Episode 179
179 - Why Anger Management Doesn't Work - And What To Do Instead
For more information on how to control your anger, visit angersecrets.com.
In this episode, anger expert Alastair Duhs walks through seven of the most common anger management mistakes that keep people stuck, even when they're genuinely trying to change. Whether you've read all the books, tried breathing exercises or sat through a course or two, this episode explains why the effort often doesn't stick and what to do differently starting today.
Rather than offering surface-level fixes, Alastair goes deeper - looking at the root causes of why anger keeps coming back and giving you practical, honest tools to finally break the pattern. And the good news is that recognising these mistakes is often all it takes to start seeing real change.
Key Takeaways:
- Most anger management treats the symptoms, not the root cause. Until you address what you're thinking, not what's happening, you'll keep fighting the same battle.
- Suppressing anger doesn't make it disappear. It builds. Learning to catch it early and deescalate is far more effective than pushing it down.
- When you blame others for your anger, you hand them all the power. Taking responsibility for your own responses is one of the most liberating shifts you can make.
- Anger doesn't arrive out of nowhere. Your body gives you signals before things escalate. Learning to notice them gives you a window to make a different choice.
- Negative self-talk pours fuel on the fire. Shifting from "I can't handle this" to "This is hard, but I've handled hard things before" can be the difference between escalating and staying in control.
- Rigid expectations about people or about life create a relentless sense that everyone is letting you down. Loosening that grip creates more peace than most people expect.
- Trying to change deep-seated patterns alone is genuinely difficult. The right support makes change happen far faster than most people ever expect.
Resources & Next Steps:
If you'd like support working through any of these patterns and building calmer, more loving relationships:
Transcript
If you've been working on your anger for a while and you're still losing it more than you'd like, there's a good chance something is getting in your way.
Speaker A:Maybe you've tried breathing exercises, maybe you've read books, watched videos, or sat through an anger management course or two.
Speaker A:And for a little while, things improve.
Speaker A:You feel like you've got a handle on your anger and then something happens.
Speaker A:Your partner says the wrong thing, your kid pushes your buttons one too many times, your boss piles on when you're already at your limit, and suddenly you're right back where you started, saying things you regret, feeling out of control, wondering why nothing seems to stick.
Speaker A:If this is you, I want to tell you something important.
Speaker A:It's not because you're not trying hard enough, and it's not because you're somehow beyond help in most cases.
Speaker A:It's because there are some very specific anger management mistakes getting in the way.
Speaker A:Mistakes that are incredibly common and that nobody ever thinks to point out.
Speaker A:So today I'm going to walk you through seven of these mistakes and more importantly, I'm going to tell you what to do instead.
Speaker A:Hello and welcome to the Anger Secrets podcast.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Alistair Dewes, and for over 30 years I've helped more than 15,000 men and women control their anger, master their emotions, and build calmer, happier and more loving relationships.
Speaker A:If you'd like my help to do the same, head over to angersecrets.com you can book a free 30 minute call with me or grab my free training on how to break the anger cycle.
Speaker A:But first, let's talk about what's actually keeping you stuck.
Speaker A:The first anger management mistake, and it's the one that underlies almost everything else, is focusing on the symptoms of your anger.
Speaker A:And instead of the root cause you see, most people try to manage their anger by dealing with what's on the surface.
Speaker A:The outburst, the raised voice, the slammed door.
Speaker A:And while that's understandable, it's a bit like trying to treat a fever by putting ice on your forehead.
Speaker A:You might feel a little better for a moment, but you're not getting to what's actually causing it.
Speaker A:Here's what I've found after working with thousands of the root cause of your anger isn't your childhood.
Speaker A:It isn't your past.
Speaker A:It isn't your parents or the way you were raised, or any specific event that happened to you.
Speaker A:Those things shape you absolutely, but they're not what's causing your anger right now, at this moment.
Speaker A:What's Causing your anger is how you're thinking about what's happening, not the situation itself.
Speaker A:The thought you're having about the situation.
Speaker A:Change that thought and you change the response.
Speaker A:Everything else flows from there.
Speaker A:And until you go to that level, you're just managing symptoms, which is exhausting, and which is why so many people feel like they're constantly fighting the same anger management battle over and over again.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:The second anger management mistake is suppressing your anger, pushing it down, bottling it up, and hoping it quietly goes away.
Speaker A:I understand why people do this.
Speaker A:Expressing anger feels risky.
Speaker A:It can damage relationships, embarrass you, and make things worse.
Speaker A:So instead, you go quiet.
Speaker A:You tell yourself you're fine.
Speaker A:You breathe through it and move on.
Speaker A:But here's the thing about suppressed anger.
Speaker A:It doesn't disappear.
Speaker A:It builds.
Speaker A:It accumulates.
Speaker A:And when it eventually surfaces, and it always does, it tends to come out bigger and messier than it ever needed to be, often over something small.
Speaker A:Often it's someone who didn't deserve it.
Speaker A:What actually works is learning to catch your anger early and bring it down before it reaches that boiling point.
Speaker A:There are simple, practical tools for this.
Speaker A:Noticing your early warning signs of anger, using calming self talk, giving yourself a short time out before you respond.
Speaker A:The goal isn't to suppress the feeling, it's to de escalate it before it takes over.
Speaker A:And that's a very different thing.
Speaker A:Next, the third common anger management mistake is blaming other people for your anger.
Speaker A:This one's easy to fall into because sometimes people really do behave badly.
Speaker A:Your partner nags, your boss is unreasonable, your kids won't listen no matter how many times you ask.
Speaker A:And in those moments, it feels completely logical to if they would just stop doing that, I wouldn't get so angry.
Speaker A:But here's the problem with that thinking.
Speaker A:When you blame others for your anger, you hand them all the power over how you feel.
Speaker A:You're essentially saying, my emotional state depends entirely on what you do.
Speaker A:And that is an exhausting, helpless way to live.
Speaker A:Because you can't control other people, you never could.
Speaker A:I work on this with almost every client I see.
Speaker A:Because the moment you take responsibility for your own emotional responses, even when other people are genuinely being difficult, something shifts.
Speaker A:You stop feeling like a victim of your circumstances and start feeling like someone who has real choices.
Speaker A:That shift is one of the most liberating things I've ever seen someone experience.
Speaker A:Next, the fourth anger management mistake is not recognizing your early warning signs of anger.
Speaker A:This is something I come back to again and again because it's Foundational anger doesn't appear out of nowhere.
Speaker A:There is always a build up.
Speaker A:Your body gives you signals well before things escalate.
Speaker A:A tightening across your shoulders, a clenched jaw rising, heat in your chest.
Speaker A:Thoughts that start getting sharper and darker and more critical.
Speaker A:The problem is, most people don't notice these signs until they're already well past the point of no return.
Speaker A:By then, their adrenaline is flowing, their rational, thinking brain has essentially gone offline, and the damage is already being done.
Speaker A:A woman I worked with recently told me she had absolutely no warning before her anger exploded.
Speaker A:It just happened out of nowhere every time, she said.
Speaker A:But when we slowed things right down together, she realized she did have warning signs.
Speaker A:A very specific tightness across her upper shoulders that appeared every single time about five minutes before things escalated.
Speaker A:She just never paid attention to it.
Speaker A:Once she learned to notice it and to treat it as a cue to pause and breathe rather than keep going, she had a window, A moment to make a different choice.
Speaker A:That window changes everything.
Speaker A:So here's a question worth sitting what does anger feel like in your body before it takes over?
Speaker A:Not during.
Speaker A:Before.
Speaker A:Start paying attention to that and you've already made one of the most important moves you can make.
Speaker A:Next the fifth anger management mistake is negative self talk.
Speaker A:And this one flies under the radar for a lot of people because it feels like just thinking.
Speaker A:Negative self talk is the internal commentary that runs through your mind in stressful moments.
Speaker A:Things like, I can't handle this.
Speaker A:This isn't fair.
Speaker A:Why does this always happen to me?
Speaker A:Why can't they just listen?
Speaker A:It sounds like thinking, but what it's actually doing is pouring fuel on the fire.
Speaker A:It makes everything feel more threatening, more urgent, more personal than it really is.
Speaker A:The antidote to negative self talk is learning to consciously shift those thoughts in real time.
Speaker A:Not pretending everything is fine.
Speaker A:Not forcing fake positivity, just moving from I can't handle this to this is hard, but I've handled hard things before.
Speaker A:From why does this always happen to me?
Speaker A:To this is frustrating and I know how to get through it.
Speaker A:That shift may sound small, but in the heat of a moment when your nervous system is firing and your patience is gone, practicing that kind of reframe can be the difference between escalating and staying in control.
Speaker A:Next, the sixth common anger management mistake is holding on to unrealistic expectations about yourself, about the people around you, and about how life is supposed to go.
Speaker A:This is a quieter one.
Speaker A:It doesn't announce itself the way a blow up does, but it causes an enormous Amount of ongoing frustration and anger for a lot of people.
Speaker A:Maybe you expect that people who love you should know what you need without being told, or that things should go smoothly if you've planned well enough.
Speaker A:Or that common courtesy should just be common.
Speaker A:And when reality doesn't match that picture, which it often won't, anger rushes in to fill the gap between what you expected and and what actually happened.
Speaker A:The more rigid your expectations, the more opportunities for anger.
Speaker A:And the tricky thing is rigid expectations often feel completely reasonable.
Speaker A:From the inside, they feel like basic standards, but from the outside, they can create a relentless sense that people are always letting you down.
Speaker A:What helps is developing a more flexible mindset, accepting that people make mistakes, including the people you love and including yourself.
Speaker A:That things don't always go to plan.
Speaker A:That someone doing something differently to how you do it doesn't mean they're doing it wrong.
Speaker A:This isn't about dropping your standards.
Speaker A:It's about loosening the grip a little.
Speaker A:And that loosening creates far more peace than most people expect.
Speaker A:And finally, the seventh common anger management mistake, the one that quietly holds everything else in place, is trying to do all of this alone.
Speaker A:I understand this instinct.
Speaker A:Anger can feel like something you should just be able to sort out yourself.
Speaker A:Asking for help can feel like admitting that something is fundamentally wrong with you.
Speaker A:So you keep trying, you read more, you resolve to do better, and then the cycle repeats.
Speaker A:But here's what I know.
Speaker A:After 30 years and more than 15,000 clients, changing deep seated thought patterns and emotional habits is genuinely difficult when without guidance, not because you're weak, but because you are too close to your own patterns to see them clearly.
Speaker A:You can't read the label from inside the jar.
Speaker A:A good coach or therapist sees what you can't.
Speaker A:And the right tools learned in the right order make change happen far faster than most people ever expect.
Speaker A:I've seen people who struggled with anger for decades and make real lasting change in a matter of weeks.
Speaker A:Not because they suddenly tried harder, but because they finally had the right support and the right approach.
Speaker A:There's no shame in reaching out.
Speaker A:In my experience, it's one of the most honest and courageous things a person can do.
Speaker A:So there are the seven common anger management mistakes to watch out for.
Speaker A:Treating symptoms instead of the root cause.
Speaker A:Suppressing your anger instead of de escalating it.
Speaker A:Blaming others and giving away your power.
Speaker A:Missing your early warning signs.
Speaker A:Letting negative self talk fan the flames.
Speaker A:Holding onto rigid expectations and trying to manage all of it without support.
Speaker A:If you recognized yourself in any of those, that's not a reason to feel bad.
Speaker A:That's a starting point and if you'd like my help working through any of this personally, head over to angersecrets.com you can book a free 30 minute call with me or start with my free training on how to break the anger cycle.
Speaker A:Everything you need is right there.
Speaker A:And if this episode was useful, I'd love it if you left a rating and review on your favorite podcast app.
Speaker A:It takes about a minute and every review helps someone else who's struggling with anger to find this podcast and start their own journey.
Speaker A:And remember, you can't control other people but you can control yourself.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening.
Speaker B:Take care of the Anger Secrets Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of counseling, psychotherapy or any other professional health service.
Speaker B:No therapeutic relationship is implied or created by this podcast.
Speaker B:If you have mental health concerns of any type, please seek out the help of a local mental health professional.
