Why good cops go bad - the war on drugs folly

Dealing with Anger

How many times have you seen someone express the desire to “crush someone” when they are angry? Does crushing someone really work and what does it accomplish as a management tool? Does it create less work or more worries? I suspect you already know the answers.

When you are angry, really angry, you tend to be what other people view as “not yourself” and out of character. You have become someone alienated and sometimes fearful to be around with and unpredictable in behaviors. Admittedly, sometimes we enjoy watching someone “lose it” and not realize the consequences of such conduct.

We all hold back emotions on the job, it was taught to us to leave our personal lives at the gate. Sadly, this impacts our ability to cope with the workplace environment and something needs to bridge the two dynamics in a positive manner. First, we must admit that being too angry or mad is a complete waste of time and energy.

You need to learn to suck it up and move on.

However, what you may not realize before is that anger adds a value to your life and to your behaviors. It is the most important emotion we have and determines the good and bad choices we make in our lives.

Anger usually brings change. Change in behavior, change in attitude and manners and change in the environment. Hence, anger serves a special purpose for you, it gives you a warning something needs to change.

How you deal with extremely angry emotions is up to you. There is nobody strong enough to control your own emotions and the triggers of control comes from within. One has many choices how to deal with anger and hopefully, managing it will make you a better person.

Negative reactions have a variety of option on this continuum of feelings related to anger. There are many ways to deal with them but suppressing them is not good for you or your health. It can lead to physiological conditions such as ulcers or heart disease and other damaging indicators of illnesses.

You can choose to let it happen and use this opportunity to express yourself in a healthy positive manner. Don’t shut the emotion inside you and don’t shut people out of your life. Deal with it but make it a positive experience instead of letting it fester inside of you.

One thing is for sure, don’t hide it or ignore it for it won’t go away. Time may allow it to subside for a while but it eventually will manifest itself again and come back. Think about it for a moment and realize you are angry. Now is not a good time to speak or act out because you are angry. Words, like actions, can hurt just as bad.

Cool off, evaluate the importance of your anger and decide whether you can fix it or not. Is it in your span of control or does it take the help of others. The answer is not to take any premature or earlier actions without collecting all the facts.

Ask yourself, “Why am I angry?” and determine if it is an isolated matter or a buildup of smaller issues that have now culminated into a bigger issue. Timing is everything and if the time or place isn’t right to deal with your anger, you need to learn to walk away from it and deal with it in another time or space as the rage subsides low enough for you to think clearly. This is not avoidance or delaying, its strategy to deal with your anger.

Some great channels of healing or relieving anger is to cool off with physical exercise and “blow off steam” to reduce your anger. Use your anger to fuel your exercise activities and keep it focused on calming your emotions.

Look at your anger as a life challenge block or barrier. Analyze what makes you so angry. Look at the circumstances, your situational awareness is important. What underlying circumstances are fueling your anger?

Is someone provoking you or is it something taken out of perspective and blown out of proportion. There are ways to evaluate cause and effect before you do something drastic. Using logic or common sense often serves as a cooling off device before you know it.

Anger comes from within but that doesn’t give you the right to claim to be a victim. You can’t blame others for your anger. You have to use your own head to figure it out and not point fingers at others even though they might have triggered your anger. It is your responsibility to deal with it and not others.

If possible, find a sanctuary or a safe place – a place where you feel you can think or relax without interferences. Taking a time out still works for many of us, when angry, you are physically and psychologically stressed out and over stimulated. Calm down and find a safe spot.

The phrase “look before you leap” serves an important purpose. It determines your timing and responses when angry so consider the source or the person who caused this anger. Don’t let the anger become a collective matter.

Treat each problem separately to proportion your approach and responses. Putting all your problems together causes more anger and cause a bigger argument than necessary.

Find a good friend who is trustworthy. Sometimes sharing a problem will lower you anger and make it more manageable. Finding a set of headphones and listening to music is also a positive way to handle anger.

You can transfer your emotions to the music and create different thought patterns that can calm you down or allow you to match your emotion to the music beat or tempo creating a synchronized relief system.

Anger has triggers. Triggers can be minor or aggravated by person place or thing. Be aware of what triggers your anger. Allow a deviance in your schedule to avoid having to deal with these triggers and work around them. Don’t create situations where your anger crosses the path of what you dislike the most in your life.

One effective way to fight anger is to learn how to relax. Something that will put you at ease for the moment being and give you a chance to breathe. Reconnect with the things in your life that have a fulfilling meaning or value to you.

Last but not least, never use anger to fuel change. Remember at the beginning anger is always related to change. The key is to make or create positive change and focus on building a life rather than destroying it. Some enjoy anger because it is an emotional high with adrenalin or hormone stimulation. Be careful as it will create a cause and effect produce you have to deal with in the end.

The Garrity Rule or "Garrity Warning"

Azcpoa - Online

Azcpoa - Online

Perceptive Thinking and Prerogative Skills

Perceptive Thinking and Prerogative Skills

 

We tend to forget that we as humans, have the reserved right to change our minds. The reasons for changing one’s mind can be many and complex in nature but irrespective, we have that right and should not be criticized for doing so.

It should be become a mandatory and not so difficult process to understand but always an option left open to rectify any mistaken calculations or decisions made in the past. The best way to recognize the rationality to change your mind is to review your thoughts and beliefs on the original concept you perceived or understood.

Hence we should always take this opportunity to take better control of ourselves, our emotions and our thoughts when the opportunity presents itself. During this practice, we are sorting out the filters we put in place to further clarify what was once our original thought and compare it to the new information received by filtering the distorted messages and information.

This is not a sign of weakness or an indicator there something wrong with your thought process or decision making mechanisms. Rather, it demonstrates a deliberate attempt to sort out the facts from the formerly attained perceptions and make the appropriate adjustments needed as the situation warrants them to be revised or amended.

So how do we breakdown our original perception and what do we need to do in order to re-visit or re-structure our thinking manner. We need to admit that there may be flaws with the way we perceived the problem to exist when approached with it at the beginning.

Some human errors are:

We tend to make simple or quick decisions by over-generalizing things that we are addressing or dealing with at the time of making the decision. This is a flaw that can be corrected by taking the time to become more detail specific and find out what went wrong or would could go wrong with your analysis based on your first impression.

Guilty of this at times myself, we tend to assume (yes, I know) that we know what the other person is thinking and jump to conclusions using this “mind-reading” trick instead of confirming what they are really thinking out loud. The “proof is in the pudding” when they express their ideas, desires or wants. Listening skills are vital at this juncture of the problem solving game.

We are all guilty of envisioning the “sky is falling” mentality where we catastrophize something more than it really is. Blowing things out of proportion or exaggerating is a human flaw we need to be aware of at all times. Expecting a doomsday scenario shuts down any positivity in your experience and could cause your perception to wander in the wrong direction.

We tend to lean heavily on the “lessons learned” syndrome where we anticipate the outcome or result based on previous events or experiences. Just like jumping to conclusions or mind-reading you are now engaged in fortune telling without any basis to do so.

There are no concrete facts or evidence to guide your thinking and most of the time, this kind of behavior is negative and destructive in nature. So how do we prevent making these basic yet important mistakes? How do we recognize specific behaviors and learn how to re-address your energies to the positive flow of things so you don’t use your initial hunches or guesses as a basis for making a decision?

You need to take a few steps that will help your cognitive skills and decision making qualities. Some simple steps to follow are:

Make an initial assessment and collaborate the information accurately and keep the analysis focused on being positive and productive. Make a goal and keep that goal in sight at all times. If working alone, make sure you have sufficient data or information to make a good decision. Don’t be afraid to seek more input or information.

What is your agenda? What do you want to gain out of this discussion and how does your mind work more effectively and create steps to ensure you remain on track and follow up on your initial goals set. Organize your thoughts and depend on your skills, knowledge and even instincts to guide you through the process.

Is your head clear? Are you open to collaborative suggestions and ideas? Are you under stress and need to break away from the discussion temporarily to regroup your thoughts? There is nothing wrong with taking a time out if you are under pressure to make the right decision the first time around.

Distorted facts often come from working at the wrong level when deciding on a decision. Keep it simple but practical. Pay attention to your thoughts, your visions and your intuitive abilities. Lower your stress by discussing and addressing concerns brought up during the discussion. Don’t be afraid to repeat the process to work out any doubts.

Rely on notes, recordings or visual aids to remind you or to retain information essential to the problem at hand. Use different strategies to deal with the entire topic of discussion and reach out to others if you need more information or help with what you have.

Focus on your goals – don’t drift away from what you started. Maintain a physical or mentally developed structure so you can log or track your progress. Avoid being distracted or diverted to other subjects until you finish the one you are working on. Rely on your notes to come back to those you set aside.

Always follow up on your work. Never take it for granted it is completed or done in the action tasks required to make a good decision. Incompleteness often leads to failure as you fail to address the “what ifs” during the analysis or assessment process that gives you a second chance to catch your mistakes.

Never forget to ask for comments or feedback if the decision was a group based decision with collective methods in place.  Suggest a follow up meeting on tracking or maximizing the goals, efforts brought forth and progress. If this was an individual effort, make sure you collect your notes, and schedule a review period so you can do the same thing.

 

The Baltimore Six - a profound question