New Anger Blog

Got Anger? Try The Anger Solution Blog by John Lee

If you or someone you love, care about, work with or work for has problems with anger, this informative blog is going to help and positively impact all your relationships. It is going to do so by changing how you think and feel about anger by using down-to-earth, common sense and tried and true methods.

Now you can take the tools I've been practicing and presenting for twenty-five years in the field of Anger Management and use them in your own life. I've condensed material from my 3 anger books and added insights gained from teaching, providing workshops and counseling and coaching (individuals, couples and families) into short, easy to read daily messages.

GENERAL INFO--Anger is a fact of life that affects everyone; some more than others. We all have been angry or been around those who are angry and most of us have thought that the world would be better off without this emotion. But here’s the real truth: anger is not your enemy. In fact, it can be your ally; one that can save your relationship, your job and your peace of mind.

This blog will be divided into lessons, the first is about expressing anger appropriately, which is the only way to heal relationships and create greater closeness and intimacy.

For more information go http://theangersolutionbyjohnlee.blogspot.com/

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What Did You Come Here For?

"Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that was worth mentioning?" Coleman Cox

What did I do yesterday? I can't hardly remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, certainly not the day before. The older I get the more I experience "Mental Pause". I go into a room to get something and by the time I'm there I've forgotten what I came for. What did I come here do in the first place? Why did I occupy this particular body at this particular southern location?

Oh year! I remember now! I came here to learn how to love and be loved, how to forgive and be forgiven, how to be patient and extend patience, to help and be helped, to ask questions and become answers for those few who need me to be even if for just a moment.

Question: What did you come here to do this lifetime?

Third String

"It's the hardest thing in the world to accept a little success and leave it that way." Marlon Brando

I'm pretty sure that it was "a little success" that could not be embraced or left alone that drove my heart to attack itself as much or perhaps more than it was my genetic propensity. I've said in other places that I always wanted more and success was right up there on the top of that unattainable list.

I was never satisfied with what little I'd achieved. The truth is, I was a for a short while, a second string writer, therapist and teacher and after a few years was finally moved down to third string. The push for first string is the problem, the striving to move from third or second, the unrelenting drive to climb the ladder of success gets so all consuming that is until the ladder falls down on you and need a cardiac surgeon to lift it off.

Today I am content for the first time to be where I am, be who I am, contribute what I can, look back on what I've done and say, "you know it was and is enough" and third string is not bad. At least I'm still in the game and who knows the First String and Second String my give out at any time and then the Coach of coaches may put me back in, but if HE/SHE makes that call I will not wear my heart out in the last quarter of the game.

Question: Are you able to accept where you are or are you still pushing, struggling, driving yourself a little crazy?

Hide and Seek

"All my adult life, I've hidden in my work. Not behind it, but deep inside it..." Rheta Grimsley Johnson

Like most men I learned to work for a living instead of learning how to live while working. I learned to work as we say here in the South, "from kin to can't". Well I can't anymore. Well that's not entirely true--I could--but at this point in my life choose not too. Don't get me wrong. I will always work. I believe retirement was invented to give the factory worker time off their feet and their brain a rest from the repetitiveness that assembly lines demanded.

But the kind of work I will do has got to be more like the way it started. For example-- I ran a counseling group because I enjoyed it. But by the time I stopped I was running four or five a week and dreading all those after the first two.

Like the author in the quote above I see now that I was playing hide and seek. I hid from large parts of myself and sought parts that others had kept hidden from themselves because that was my job. Now my number one job is to heal, love, be loved, and come out, come out, wherever I am and work on myself while working for love.

Question: Are you working the life right out of yourself or loving your work?

Passionate

"Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions." Benjamin Disraeli

A million years ago when I began my career I did so from a place of passion. Money, prestige, fame, or even pats on the back were not motivators. Joy, seeing people be moved to tears or laughter, a feeling of satisfaction that only comes from doing what you love was what got my juices flowing. I was energized by putting work clothes on my youthful dreams of teaching and writing.

Somewhere along the line passion declined, profit proliferated, energy waned, joy subsided, and in the end, not only were the juices not flowing, but obviously neither was the life blood to my heart. I had clogged arteries, clogged priorities, and a partly cloudy brain with constant thunderstorms that would rain down on my soul and drown out the still small voice that said, "Stop, rest, retreat, re-group and reconnect with your heart's desires to help people again and forget about how much or how little they can pay.

Today is the only day I have for sure (and not even the rest of the day is a given) so I will re-vision and renew my commitment to doing what I truly love.

Question: What were you once passionate about that is still calling you in your dreams?

Less Really Is More

"Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations." Edward De Bono

Before my heart attack I thought I really should do more, be more, say more, think more, feel more--more, more, more. It was like whatever I did was never quite enough. Doing less didn't seem to be an option at the time.

Now I do less and less and enjoy what little I actually do more and more.When people would say, "less is more," it never really made sense but it finally does now, not just intellectually, but emotionally and even spiritually.

The "still,small inner voice" is becoming more important than ever and by doing less it is even getting louder, more audible, and clearer. To grow spiritually which is more important than ever, I have come to realize that by doing less work, less talking, less traveling I get to focus on just being loving to my wife, friends, family, my God and most of all myself.

Question:Are you allowing yourself enough quiet and stillness?

Priorities-Again

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways..." Isaiah

I never in a million years would have thought that what I needed was a heart attack to motivate me to get my priorities straight. Indeed to a large degree I thought I had them straight. Well if not straight at least not that crooked. But "the crooked shall be made straight," I think Jesus said that and if he didn't I'm going to guess he thought it. Anyway that is what it took--lying flat on my back.

You see four months later as I sit here writing I know in my heart that had I died this time last year many would have said, "he worked hard," "he wrote a lot of books," and maybe they would say "he even helped a few." Now I realize that if people don't say after that Fat Lady has sung her last song, "In the end, he worked hardest at love," then I will have missed the mark again.

Question: What will they say about you?