SOMETHING TO SHARE: Controlling Temper

I had this on my Written Diary for weeks. I copied this in a Health & Home Magazine 1991 issue. One thing I found interesting was this article: Seven Steps for Controlling Your Temper.

Seven Steps in Controlling Your Temper

How do you go about freeing yourself of a temper habit that has had you in its grip for years? (It's true, I've had it since childhood.) You can do what alcoholics (Not me!) have learned to do:

1. You must admit to yourself that you are enslaved, then you must truly want to be free. The happiness of your family, your job (or school life, in my case), your friendships, your very life, may depend on your mastering this temper temptation.

I admit that I've got those temper tantrums ever since I 've been in my childhood. I need to realize that I have been a prisoner of my own negative emotions. I've got to realize that my relationships with my classmates, my family, and my friends will depend on my self-discipline.

2. Begin to campaign at a time when you are in a good mood, when there is a quiet island in your life.

I will try this step when I would be in our retreat this February 16 & 17, 2007 at the MIC Cursillo House in Davao City. Also, I will also try this when there are no mental obstacles in my life, especially in the Holy Eucharist at the Church.

3. Re-evaluate your past experiences with temper. (Lots of them!) Think back to some of your last temper flings. (As of this time, I had another temper fling yesterday, February 8, 2007. (Check out KB4U's Diary Plus by the weekend.)) Did they (the people who were in your temperamental moment) accomplish anything? In retrospect, can you think of some better way you might have handled the situations? Are you proud of your behaviour?

Check out KB4U's Diary Plus this weekend. I will answer these tough questions later.

4. See yourself as others see you. Stand off and to look at yourself as you must have appeared to others. The pictures aren't flattering, are they?

Recently, I've sent a Offense Report to Friendster about the http://www.slide.com/ Slide show widget in George Delgado's Friendster profile. It contained edited pictures of me, offensive in the sense that it contained editions like distorted facial features (offensive additions included) and titles that depict offensive labels of me. (Check out these names in the Diary Plus.) I know that I was offended but I know that these satrical images of me make me look stupid or even crazy. I know that I am confident at myself, but I really don't know how others look at me.

5. View yourself as reacting differently. While you are looking at your image, let it change. (It's true, but it will be more difficult as I go into college life.) Picture yourself as in one of those inflaming situations, but you see yourself with poise, self-assurance, a little taller than you actually are, standing a little straighter, calmly looking down at your adversary with tolerant amusement. Isn't that the way you wish now that you have behaved?

Yes, I am a behaved person than what other people tend to think, but, in those situations I encountered, it will be too difficult for me to strengthening up myself as I go on with my life.

6. Make up your mind, right now, that in the next time someone waves a red flag in your face, (i.e. someone will make you feel irritated) you will force the adrenaline valve closed with the grip of your will.

This is very difficult. My adrenaline valve might be forcing its way open even in my strongest grip. I know that I need to go to a psychiatrist to check if I have health problems, especially in my brain. (I thought that I have ADHD. (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and severe paranoia.) If I were to consult other people aside from a psychiatrist, it may not be effective. Read the next step, if you may.

7. Ask God to provide your strength - hour by hour if you need to be - to break your old habit patterns and establish new ones in their place. He can provide not only the strength needed but also the will to want to change.

I pray to God everytime a temperamental moment had passed. I want to be with Him in this toughest decision in my life right now, pursuing a college education, since my emotions could ruin my aspects and dreams.

I ask your help to make repair myself. I NEED YOU.