How to Handle Anger by Raising Your Self Esteem

Are you finding yourself feeling angrier lately? Are you going off on people, damaging important relationships, and letting anger affect your work and your social life. Do you feel as though your anger is spiraling out of control. If so, you are probably wondering how you can keep your anger from consuming you so you can get back in control?

The secret to controlling your anger is to figure out its underlying cause. And one of the common causes of anger in individuals is a lack of self-esteem.

On the surface, anger and self esteem appear to be completely separate and unrelated topics, like how an orange is to a car. However, they are related in a much stronger way than you can imagine.

They are related in that your level of anger is directly influenced by your self esteem. A poor self esteem can lead to higher levels of anger and rage in a person. There are a couple reasons for this:

• For starters, when a person has low self-esteem, they are more likely to be dissatisfied with themselves and their life. When a person is dissatisfied, they are more likely to blame themselves or others for their dissatisfaction, causing them to hate themselves or to hate others. Hate gets expressed in many ways and one of them is through anger, resulting in a person who has hate to be more angry.

• Furthermore, if a person has low self-esteem, he or she will rarely be happy about themselves. In fact, they may even see themselves as unattractive and unacceptable. When such negative thoughts and emotions are allowed to build up, they turn into angry thoughts directed not only towards one's self but also towards others. This can be harmful not only to the person, but to the people around them.

A lack of self-esteem can start of as a nagging voice in your head, but it can turn into an angry voice in your heart.

So if you are finding yourself becoming more and more angry, try working on building your self esteem. It is an effective way in dealing with unresolved anger.

When you have high self-esteem, you respect yourself, and when you respect yourself, you also respect others. By respecting yourself and others, you prevent the building up of hate and other negative emotions that manifest themselves as anger. In effect, you are not just controlling anger; you are preventing anger from ever arising.

So what can you do to increase your self-esteem, and in the process, learn how to handle anger better? There are many things you can do to raise your self esteem, listed below are some suggestions.

1. Write a list of things that you like about yourself. Create a list of all your traits and characteristics that you enjoy and are fond of. Whenever you find yourself becoming destructive and overly critical, look at this list and allow it to make you feel better. These things that you like about yourself are a source of power that can enhance your self esteem - use them whenever you feel down and out and about to get angry at yourself.

2. Focus on your strengths, not on your weaknesses. This may be hard for you to do, as it usually is for people with low self esteem. To help you out, think of things you did or situations you were in that were difficult for others, but were easy for you. Use this to to identify your strengths, and always keep them in mind. When angry feelings surface due to self-pity and dislike, look at your strengths to give your esteem a boost.

3. Forget your failures and past mistakes. People with low self-esteem tend to harshly and continuously relive their past failures. This echos inside their heads, constantly reminding them that they are not good enough. To err is human, nobody is perfect. Sometimes things just go wrong, no matter how hard you try. When you've failed on something, think about where you went wrong, realize the lessons you've learned from the experience, and move on. Eventually success will come, and when it does, use it to build your self esteem further.

These are some of the many things you can do to raise your self esteem, and consequently, control your anger. There are many anger management tips that can teach you how to handle anger, but working on your self esteem will not only help you in dealing with unresolved anger, it will make you feel good about yourself at the same time!