Many people who have to live or work with the chronically angry feel unprepared to cope with their titanic temper tantrums. When we don’t know what to do when faced with anger, we have an unfortunate tendency to make up our own interventions. This DIY approach to cope with someone’s monumental rage is usually
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Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger August 5, 2020
Barb had been trying for years to improve her relationship with her mother, Sandra. Barb tried everything. She would go over there for a quiet dinner with Sandra and then find herself being criticized for neglecting her husband and son. Barb tried staying away. She caught hell for that too.
Read More Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger August 5, 2020
If you are out of touch with your feelings or so stressed that you can only pay attention to a limited number of emotions, you won’t be able to understand your own needs. If you don’t understand your deep-seated needs, you will have a hard time communicating with others and
Read More Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger July 28, 2020
Anger is like fire: it cannot survive without fuel. Like fire, unchecked anger can grow out of control and cause enormous damage and pain. But also like fire, anger can be recognized, controlled and managed in our lives. The fuel that keeps anger burning can come from many sources –
Read More Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger July 28, 2020
When people are upset, the words they use rarely convey the issues and needs at the heart of the problem. When we listen for what is felt as well as said, we connect more deeply to our own needs and emotions, and to those of other people. Tips for being
Read More Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger July 28, 2020
Our brains are naturally wired to focus on the negative, which can make us feel stressed and unhappy even though there are a lot of positive things in our lives. We learn immediately from pain—you know, “once burned, twice shy.” Unfortunately, the brain is relatively poor at turning positive experiences
Read More Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger July 9, 2020
At some point in your life, you probably learned the golden rule, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. There is a phrase in Exodus 21:23,24 that many cite as a religious basis for the golden rule “a life for life, eye for eye, tooth for
Read More Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger July 4, 2020
Some of my clients will say to me: “why do I always end up drinking more than I wanted? I just don’t know….I wish I could change how I talk to my son. We always seem to end up fighting. I just don’t know what to do….I can’t believe it.
Read More Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger July 4, 2020
We all have a running inner dialogue of thoughts. Sometimes this inner self talk is pessimistic, critical or blaming. By attending to our inner self talk, we will notice critical thoughts intruding, and that’s ok. We need to look carefully at our angry thoughts and try to see if we
Read More Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger July 4, 2020
There was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, to hammer a nail in the back fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Then it gradually
Read More Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger July 4, 2020