An interesting story appeared online this week, telling of  an interviewee getting  the shock of his life, when he was confronted by a man that he had an altercation with, earlier that day, on the London Underground. The story tells of how the angry commuter was confronted with HR executive Matt Buckland at the job interview. Needless to say, the man did not get the job.

This amusing story shows just how one reacts when one feels, or perceives to be threatened. The story elaborates that the man was on a crowded underground train and as he pushed past. Mr Buckland he issued a string of profanities.

Of course, this is an amusing story, and we can all laugh, but often when we ourselves feel or perceived threatened, we react uncharacteristically the reason for this is a primal area in the brain called the amygdala, which is in the limbic system. Fundamentally, when one feels threatened this primal instinct kicks in. As part of the brain. Is responsible perceived threat; it’s part of our fight, flight or freeze mechanism.

Unfortunately for this commuter his primal brain got the better of him and the area of the brain where logic and reason is processed, the prefrontal cortex, was momentarily overruled, and disastrous consequences Insured; not only the embarrassment of been placed on social media, but also the loss of a potential job.

One of the ways this angry commuter could have learnt to outsmart anger is to learn to use his prefrontal cortex. Understanding what triggers some of these primal instincts is one of the ways one can learn to manage one’s anger.  Anger is only an emotion, and it can be mastered. One of the ways in doing this is learning to engage, empathy, putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes is one of the ways to quell one’s anger.

The best way to learn to do this is learning to empathise with others at a young age. Eleos counselling will be launching an anger management program for young people in the spring of 2015. If you would like to know more, please go to the website by clicking the link below.

 Eleoscounselling