Calming the self

[lauraj65]

I was wondering if there is some method of keeping calm (other than counting to ten)
I mean a spriritual kind of practice that would stop my temper.

I'm not really bad, but I can be snappy with my family and I HATE it but I'm also too proud to apologise sometimes, which I hate even more!

Any help would be grand

Have you thought of taking up yoga?

I teach about the anger control sequence as part of anger management groups, I can email you a bit about this if you like? it breaks down how we manage our anger into smaller steps and helps us to control each of those steps with some key prompts/understanding.

And counting to ten is no good anyway. As once you get to 10, then what? then you give yourself permission to explode, what you should do is count backwards in odd numbers from something like 4375. The idea is to move your brain from the impulsive area into the cognitive (controlled thought process) area, so that you gain control of your feelings - counting backwards uses that part of the brain. The idea is you are back in control before you finish counting - never possible with only 10, which is also easily done without thinking.

Meditation is good - watching the breath or breath counting - tht and trying to be 'mindful' of what is going on (says with buddhist hat on)... pavlov's post also sounds very good !

What is making you angry? Is there any way you can remove the source?

If you can slow down that will help you immensely as you will automatically become more mindful and calmer.

Yoga and meditation are great too.