Podcast Ep 13: The Art of Getting Angry

Being angry was harming me, but how did I manage to make changes and help improve my physical health and mental response to situations? Listen here on my version of ‘the art of getting angry’, but if you can’t have a listen, then you can read what I’ve said too:

The Art of Getting Angry

“Hi I’m Shruti and this is my podcast space where I speak about life lessons, chronic conditions, mental and physical health tips and experiences.

I moved from London to Mumbai when I was 21… with my mum.

I moved in circumstances that weren’t the best but I was quite determined to make this new start work out for me, but now if I look back, it took a lot of guts doing something like this – taking a risk of plunging into the unknown.

No work, no steady finances, limited resources, no home to settle straight into… plus I was moving to a city where things were done quite differently…

That was 15 years ago.

Mumbai has changed a lot in terms of servicing the basics – but 15 years ago, I moved from London, a city where the basics weren’t such a struggle, plus, most importantly, people valued time – their time, the other person’s time… and overall, being on time – thankfully I’ve seen that change as well.

But to put it all in a fairer perspective, at 21, I was coming from a stressed mindset because like I said, circumstances weren’t the best and then I was facing issues at the way international banks were functioning and how people would struggle to take instructions from a woman… setting up a home, dealing with landlords, building life again from one spoon onwards was something I probably didn’t realise I’d have to do – strange – but I should’ve thought of it.

It was quite a huge a change for me… and every single thing was a hurdle.

Everything made me angry.

And not to forget, in the midst of all this, I was still battling bad health – my endometriosis was putting me through debilitating pain, messing up my hormones, there was chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and I didn’t know “why” at the time but it was so painful to sit – reason? I had a fractured tailbone…

Overall, to simplify everything – I was dealing with tremendous amounts of physical, mental and external negativity in a new city that had new ways… I felt tired to keep myself together…

…and all of this made me angry.

I would just snap and get angry within seconds at the slightest bit of laziness, lateness and injustice I saw… honestly… I still get angry on those things – but it’s all handled differently now…

Being angry taught me that being angry isn’t wrong – but it’s how you get angry, how much you absorb the emotion of anger before you let it out, how you let it out, what your intentions are, how well you communicate, how well you listen…

I believe there is an art to getting angry!

And there are steps to it too…

And here’s the process I started following all those years back… which I still follow…

1. Every night, as I lie in bed, I observe my day and watch myself. Hear what I said, see my actions, experience how I felt, how I made others feel.

I look to be objective and fair – with myself and others.

I try to understand how I could’ve handled the situation better – did I need to get angry?

So lots of such questions come to mind and I look to introspect and evaluate through those observations.

2. The next time I am in an anger inducing situation which was usually the next day, I consciously focus on my breath – slowing it down and taking my time to listen to the other person – if I start to feel angry, I start counting in my head and go back to focussing on my breath.

Then I look to reason with the person.

If I feel I’m getting angry, I do my best to keep up with the breathing and letting the person know that I’m doing my best to be polite about how unfair he or she is being.

This in itself – at times – works to get through to the person, but sometimes I find myself getting angry again when they’re still being unreasonable.

But this time, with going through the whole breathing and listening process, i’ve gained some control as to how long I’ve taken to show the anger, there was thought and that for me was progress.

I would then go back to introspecting that night to understand things further.

This as you can see is an everyday process and it requires work, but before I go on, I wanna share why this work on anger was important for me.

All the anger I expressed brought with it frustration and sadness – it made me feel horrible at being snappy and irritable – the anger was there because I wanted things to work out for me – I wanted something to go my way – but it wasn’t happening.

I wanted people and systems to be how I wanted them to be rather than me figuring out how to remould myself to still get what I needed but without having to lose my cool.

This brings me on to step number 3…

Being angry shortened my breathing and raised my heart rate – this meant I was really feeling the anger and letting it affect my body and mind. I didn’t want to add to my health issues, so now, when I would breathe slowly, hear the person out and even find myself counting…I would now consciously lower the tone of my voice BEFORE saying anything, I’d smile and let the person know how unfair and ridiculous the person or system was being!

The change in tone and the smile added an extra step before I got angry… and you know what, that worked for me most of the time so I didn’t need to get angry.

But what about the days it didn’t work?

Now onto the 4th part of the process

So I’ve introspected, I’ve been breathing slower, I’ve listened, I’ve counted, I’ve lowered my tone, I’ve smiled… and now clearly I’m dealing with someone being very difficult and raising my heart levels and adding to my stress is just not worth it…

…so I act as if I’m angry! Yes, I act.

I only get angry on the surface, I’ll raise my voice, but I’m not feeling the anger – I’m doing it because this may be the only way to get things done.

I’ve suddenly managed to get through my situation without hurting myself and without hurting most people.

The only time I can’t act as if I’m angry is when I am genuinely hurt and there is a very very strong reason to get angry, which is extremely rare now and this isn’t because opportunities to get angry don’t exist, it’s because now I get straight to the point of smiling, reasoning with the person and in a calm but confident tone letting them know what I need done, or how I’d like something done.

The smile and tone now have more power and so does the acting angry.

But at the same time, I haven’t forgotten how to stand up for myself and for those close to me – I feel that’s a life essential. I may have changed my approach in how I stand up for myself and I end up adjusting myself according to the situation but yes, the anger quotient has reduced to minuscule levels.

This whole process of figuring out how best to be angry took quite a while to get to but it’s been worth it because I now live in a more peaceful headspace 🙂

Also, this was my process, you may have your own or maybe you’re figuring this out for yourself right now – either way, I hope you can take something from this podcast that might help you with your anger.

Good luck everyone…and before I go, if you would like to share your thoughts or possible topic suggestions for further podcasts, please message me on Instagram @footprintsnoboundaries or email me on [email protected].

Thank you so much for listening… b-byee!”

Read Here For:
Podcast Ep 10: What it Takes to Keep Going
11+ Things All Girls Should Know
How To Work From Home if You Have a Chronic Illness

I’d love to know what you thought of today’s podcast. Please do share your thoughts in the comments section below…

Previous: Podcast Episode 12 – Blogging When You Don’t Like Writing [and Have a Chronic Illness!]

Up Next: Podcast Episode 14 – Finding Joy in Your Own Company (text version will be posted next Sunday, but if you would like to hear it on Spotify, then you can here)

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Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I am a patient and have created this platform to share my experiences. This is all purely informative and in no way am I providing medical advice. Please consult a medical professional.