Haleh Banani – Anger Management Part 1 of 2

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			assalamu Aleikum, we've all experienced moments when we feel angry. Now whether it's a heated
argument with a spouse or our children pressing all our buttons, it could be an employee who just
simply doesn't follow any instructions, or when someone cuts us off on the highway. And these
emotions are all very natural anger is a natural human emotion. And it actually is a useful emotion
because it tells us that there's something wrong, it gives us extra strength if we need to protect
our loved ones, or we need to protect ourselves or our possessions. And it also makes us take action
when we are angry, it makes us take action.
		

			But when it gets out of control, and it's destructive, it can cause major problems, problems in the
workplace problems at home, and it can destroy your quality of life. And it can make you feel as
though you're at the mercy of a very uncontrollable emotion.
		

			Anger varies in intensity, it varies an intensity, and it is accompanied by physiological and
biological changes. Basically, what happens when you're angry is that your heart rate increases,
your blood pressure goes up, there's release of more hormones, so you have a lot going on in your
body when you're angry. And it's a very explosive emotion. And that can cause colossal damage,
colossal damage to yourself and to other people. So we're going to discuss how does that harm you,
when you are angry, you start releasing a lot of poison into your body. Now this poison starts
taking a toll on your health, they did actually a psychological study that when someone is at the
		

			peak of their anger, and if you take their blood and inject it into a rabbit, the rabbit dies. So
this is the kind of toxins we are releasing into our body, every time we get angry, it can also
cause you to lose your job. Because if a person doesn't have control of their emotions, and they
overreact with the smallest problems, they may tell people off and get into fights, this will cost
them their jobs. So this could have a huge impact on their life. It can also cause health issues. A
person could have high blood pressure, it could cause them to have heart attack. And eventually it
could cause them to die, they could cause death. Because all of this stress added stress on a
		

			person's health, it will have a huge impact on them. It could also be harmful to others. The way
it's harmful is that when you are angry, you're at a state where you could really hurt other people,
you could hurt them emotionally, you could say things that you could never take back Actually, there
was a very nice example done in my son's character education program where they said they could
squeeze out a tube of toothpaste squeeze it up. And then they told them to try to stick it back in
and they saw, they can't they can't put it back in. And the analogy is trying to explain that once
you say something, once you utter words, you can never take it back. No matter how many times you
		

			apologize, no matter what you try to do to make up, it's out there. So we have to be very cautious
and careful about what we say to others. So the way you harm others is that you're hurting their
emotions. You can also destroy relationships many times and marital situation you find then when
people start arguing, they they say things that leads to divorce, they could really hurt the other
person and it could end their marriage. Domestic Violence is a major issue all over the world. And
you find that individuals who do not have control over their emotions, and they can take control of
it. What happens is that they lash out they lash out on the people closest to them on the people
		

			that they love most. And there are many many cases of domestic violence and this is a person who may
love his his wife who may care deeply for them but because they don't know how to control their
emotion, they lash out so this is this is very harmful. Another potential problem is child abuse
that many times parents, if they're not able to take control of their emotions, they don't know how
to deal with the anger if their children
		

			Are aggravating them and frustrating them, they lash out at their children. And there's so many
cases of child abuse, children actually getting their arms broken and having major major issues
because of their parents lack of ability of controlling their anger. And sometimes it unfortunately
even leads to death when someone is in a rage. And you've heard of road rage, where someone is just
so angry, and they just pull out the gun and they shoot the other person or they, they may go out
and get revenge. So this is an emotion that we really need to learn how to manage it. So I'd like to
ask you, how do you react when things don't go your way? And how do you express your frustrations?
		

			Are you in control of your emotions, or are your emotions controlling you, I'm going to discuss with
you the different ways that anger is expressed. Number one is the explosive anger. Explosive anger
is when someone is completely aggressive. They're shouting, they're breaking things, they're hitting
other people. And this is, of course, totally destructive. And you've seen I'm sure all of you have
seen individuals who, who behaved like this, and you see that they look like they're completely out
of control. And no one listens to them, they're actually seen as just, you know, a person who's
having a major issue. Another way of expressing anger is actually expressing your anger. And this is
		

			assertiveness, not aggression. So it's being assertive, meaning that you know how to ask for what
you want. You're respectful of yourself, and you're respectful of other people. And this is actually
the best way to express your anger, where you're being assertive, you're getting your things
addressed without harming anyone without being rude without being mean. And so I think it's very
critical to learn how to have certain assertive skills, how to express your opinions, without,
without being too harsh. And without being too submissive, there's like a very fine balance between
these two. And then we need to learn how to have the hickmott the wisdom to, to share what it is
		

			that we need without without being explosive. Another way of expressing the anger is actually
suppressing the anger. suppressing the anger means you are holding in your anger, you're trying your
best not to show it. And this is actually very destructive, this can harm you as a person, it can
affect your health, because all of this holding in holding in bottling it bolat, bottling it in can
have a very bad effect on your health. And it also causes you to be very cynical, because you can
take it up to a point. And then you start being passive aggressive and passive aggressive means
you're really angry, you're upset, you're mad at the person. But because you're trying to hold it
		

			in, you start acting in a way, that's a little bit mean, or you're being a little bit aloof, or
you're being a little bit aggressive, but in a very passive way you don't outright come out and tell
the person off. But maybe you're consistently doing things to to annoy them. So this is not a
healthy situation to be in. And it also causes people to be very cynical, cynical, being very
negative about life, because they have bottled up so much anger from years and years and years. And
so they end up being they have a very negative outlook. And these people are very poisonous to have
around. So we need to look in and see if we are suppressing our anger, we need to learn how to start
		

			expressing it. And another thing is calming the anger calming the anger is a way of controlling your
outward behavior and internal responses. So you are lowering your heart rate you're calming yourself
and you're letting go. And this is this is very healthy. And this is very good to do. And I'm going
to reiterate and express the different ways that we express our anger. So the last one is calming
the anger which is a way of controlling your outward behavior and calming yourself down and it's a
it's a great way to prevent yourself from acting out and we're going to get into details about
exactly how you can do this. Just as a recap. I wanted to tell you the different ways that people
		

			express their anger. We talked about explosive which is definitely destructive. It's when someone
just loses it and reacts and they're very impulsive. The second one is expressing anger which I said
is the healthiest. It's basically being assertive, without
		

			being aggressive and this is healthy, it's healthy for you because you're getting your needs met,
and you're not hurting anyone in the process. Then third is suppressing the anger. And that's when
you're holding the anger in and it's just bottled up. And this is not healthy. And then the fourth
is just calming the anger is learning how to change your state. So you're going from this state of
anger, and then you learn how to calm yourself down. And we're going to get into that later. The
goal of anger management is basically to do two things is to reduce your emotional feelings, and to
reduce the physiological arousal that anger causes. Because you cannot get rid of the people who
		

			cause you anger, you can't avoid them, because usually, they're the people closest to you. So you
can't avoid them. You cannot get rid of them. The only and you cannot change them. So the only thing
that you can do is change your reaction to them. And once you learn to do that, then your problem is
solved. We need to look at the Prophet sallallahu Sallam as our example in life and we need to
emulate him in every area of our life, and especially in how he dealt with anger. He was called so
many things. He was verbally abused, physically abused. And he basically dealt with all this,
although they called him a madman, they called him a magician, a liar. They boycotted him, there
		

			were persecutions. And he went through so many difficult tests. And yet he never lashed out in
anger, he never expressed his anger towards anyone, even the people who oppress them the most. At
the time, when he was in control. And he had the power, he forgave all of the people who had
boycotted him who had persecuted him, and he was in complete forgiveness of them. And so this is
what we need to learn that regardless of how people are reacting to us that we don't lash out, and
we don't act out, because we want to emulate the Prophet sallallahu wasallam and the Prophet set so
Ali Salaam, that a strong person is not the one who can get his adversary on the floor and wrestle
		

			him down, the person who is strong, who is able to control his anger. So if you want to be strong,
you want to be a strong person, then learn how to control your anger. Stay tuned, when we come back
after these messages. I will give you more examples of how the Prophet sallallahu Sallam control his
anger in the most difficult situation.
		

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			Dune satellite channel, welcome back. Now I'm going to give you some examples of how the Prophet
sallallaahu salam controlled his anger in this most difficult situations. There's an example of a
better one once came into the masjid at the time of the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam, and he
basically relieved himself urinated in the masjid and the sahaabah were very furious. They thought,
how could he do this? This is a place of worship and needs to remain clean. And the prophets lie
Selim said Don't rush him. He wanted him to have his peace and afterwards he went he cleaned. And he
taught him in a very peaceful, diplomatic and loving way that this is the examples that we need to
		

			follow. And now these days, you see people who are sometimes in the mosque would designate
themselves as the mosque police, right? They go and they want to correct every single person that
they see that your hijab is too thin or your hair is showing this as too long that's too long and
they are not they want to follow the Sunnah of the prophet SAW a Sunnah with certain actions, but
not in the action of how he controlled his anger. And the fact that there's not even a need to be
angry. When someone doesn't know when someone doesn't know we basically have to just teach them and
teach them with gentleness and with loving ways. There are many examples of the Prophet sallallahu
		

			Sallam giving advice to the people with such hikma with wisdom and gentleness, and this is why
everyone felt so comfortable with him. They were never threatened by him. They were never in fear of
him, because he always used gentleness and lots of love when giving his advice.
		

			There was also an incident when the Prophet sallallahu Sallam went to Titus when he went there. It
was a place where he was trying to give Dawa imagine going and you're trying to save people trying
to teach them and what did they do is that they started stoning him. They started
		

			hitting him with rocks to the point that he was bleeding and he even chipped his tooth. And it would
and he was bleeding and he was hurt. What did he do instead of being angry instead of retaliating
getting revenge? What did he do? He asked for forgiveness for them. And he prayed for them, he
prayed, he said, maybe, if they're not guided, maybe the next generation will be guided. And he
prayed for their, for their guidance. And you see, this is such a huge example in our life. I mean,
if we had the opportunity, if someone was really coming after us, and really giving us a hard time
and we had the opportunity to get revenge, how many of us would would take action, okay, but if we
		

			have the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam as our role model, then we would learn to forgive and not to
act out on our anger, we need to be balanced with our emotions, we have to be balanced, so not to
love excessively, and not to hate excessively. And basically, if you love someone, love them to a
point because one day they may end up your enemy. And if you are, if you dislike someone, don't be
excessive in hating them or disliking them. Because one day, they may become your friends. And I'm
sure all of you have experienced this where one day a person is your closest friend, you share all
your secrets, tell them everything and the next day, they they're not in your life anymore. And so
		

			we have to be doing everything in moderation. And even in our emotions. If we are able to love in
moderation and dislike in moderation, we just become a much more balanced individual. And in the
Quran, Allah says, Welcome Amina, I'll hide that those who control their anger, he is praising the
people who are able to control their anger because this causes like I said, a lot of problems for
the person and for others. So if someone is able to control that this is like a and it's like a
wrestling match. Actually, the way I look at it with your naps, imagine yourself being in a
wrestling match. And you have to just tackle your knifes to the ground, the your nafs wants to
		

			scream, it wants to tell a person off and they want to whack your child, you may want to do all
sorts of things. But if you wrestle your nerves to the ground, then you can act in the way that is
of the standard and in a very dignified manner. And so Allah says, When cut the mean and faith that
these are the people Allah is praising those who do not get angry, while are seen on in the day,
forgive others, that will lower your head put him off sinning that Allah loves those who are good.
So look at the relationships in your life. Look at all the people that you come in contact with, on
a daily basis. Do you follow these things? Do you follow it with your spouse? Are you controlling
		

			your anger with your spouse? Are you controlling your anger with your children or your co workers or
employees? And what about the forgiveness issue? Are you able to let go of the past? Are you still
holding on to it? Because Allah is saying if you do these two things as far as controlling your
anger, and being able to forgive, then he loves you. And we wouldn't we all want to achieve that to
live up to the standard to the highest standards. Look at everything that causes you to be angry as
a test. It is a test of people in your life that make you angry, maybe the business deals that go
wrong. And everything is a test and our law says in the Quran insert to the morgue, and let the *
		

			up. And Mota will hire Talia Bella comb au comb Sonoma wahoo voila, zizo local food. Allah has
created death and life as a way to test people and everything in our life is basically a test to see
who is the best. Who's the best. It's kind of like when you're in a classroom setting and to teacher
gives you like a pop quiz to see okay, who is studying who was prepared to pass the test. And you
will distinguish by the way that the students perform that who is the best student, those who had
been ready studied and performed well, they will be the outstanding students and those who just
didn't prepare for it, they'll fail. And so these things in our life, let's say the individuals who
		

			cause us to be angry is the test. And we have to focus on how do we pass the test. passing the test
means controlling your anger. So you have that maybe that impulse to screen you have that impulse to
say something very hurtful, or lash out or do something but you you hold on
		

			You hold it back and you control yourself. And that is the way you pass your test. So hopefully we
are aware of our actions. And as we face different challenges and different tests, we are able to
handle it in the appropriate way. Because you know, it takes maturity, to be able to control our
anger, when you see a little two year old child, they have a tantrum, and they just lose it. Because
there's the childish, right. And many times adults have tantrums many times they have a tantrum, and
a fit. And because they don't know how to control their emotions, so we need to learn to be more
mature, and to be a responsible individual, and really learn how to how to react, how to control our
		

			reactions. Now I'm going to discuss with you some of the techniques that you can use to control your
anger because we all have it. Like I said, it's a very natural, human emotion, and it will happen
now it's just a matter of how do you channel this anger? And what do you do with the anger, the
first step is relaxation technique, you have to learn how to relax, and it has a lot to do with the
way you breathe, you have to breathe deeply from the diaphragm, okay. So you have to take a nice
deep breath and hold it and then exhale, this kind of breathing will really send signals to your
body that you are relaxed, and you do this, maybe five times up to 10 times in order to get yourself
		

			at a different state. And you have to look at your lungs as a balloon, okay? And so when you take in
the, when you are inhaling, the balloon fills up with air, and when you exhale, the balloon
deflates. Okay, so you have to really fill your lungs up to feel the effect. And you have to say
calming words to yourself, you have to start saying just relax, everything's gonna be fine. Nothing
to worry about. And you just keep saying this to yourself as you're doing the breathing. And you
start seeing that your body actually relaxes. I mentioned deep breathing, and also saying calming
words. And another thing you can do is a progressive muscle relaxation. And it's basically a two
		

			step process, where you tend and relax your muscles. And you start from your tippy toes, okay, you
tighten them, and you let go, you will do your calf muscles. So every major muscles, you'll do your
thighs, then you do your stomach. And then you do, let's say your hands, you tighten it, hold it for
five seconds, and then you release, and then your biceps, you hold it for five seconds, and then you
release it. And when you do this to your whole body, you find yourself being so much more relaxed,
okay. And so it's called the progressive muscle relaxation. And at the same time you, you could use
your imagination and visualization, you can imagine yourself being in a very peaceful environment,
		

			either someplace that you have been, and a place where you love going, or it's just something that
you create in your mind. And this will be kind of like a mini vacation for yourself, even for those
of you who are at work and you can't get away a good way to refresh yourself. And it only takes
maybe five to 10 minutes, you do the deep breathing, you start calming yourself. And then you do the
muscle relaxation. And, and you imagine yourself being in a very beautiful, scenic place. And this
way, you have just refreshed yourself and you feel rejuvenated and you calm yourself from the anger.
When you're feeling angry, you need to change your position. So if you are standing, you need to get
		

			seated if you're sitting lay down. And this is basically a way to calm yourself down. Because when
we are angry we have we have a tendency to stand up and to to act very excitedly. And so we need to
just calm ourself by taking the steps I discussed with you the problems that occur when you when you
have an uncontrolled anger, it can cause problems to your health to yourself and to your loved one.
And some of the techniques that I discussed as far as gaining control of your anger is the deep
breathing, the calming words and also doing the muscle relaxation. Now if you join me next time, I
will discuss with you how to change the way you're thinking your self talk, how to problem solve,
		

			how to use humor as a way of dealing with anger and also how to better communicate with those around
you. So join me next time Assalamu alaikum
		

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