Recently, I was sitting in a coffee shop with a friend listening to him complain about a trip I had organised and blaming me for how poor it was. As he held me accountable for the bad weather and other very minor misfortunes, I could quickly feel tension rise inside of me. As this tension turned to anger my cognitive processes kicked off; thoughts such as ‘the nerve of him’, ‘ungrateful @#%#’ started swirling around in my head.

My impulsive response would have been to shout back and to tell him to get lost. I was about to speak up when I noticed something, the level of anger I felt in relation to what was happening was dis-proportionate. It was OK to feel some anger at my friend’s words but not to the level I actually felt. Continue reading “A Prison Called Anger”