How to Control Your Anger and Guard Yourself Against Being Rash

“Why did I just say that? I know better than to say something like that. What was I thinking?” Tom mused over the argument he’d just had with his mom, wondering what had come over him to say hurtful things to her about the past.

Tom remembered feeling like he was being pushed into a corner as his mom challenged some of the life choices he was making, and he just lashed out, bringing up some of the most painful experiences his mom had gone through just to shut her and the conversation down.

He knew better than to do that, but somehow, as he felt himself getting angrier and angrier, he simply blurted out things he knew he shouldn’t. It ended the conversation, but Tom felt crushed as he saw the hurt in his mom’s eyes.

People say and do all sorts of things when they feel angry. When we are feeling threatened, we instinctively respond to the threat by trying to protect ourselves. Often, however, the way we try to protect ourselves leaves relational carnage in its wake.

In the example above, Tom now has to face the possibility that his relationship with his mom will never be the same again. Being gentle with our speech and taking care not to let anger rule over us is a skill we all need for our relationships to flourish. It’s important to know how to control your anger.

The role of anger in our lives

Anger has a positive role to play in our lives as do all of our other emotions. It is how we prepare ourselves to react to a threat to our well-being, and it warns us when a personal boundary is being or has been violated. These threats take various forms, from physical violence to experiences of humiliation and threats to our reputation.

Anger lets you know that something isn’t quite right in your world, and the way anger works by making changes in your physiology propels you to do something about the situation.

Of course, the something that you do to remedy a situation is where the issue is. Some people respond to threats by engaging in violence, whether through their words as abusive and threatening language or by laying hands on people or their property. It is, however, possible to respond to things by remaining calm, holding your ground, and asserting your boundaries. This requires control over yourself and your emotions.

Why control your anger? The destructive potential of rash anger

Anger needs to be controlled because of the damage unrestrained anger can cause. In the biblical figure of Moses, there’s a prominent example of the damage uncontrolled anger can do. Moses had followed God faithfully for many years, but his anger got the best of him in one particular situation, and it cost him dearly.

We’re told in several places that “rash words came from Moses’ lips” (Psalm 106: 33, NIV), and because of them and the actions that accompanied those words, Moses was only able to look into the promised land, but he was not allowed to enter it (Deuteronomy 32:51-52).

This is how the story is told:

The Lord said to Moses, “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”

So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” – Numbers 20: 7-12, NIV

A few things are happening here that are easy to miss. Moses was rightly angry with the people he was leading; they were stubborn and grumbled too easily. Where Moses crossed the line was that he disobeyed what God told him to do. Instead of simply speaking to the rock, Moses in his frustration struck the rock.

Added to that, Moses prefaced what he did by suggesting that he and Aaron were the ones who were bringing water from the rock. This is why God frames what Moses did as not honoring Him, and elsewhere the Lord says that Moses and Aaron “broke faith” with Him and did not uphold His holiness among the people of Israel (Deuteronomy 32:51, NIV).

Moses lived to regret his actions performed in a moment of anger. As a leader, Moses’ actions had profound consequences. In our lives, our words and actions performed in anger also have consequences, some of them dire. Not only are anger outbursts not good for our physical health, especially our cardio health and risk of stroke, but a person who doesn’t control their temper can become alienated from family and friends, go to jail for criminal behavior performed in anger, lose a job, or create serious issues in a marriage.

There is a real-world cost to our anger. You may feel justified about your anger (surely, Moses had endured enough from those rebellious and stubborn people!), but that doesn’t mean that you are right or that your actions won’t have consequences.

How to control your anger

To begin bringing anger under control will take time and consistent effort. Reacting to your anger in unhelpful ways may be a habit formed over the years, and it will take time to undo. Some things can be done that will help you bring anger under control so that it doesn’t disrupt or blow your life up. Bringing anger under control requires understanding how your anger works and having the tools in hand to curb your anger and express it well.

Firstly, like with our other emotions, our amygdala is an important part of what makes us who we are emotionally. We are emotional beings, and we need to recognize and accept our emotions as normal and a part of our lives.

The amygdala is a structure in our brains that is responsible for identifying and warning us of threats to our well-being. The amygdala works so well that what often happens is that we react to protect ourselves from these threats before the reasonableness of our self-protective actions is fully vetted by our prefrontal cortex.

The prefrontal cortex is part of our brain that is responsible for thought and judgment, which means that we are wired to act before carefully considering what the consequences of our actions will be. However, this doesn’t excuse us from acting rashly or making poor decisions, as Tom did with his mom, as our impulses can be controlled. This control is a skill that needs to be practiced before it is acquired.

Your prefrontal cortex, which handles judgment and thought, can help keep your emotions in check through cognitive control techniques. These help you practice using your judgment to override your emotional reactions. Other skills such as relaxation techniques help decrease the activity in your amygdala and reduce your levels of arousal.

In some situations, you need to give yourself time to calm down, and so something as simple as using relaxation techniques or learning to walk away until you cool down is helpful.

Secondly, it is important to understand your anger and how you respond to getting angry. There are some things you can do to dissipate anger in the moment, but there are tools you can learn that will help over the course of your life as well. You should try to isolate the exact reason why you’re feeling angry. It may be helpful to keep a diary of your angry outbursts to identify why you get angry, and the patterns that your anger typically takes.

It is important that you understand why you get angry, as that will direct you toward effective solutions that can help solve the problem. Anger often functions as a substitute emotion, meaning that anger may work to temporarily protect people from having to recognize and deal with painful feelings.

Getting angry can help you hide from the reality that you find a situation frightening or that you feel vulnerable, ashamed, and hurt. Instead of dealing with those emotions, getting angry lets you focus on getting even with the person who’s hurt you instead of the underlying issue. This is deep work that takes time and concerted effort, but it is worth it for your well-being.

Other ways to deal with anger in the moment include getting some exercise or talking with a trusted person about how you’re feeling. That may include a friend or a counselor. It is also important that you get good sleep as that helps immensely with emotional regulation.

Christian counseling to help you control your anger

It takes time to change the way you typically express anger. Changing how you express anger requires that you understand it and that you unpack why you get angry and what is going on beneath the surface impressions. Going for Christian counseling can help you not only understand your anger better but also learn important skills to bring it under control.

Your counselor will help you by walking with you as you do that deep work of understanding the issues behind your anger and the damage your anger can cause you and others in your life. They will help you by providing you with tools for effective conflict resolution and problem-solving, as well as equipping you to be a better communicator. Your anger can be brought under control. Reach out to a counselor today to begin that healing journey.