Anger is an automatic emotional response to a real or perceived threat. It generates energy as well as motivation to eliminate that threat. The greater the threat, the higher the level of arousal and greater motivation to eliminate it.

So the 3 key aspects of anger include

• Threat
• Energy
• Motivation

This shows that anger is a useful and positive emotion. Then why is it viewed negatively by most? We would need to study the varied reactions to anger provoking situations to understand this better. Some of these reactions include:

• Violent, destructive or harmful actions.
• Tantrums
• Hurtful or critical remarks (sarcasm or teasing)
• Passive-aggressive behaviour (hurtful actions such as being late, or cruel remarks that you don’t mean and so forth)
• Withdrawal (you retreat from the situation that incites anger, passive behaviour)
• Hurtful or destructive fantasies
• Suppression (you’re angry but you pretend that you’re not)
• Repression (you’re so good at suppressing your anger; you don’t even realize when something made you angry.)
• Constructive action (usually assertive or problem solving behaviour)

For most of us anger is synonymous with the first three reactions. Since the others are not openly expressed they are not associated with the ‘term’ anger even though they are with the ‘feeling’ anger. Getting a better idea of how we respond to anger provoking situations goes a long way in helping us use our anger to our benefit. The goal being that we become assertive in our responses.

Assertiveness Training is a program designed to learn how to use anger to energize us, motivate us and help us overcome our threats effectively and positively. It helps us become more confident and self assured.

Few tips to get started:

1. Make an anger journal. Make a note of the anger provoking situations as well as your pattern of response. A better understanding of our reactions helps us modify them.
2. Identify your goals. It is important for you to know exactly what change you want to achieve.
3. Establish a regular study time. It is important to make a commitment to work on recommended activities for a specified period each day.
4. Find a study partner. Sometimes you would be unable to objectively view your responses. Having someone who relates to you well would help you understand yourself better and also provide support and encouragement.

Anger not channelized effectively is destructive. It destroys love, trust and relationships. But the same anger managed effectively builds love, trust and relationships. Which side of the fence of anger do you want to be on?

a) Say “what is wrong with you people. How can you even think of asking me out tonight? Don’t you know I    have an important meeting tomorrow? How insensitive of you.”

b) Say “Okay I’ll meet you later tonight”

c) Say “Okay I’ll come” but keep blaming and complaining all the time that you had to go.

d) Say “I would love to come tonight but since I have an important meeting early tomorrow morning I would have to skip the fun”

What emotions do you think you and those around would experience with each one of the above kind of responses, over a period of time?  Usually, these responses result in the following emotions…

a) A feeling of anxiety and stress. You would tend to feel bent and out of shape. They would tend to feel angry and resentful at the outburst. They would comply with your demand but feel negative and hostile towards you.

b) A feeling of helplessness and lethargy. They tend to feel dominating and imperialistic as they know they can always get their way with you.

c) A feeling of being victimized and wronged. They would feel confused in the beginning because they would believe it’s your choice but then tend to get angry with all the blaming and complaining.

d) A feeling of satisfaction and well being. They would tend to feel good about you as there is direct communication.

So which communication pattern are you following? Are you…

a) Aggressive? You may be winning your battles in the short run but I must warn you… you would lose the war in the long run.

b) Passive? You are just going along with everything in life and not making any kind of waves. You would tend to stay with this feeling of being used and low all your life.

c) Passive-aggressive? You are unable to get your way though you constantly want to teach others a lesson. Its building up a lot of anger within you.

d) Assertive? You sure know what you want and how to effectively get it. Congratulations!

So how would one define assertiveness?

Assertiveness means taking responsibility of your own life, feeling and actions. It would require you to change your perception and your communication pattern with others. Most people need to learn the art of being assertive. This enhances their quality of life and chances of success.

What would be your reasons to want to learn to be assertive?

• To be able to handle conflict
• To be more assertive with your boss
• To gain self confidence
• To become less aggressive
• To express yourself better
• To be able to win more arguments when you know you are right
• To be able to deal with situations better
• To communicate effectively with your partner
• To cope with difficult situations without getting emotional
• To stop feeling guilty for standing for yourself
• To turn confrontation into an adult to adult discussion
• To be able to take more risks in life
• To improve the quality of your life
• To….

In assertive behaviour you stand up or speak up for yourself without diminishing someone else’s rights. You state facts of the situation without getting emotional and adding past baggage about the person or situation. For example, if your child throws a tantrum, you feel it is better to ignore the tantrum because it would pass but your spouse feels the child should be scolded for the same. How would you respond in this situation? The passive way would of course be to agree with the spouse and scold the child and the aggressive way would be to shout and have an argument as to how you know more about disciplining, how your spouse only knows how to criticize and pull everyone down by shouting and so on. The passive aggressive would tell the child that I’m scolding you because my spouse wants me to scold you. The assertive response in this situation would be to say something like “I think it is better if we ignore this tantrum at the moment rather than scolding him because he gets more rebellious when we scold him and usually he cools down faster when we ignore him.”

It is also important to understand that you don’t have to assert yourself all the time. It’s good to just let go at times. You need to make a list of your priorities and choose the battles you want to fight. Very often you may find that there would be issues which in retrospect were not worth your being very assertive about. It might have been a better option for you to have let go of that particular situation. For example, your car mechanic told you he would fix and deliver your car by noon but he does not do so. Is it worth your going to the garage and being assertive with the mechanic or just letting go of the delay?

The first step towards assertiveness training involves you to be doing some serious soul searching and identifying yourself. You need to be penning down…

1. Which behaviour style do you usually operate in? Aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive or assertive.
2. Your reasons to want to learn to be assertive. A few examples have been suggested above but you have to identify your core reasons for yourself.
3. Your priorities in life. Keep the list as precise as possible. This will help you identify what is truly important to you in life and in turn help you decide when it is worth asserting and when it is good to just let go.

To sum up, I would want you to bear in mind that if your goal in life is to be successful in what you do, being either passive or passive-aggressive can definitely not achieve it because your brain experiences an increase in frustration. In aggressive behaviour your brain experiences an increase in anxiety and stress while with assertive behaviour it shows an increase in pleasure. Assertive behaviour helps both parties in a conversation feel happy and helps all around you as well. Learning to be assertive is interesting and an enriching experience of life.