I found this to be a little offensive. The author of this workbook saying we ought to have flexible control of our anger. My problem has not been too little control of my anger, it has been too much control.
But it had to go somewhere. And guess where it went? Towards me.
But finally, thankfully, it is not directed towards me anymore. I see it, I feel it, and I know now I must change what I have been doing with my anger.
My latest idea that I plan to explore tomorrow with my therapist, is that I must stop trying to control other people, and stop trying to make people understand they should be nice to me because I am a nice person, or stop trying to make somebody marry me because I know we are going to be good for each other, or stop trying to make anybody do anything at all.
I think today it is a boundary issue. I have had no boundaries at all. And I have not had a clue of how to set them or enforce them. Because they were not allowed. But I think if I sit down and make a very simple list of things I don't like, and then decide what I will do when I encounter these unpleasant realities, then my life will be much happier and much simpler.
Instead of being the feral child watching everyone else, and trying to figure out what they will do next, instead if I will simply decide what is okay with me, and what is not, then that is a much simpler way to deal with the same problem.
I see clearly now that this is how I have lived. I was watching everybody else. I was always trying to figure out what they were going to do next to me. Because that is how I was raised. Who knew what that crazy guy would do next? So I treated the world the same way. Who knew what they would do to you? There was no way of knowing.
But I don't have to live that way and in fact it is impossible. There are too many people, and too many ways for people to act, for poor little me to ever figure it all out. So if instead, I set some rules for what is okay with me, and what is not okay, then I think I will be much happier.
I will run this idea by my therapist tomorrow and see what she says.