Anger is a natural and inevitable human emotion. However, many people have a difficult relationship with him. They may struggle with any stage of processing, coping, or expressing their anger. As a result, they develop conflicting feelings and unhealthy stereotypes around this hot emotion. Because anger is often confused with aggression, people tend to think of it as something toxic that should be avoided. However, if we do not face and accept anger, it can lead to a number of maladjustments and negatively impact our physical and mental health. To find healthier ways to cope with anger, we must change the way we think about it. This means challenging our existing ideas about what it is and finding more adaptive, non-reactive and non-judgmental ways of approaching it. How to change the way you think about anger? Here are some helpful principles to help change the way we deal with our anger:1. Don't ignore it. Despite our best efforts to deny or sugarcoat an emotion, it still affects us. The only difference is that we move further and further away from consciously processing or thinking about it, which leads to even more confusion about how we feel overall. The inability to process our anger, as well as direct attempts to suppress it, can have negative consequences consequences for us mentally and physically. When we are not honest about our feelings, our anger may be misplaced. We may turn this feeling against ourselves, or it may result in passive aggression, cynicism, irritability, or hostility.2. Remember, anger does not have to be rational. Thoughts are not the same as actions. Every feeling we have is acceptable and does not judge or define who we are. Taking an open-minded approach to our feelings means we can allow them to be without getting too attached to them. We can take what Dr. Daniel Siegel calls a "CHARCOAL" approach to our anger, which means we are Curious, Open, Accepting and Loving towards ourselves and what we experience, even when it seems unacceptable to us. As relationship expert and educator Dr. Pat Love says, we can always “feel the feeling, but do the right thing.”3. Avoid making a case. Allowing ourselves to acknowledge and accept our anger does not mean we have to get caught up in the details or try to rationalize what we feel. Remember, the feeling of anger does not have to make absolute sense to us at the moment we experience it. This is often a natural, instinctive reaction that we may be curious about, but we don't need to let it take over our thinking. When we fester in the case building process, we tend to harm ourselves or others and are more likely to engage in destructive actions.4. Distinguish adaptive from maladaptive anger. Any emotion can tell us who we are and what affects us. “Another controversial idea is that anger can be adaptive and healthy,” said emotion therapist and founder Dr. Les Greenberg. “Many people think that anger is always dysfunctional, that it is maladaptive, but when handled correctly, anger can be a very healthy emotion.” Greenberg distinguishes primary emotions, “a person’s most fundamental, immediate initial reactions to a situation,” such as anger at loss, from their secondary emotions, responses to thoughts or feelings rather than to the situation itself. For example, a person may become angry in response to an insult, or feel fear or guilt in response to their anger. When anger is understood as a primary reaction to something, perhaps mistreatment or injustice, it can be helpful. Greenberg explains why emotions that are "evaluated for their useful information" can be valuable to us, and accessing them can even lead to relief. However, maladaptive emotions, or old,