April 2011 Blog Posts (3)

My father was a rage-aholic and I thanked him for not hitting me before he passed on.  He did smack me once when at age 8 I stole a 50 cent pea shooter and he slapped my for a 2^nd time at age 14 when I told him to go f*** himself.  But for the rest of the times, the abuse was verbal.

I began paying attention to my own anger for the first time when my 5 year old son did something that five year olds do, like spilled his milk or something, and I felt my father’s rage fill my…

“How do you Know when you’re Angry?”  I ask the 15 “at-risk teens” sitting in a circle at 8:30 a.m. .   I go around the room, one at a time.

“My heart races”, “my fists clench”, “I get hot”.

“Good.  These are your Early Warning Signals.  When you can identify the signal of your anger before it comes out of your mouth you have a chance to change your behavior.”

“Let’s do the breathing.  Inhale, two three Pause Three heartbeats, Exhale, two,…