STEP 4. Reclaim your shame to break the shame-rage connection. There is only one way to stop this. It isn’t easy. You’ll have to listen to the self-attacking part of your own personality, to the part of you that says you are shameful. But there’s simply no alternative. Either confront your own inner shame or continue to risk having more shame-rage

Debra Niehoff (1998), a scientist studying anger and violence, writes that “the key to tempering violent behavior is adjusting the … [sensed] threat so that the intensity of the response matches the true demands of the situation” (264). What she’s saying is that our brains need to work well enough to distinguish accurately between situations that

The more you think about something bad that happened to you, the worse you usually feel. The ultimate result is obsession, an inability to think about anything other than the insult or injury suffered. Obsession can easily turn into impotent rage as you replay these negative events. It’s bad enough to feel helpless on one occasion. But if you can’t

First, change what you do. For Benny, that means staying away from bars, because that’s where all his rages occur. Avoiding trouble spots is one change many ragers need to make. Taking a time-out is another important way to change your behavior. A good time-out features the four Rs: recognize that you are getting dangerously mad, retreat before you

Sleight of mind instead of sleight of hand.

The time to stop a seething rage from growing is always now. The earlier, the better: before the sense of your life being ruined gets locked into your brain, before your ongoing anger sucks the joy right out of your life. So, take time every day to ask yourself this question: “Have I let myself grow a small resentment today?” If so, see if you can

Believe that you are not doomed to repeat the past. You have the ability to create a new world in which you are surrounded by loving, caring, and loyal people. Besides, you need to believe in a good world in order to expel the bitterness inside you that fuels your raging. Remind yourself every day that the people in your life today are not the same

Impotent rage is a feeling of tremendous fury that is triggered by the sense of helplessness that occurs when a person is unable to control important situations. It can happen after somebody does everything possible to alter an important situation, but nothing works.

So how, then, can you cut through the fog? You must get better at taking in the love and reassurance that others offer. That calls for conscious effort. For instance, take a deep breath every time your partner says he or she loves you. Take the words deep into your body. Breathe them into your heart. Hold onto those words until they get past the