Anger Management -Who is pulling your puppet strings?

One of the hardest lessons to teach students in an anger management class is to take ownership of how they react to others. Anger is often a response to a external stimuli. Somone cut you off on the freeway, you spilled coffee on your new dress, your spouse is late again.

These external stimuli are also called triggers. Triggers are those things that seem to be able to pull your puppet strings.

In response to these external triggers we may make assumptions about what has happened to us. For instance the person who cut us off on the freeway thinks we are weak, or your spouse is late because he/she is seeing someone else. This type of dialogue is called an internal trigger (things we says to ourselves about our circcumstances)

No matter what your triggers are, you have the choice in how you will react to a given situation. You are not a puppet doomed to respond to the whims of a puppet master. You can create your own destiny.

Daybreak Counseling Service
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