Reddit reviews The Anger Trap: Free Yourself from the Frustrations that Sabotage Your Life

It's ultimately your choice on how you act. When you say things similar to "it was how I was raised" you give yourself an out. It comes off as an excuse to act however you want. We were all raised to feed exclusively off bottles, but we all progressed past that point. Your post reminds me of a younger me, and it took awhile for me to realize that I wasn't a "tell it like it is, no nonsense" guy. I was an insecure man who needed everyone to act the way I want, otherwise they didn't respect me. It's not anyone else's job to make you happy, just you. This helped me a lot. Take time to absorb its message. Hope this helps, good luck.

What you've described is word for word my life experience. You speaking about justice being the core of your anger resonates deeply with me. I have a friend who's mother recently said "evil is an excess of good", and since then I've been speaking about my anger as "excess righteousness". Me being so agitated when things aren't correct largely has to do with how deep my desire for correctness is.

I recently started listening to an audiobook called "The Anger Trap", and while I'm still towards the beginning of it, it's been great at acknowledging that our anger is often justified, but teaches us that we have other options for how to respond, and that our current responses actually undermine our ability to be heard.

I've also just started a book called "The Cow In The Parking Lot, a Zen Approach to Overcoming Anger", which takes a very different approach that is also helpful. This book focuses on not being so concerned about what is right. When we are so deeply concerned about what is right, what we are really doing is judging the world around us and making everything and everyone in it wrong. What if they aren't wrong? What if the problem is in our discriminating perception?

I think that approaching anger deserves these multiple approaches because it's a multifaceted issue. Hopefully by the end of the books I'll have made some progress, and maybe you can find them useful too. either way, I'm glad you're wanting to take action and not wait until the shit hits the fan harder and harder over time. People get divorces and lose jobs over this kind of thing, but we can heal it.

I find most books on anger cover the same basic things just in a slightly different way, so you can't really go wrong. It's probably a good book, just depends on your pet peeves about self help books. If someone recommended it to you it's probably fine and if you both read the same book you'll have more shared talking points come up so that's the benefit of reading the same thing. A common language after having read the same text.

Listening to the sample of the audiobook on Amazon it presents angry people as wounded and insecure. Well ok. I find it's better to take that approach when teaching people how to protect themselves from an angry person at work, but not for approaching the actual angry person.

It's fine for an introduction I guess. But I feel like it's blaming the victim for being angry. We're not angry on purpose, it's just where we happen to find ourselves right now. As a matter of fact, most of us are trying really hard not to get angry and still getting angry and that's the problem. But I've probably flipped through / skimmed too many books at this point so I'm really touchy about the intros. But the nitty gritty is usually solid advice.

The paperback is less than $5 if you buy used and it doesn't hurt to read more than one book for a broader perspective. You might find it cheaper (and with free shipping) on eBay.

I like Rage because it gets to the point pretty quickly. There are also workbooks like the Anger Management Workbook for Men, and for Women. Workbooks are great because you can just grab a pen and go through the exercises to pick up the skills as you scribble in the book. It's a good way to get the same benefit as journaling without the actual journaling. Hope this helps.

heh...it's a control thing mate. You're not comfortable with uncertainties. It's rooted in an unmet need you have had.

Work on raising your consciousness AND conscientiousness, and all things will improve.

Books you may want to read:

The Anger Trap: http://www.amazon.com/Anger-Trap-Yourself-Frustrations-Sabotage/dp/0787968803/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311299947&sr=8-1

Healing the Shame that Binds You: http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Shame-Binds-Recovery-Classics/dp/0757303234/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311299973&sr=1-1

The Anger Trap is a fantastic book for learning to deal with anger in a way that is healthy and productive

I'd recommend joining some clubs once you get to college. Hell, rush some fraternities that seem to have guys you get along with. This is a chance to start fresh and reveal the kind of man you want to become.

Besides all the solid Buddhist advice in this thread, you can also work on anger issues in a therapeutic setting. Or even on your own with the aid of qualified professional guidance.

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Dr. Les Carter has a really wonderful channel. He also has a very helpful book called The Anger Trap that may benefit you. I like to attack these things from all angles so in addition to deepening your meditation practice, working out and maintaining a good diet, you could look to add some therapy work in to the mix.

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*Not affiliated in any way, I just found his work very helpful in my own life.