprived of your freedom is punishment enough, but prisoners must also deal with the constant supervision and control of their movements and interactions. Locked behind bars for up to twenty-three hours a day, left to stew over their own failings and stupidity, is enough to make anyone angry. Angry at themselves, the world, the system, their parents and God Almighty.

In fact, prison is the perfect place for anger to grow and prosper.

Controlling Anger in Prisons.

Anger management programmes have enjoyed a varying degree of success in UK prisons. At one point in 2006 the Home Office significantly scaled back their anger management courses citing them to be “counter-productive,' after a City financier was killed by a prisoner who had just been released from prison after serving six years for attempted murder. He attended twenty-four sessions of an anger management course, which helped convince the parole board to let him go free, but with hindsight it was argued, the course had done nothing to tackle his violent behaviour.

From nearly fifty different programmes available covering alcohol, sex, reoffending and health programmes, prison chiefs acknowledge anger in UK prisons is an on-going problem in which they are still looking for solutions and programmes to deal with it.

Some call in the services of therapeutic practitioners, who use yoga and breathing techniques to help the men relax and control their aggression, while others use more accredited programmes such as CALM (Controlling Anger and Learning to Manage it) which is more of an emotional management programme, to ART (Aggression Replacement Training), which seeks to challenge offenders to accept responsibility for their crime and its consequences, to TSP (Thinking Skills Programme) which focuses on supporting offenders to develop skills in setting goals and making plans to achieve them without offending.

Mike Fisher from the British Association of Anger Management (BAAM) is also playing a role in UK prisons. Working alongside Linda Bolland who runs programmes at HMP SEND in Surrey with excellent results, he has recently been commissioned to run programmes in a London prison, reducing reoffending rates amongst young offenders and defusing the ticking time bombs about to explode in every prison cell.

What makes prisoners happy?

Other than being let out early or better yet, getting away with a suspended sentence, a TV in their cell is a small luxury which no prisoner would scoff at. Though a TV makes a prisoner very happy, it evokes anger from the taxpayer, especially when its revealed hospital patients are charged £42 a week for watching TV, while prisoners are only charged £1 a week.

Striking the happy medium of keeping prisoners happy and keeping those paying for prisons happy is a delicate balancing act.

Its a Catch 22.

Stress leads to anger and anger leads stress, its a vicious circle. Being able to identify your anger for what it is and having the tools to step out of the circle of anger, is something anyone can achieve.

Mike Fisher and BAAM has helped over 16,000 people nationwide deal with their anger problems and continues to blaze new trails in the anger management world.

To learn more about what Mike Fisher offers check out his websites www.stressexperts.co.uk, www.beatinganger.com and www.angerguru.com, or better yet book yourself a space on his FREE 1 HOUR WEBINAR, on Thursday 26th September 2013, between 7-8pm.

Follow this link http://www.beatinganger.com/free-webinar for everything you need to know.

Make Stress your Friend, not your Enemy.

Mike Fisher, Europe's foremost Guru on Anger and Stress sent me a link to a video the other day which has opened my eyes to the way I see stress.

For too long I've been looking for methods and techniques which will beat my stress into submission. I've been told that chronic stress is bad for my health, that it leads to insomnia, high blood pressure and depression, amongst many more symptoms I could mention. If ever I feel my anger rising, I've been taught to relax and count to ten, 'Imagine yourself on a desert island with the warm surf lapping at your feet', a stress expert would recite on youtube as he beckons the audience to close their eyes and feel the stress recede.

And then along comes a pretty lady who blows it all away.

Health psychologist Kelly McGonigal is seen delivering a TED Global sponsored talk to a packed audience in Edinburgh.

After opening with her fear that she's been teaching a method of beating stress over the last ten years, which “has been doing more harm than good,” she lays it on the line, “I’ve changed my mind about stress, and today I want to change yours.”

She cites scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who have shown that the 'perception' of stress effects health. Hence, thinking that stress is bad for you makes it bad for you.

For example if someone is making a life style choice between a stressful job and a not so stressful job, it doesn't matter which way they go. It is in fact equally wise to choose the stressful job so long as you believe you can handle the stress that comes with it.

The study reveals that over the eight years of the survey, 182,000 people died prematurely from the belief that stress was bad for them. This in itself, as Kelly reminds us, makes the sheer act of 'Belief' the 15th largest cause of death in the United States.

She drives home her point with, “When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage, and when you choose to connect with others under stress you create resilience.”

“Stress gives us access to our hearts, the compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning connecting with others. Your pounding beating heart working so hard to give you energy and when you choose to view stress in this way, you're not just getting better at stress, you are actually making a pretty profound statement. You're saying that you can trust yourself to handle life's challenges and you're remembering that you don't have to face them alone.”

Her passionate words of 'connecting with others' to get better at stress reminds me of Mike Fisher's free webinars which are now on.

He's inviting anyone with anger and stress issues to join him for a FREE 1 HOUR webinar on Thursday 12^th September and Thursday 26^th September 2013 between 7pm-8pm. Mark the dates on your calender NOW.

Mike's webinar is an introduction to understand how stress fuels anger and left unchecked turns into rage and fury.

Book yourself a space now by clicking on the link below. See Mike in action and use the opportunity to decide whether or not you or anyone else, needs to attend one of BAAM's many courses across the UK.

Mike Fisher founder of the British Association of Anger Management (BAAM) has a wealth of experience and knowledge in helping you beat anger. Take the first step by booking your free one hour webinar today!

If you liked this post, Mike will be thrilled if you’d share it with any friends who might find it useful. You can tweet it, Google + or you can share it on Facebook or by email by copying this link: http://www.beatinganger.com/free-webinar

You can also check out www.stressexperts.co.uk and www.angerguru.com to learn more about Mike Fisher and what BAAM has to offer.