Anger is not an Emotion

So last night was the first class of my Anger Management Bootcamp course. I was so nervous. And oh the stigma of attending an Anger Management class. What would everyone think of me???  

So yes, I often feel anger. And I let it boil inside of me. And if creates resentments and causes me to life in the past, or worry about the future, rather than living in the moment. So as part of my I-Ho-Chuan goals, I vowed I would remove anger from my life - first step, this Anger Management bootcamp.

The first class was difficult. About half were court-mandated and the other half were there by choice. The hardest part of the evening was the round robin. I learned way more than I wanted to about most the people there. It was definitely a good exercise in being non-judgmental. And it was a bit emotional.

We started with testing our happiness level - I am mid to low; and our anxiety level - I am low-end of the sever rating. Yikes. It will be interesting to see my progress on this in the next 6 weeks.

First lesson: anger is not an emotion; anger is a defense mechanism. And most of us do not have anger issues; we have fear issues. So what are you afraid of? For me, it's failure. Fear of failing to meeting expectations. Not so much others (although that is there too), but more fear of not meeting my own expectations which are set very high. Unfortunately, this also extends into a fear of others not meeting my expectations, which results in trust issues. Yup. I've got work.

Our homework is to list three things we hope to change in our life through this course. Need to think about this one...

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