Holding in Anger: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Holding in Anger, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
About 1 minute
Try it here: rate the anger you're holding in
Rate how much anger you are keeping inside, then name one thing that would make it a point lower.
How much anger are you holding in right now?
Practices that may help
- Soften when anger says attack
When unjustified anger urges attack, gently avoid, withdraw, or take the other person’s side a little.
Opposite Action: Acting Against the Emotion’s Urge - Map your anger triggers
Build a personal inventory of the situations, people, and thoughts that reliably ignite your anger.
Novaco Anger Management, Made Practical - Apply the view to interrupt anger
In the moment of anger, use the zoom-out as a circuit breaker before you speak or act.
The View from Above - Restructure the provocative appraisal
Identify the hot thought that amplifies anger and test a more accurate alternative.
Novaco Anger Management, Made Practical - Find the emotion underneath anger
Anger almost always has a softer, more vulnerable emotion below it — hurt, fear, shame, or grief.
Radical Honesty About Emotions, Made Practical - Prepare coping self-talk in advance
Script what you’ll say to yourself at each stage of an anger escalation before it happens.
Novaco Anger Management, Made Practical - RAIN — Allow the experience to be here
Let the feeling exist as it is for a moment, without pushing it away or feeding it.
Radical Acceptance, Made Practical - Graduated anger inoculation (stress inoculation exposure)
Practice coping with anger in imagination — from mild triggers to intense ones — before you face them live.
Novaco Anger Management, Made Practical - Use anger as information rather than instruction
Treat the anger signal as data about a genuine need or violation, not as a command to act.
Novaco Anger Management, Made Practical - Memory cleaning (releasing the past)
Identify a grievance you are still carrying and practice releasing it rather than replaying it.
Ho'oponopono: Hawaiian Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I believe I have to let the anger out
- My anger feels like it comes out of nowhere and blindsides me every time, but afterward I half-suspect the same handful of things keep setting me off
- I can feel the heat surging up and the cutting thing already forming in my mouth, and I know if I let it out in the next two seconds I’ll regret it
- The instant someone cuts me off or drops the ball, I’m sure they did it to me on purpose, and that one assumption is what sends me through the roof
- I blew up at someone again and the anger came out instant and loud, but if I’m honest it was covering something rawer
Related concerns
- Why Do I Keep My Anger Inside
When unjustified anger urges attack, gently avoid, withdraw, or take the other person’s side a little.
Soften when anger says attack
- Does Venting Anger Help
When unjustified anger urges attack, gently avoid, withdraw, or take the other person’s side a little.
- Graduated Anger Hierarchy
Lower your physiological baseline so provocations have less arousal to add.
Use progressive relaxation to lower resting arousal
- Holding Anger In
When unjustified anger urges attack, gently avoid, withdraw, or take the other person’s side a little.
- How To Deal With Anger And Rage
When unjustified anger urges attack, gently avoid, withdraw, or take the other person’s side a little.
- How To Deal With Anger Stacking
Build a personal inventory of the situations, people, and thoughts that reliably ignite your anger.
Map your anger triggers
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.