Member-only story

What’s the Healthiest Way to Deal With Anger and Upset? Lengthen Your Fuse

Two things that have helped me lengthen mine.

David Gerken
ILLUMINATION
4 min readFeb 24, 2024

--

Photo by Clément M. on Unsplash

Spiritual work like meditation and mindfulness helps us in myriad ways. We do better at our jobs because of improved focus. Ditto for our golf and tennis games. We’re more attentive and in tune with our loved ones because of strengthened presence.

There’s another area that doesn’t get talked about as much, which is dealing with anger and upset. Anger and upset can impact our lives significantly, depending on how we deal with it.

How significantly? Respond by exploding in a situation might result in divorce. Respond in another way and you might deepen your relationship. Significant, indeed.

Which leads to the age-old question: How do we stay calm and not lose it when we get triggered? I’ve received numerous comments over the years from readers saying some version of,

“I agree with what you’re saying about responding and not reacting, but I lose it in less than a second and then it’s all over. The damage is done.”

I’ll bet many of you feel the same way. I do, too, in certain situations.

The fuse analogy

--

--

ILLUMINATION
ILLUMINATION

Published in ILLUMINATION

We curate and disseminate outstanding articles from diverse domains and disciplines to create fusion and synergy.

David Gerken
David Gerken

Written by David Gerken

Meditation and Mindfulness teacher. Dad of three precious kids. Former writer for THE WEST WING. Follow me at davidgerken.net.

Responses (5)