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Pete – How do you handle anger?

Pete – How do you handle anger?

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Anger is something that comes very naturally to me. Anger was something that I was exposed to when I was growing up. It was a normal part of life for somebody to be angry. As I came up into my twenties, and had the opportunities to express my anger i... Show More

Anger is something that comes very naturally to me. Anger was something that I was exposed to when I was growing up. It was a normal part of life for somebody to be angry. As I came up into my twenties, and had the opportunities to express my anger in different environments and relationships, I started to see that it was not a very constructive way of working through a difficult moment. But it was just the beginning in my early twenties. It’s like learning a new faith or religion to get anger out of your life. You don’t wake up one day and say, “anger is no good,” and you turn the anger switch off. Anger is something, at that time in my life, was something that just came to me in the moment. The conflict was there and the anger was there with it. So, anger is something that I had to deal with over a long period of time, and the spinal cord injury was like probably my final exam. Maybe not final exam, it was like Eagle Scout project in overcoming anger, because here I could be angry at the person in the truck who pulled out in front of me that changed my life. I could be angry at my ex-wife for us not being able to find a way. I could be angry at those friends that fell off the map because they didn’t have a place for this to fit in their hearts. I could be angry at my father for teaching me anger. But I think the spinal cord injury really was something that allowed me to feel that I didn’t have to feel angry anymore because everyone expects something brand new after a catastrophic injury. “Pete’s going to come back from this as a different person.” And so, it started with gratitude. Every time the light was green at an intersection when I got to it, I expressed gratitude to the universe. “Thank you for the green light.” When somebody let me pull out in front of them in traffic, out loud in gratitude, “thank you for letting me out.” Every chance I had to express gratitude, I did it, out loud so I could hear it every day, so that I knew every day there were things to be pleased about. And the more I focused on that, the less the agitating things of my life could percolate up to the surface.

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Pete – How do you handle anger?

Pete

Injured in 2004 at age 33, paraplegic
More Videos by Pete
Transcriptadd

Anger is something that comes very naturally to me. Anger was something that I was exposed to when I was growing up. It was a normal part of life for somebody to be angry. As I came up into my twenties, and had the opportunities to express my anger in different environments and relationships, I started to see that it was not a very constructive way of working through a difficult moment. But it was just the beginning in my early twenties. It’s like learning a new faith or religion to get anger out of your life. You don’t wake up one day and say, “anger is no good,” and you turn the anger switch off. Anger is something, at that time in my life, was something that just came to me in the moment. The conflict was there and the anger was there with it. So, anger is something that I had to deal with over a long period of time, and the spinal cord injury was like probably my final exam. Maybe not final exam, it was like Eagle Scout project in overcoming anger, because here I could be angry at the person in the truck who pulled out in front of me that changed my life. I could be angry at my ex-wife for us not being able to find a way. I could be angry at those friends that fell off the map because they didn’t have a place for this to fit in their hearts. I could be angry at my father for teaching me anger. But I think the spinal cord injury really was something that allowed me to feel that I didn’t have to feel angry anymore because everyone expects something brand new after a catastrophic injury. “Pete’s going to come back from this as a different person.” And so, it started with gratitude. Every time the light was green at an intersection when I got to it, I expressed gratitude to the universe. “Thank you for the green light.” When somebody let me pull out in front of them in traffic, out loud in gratitude, “thank you for letting me out.” Every chance I had to express gratitude, I did it, out loud so I could hear it every day, so that I knew every day there were things to be pleased about. And the more I focused on that, the less the agitating things of my life could percolate up to the surface.

Pete – How do you handle anger?
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