Becoming a parent can bring out the best in you, but it can also bring out the worst.  I remember my girlfriend commenting that she had never known herself to be such an angry person and had no idea where her sudden anger had come from when dealing with her children.

Sometimes the emotions that come with being a mum can be really overwhelming, especially when it comes to anger.  Have you ever experienced the emotional rollercoaster when you reached boiling point, your veins were pulsating with anger, you verbally vented your anger...& loudly, and then suddenly become a witness to the affects of this anger on your child, feel smacked in the face with guilt for having this raging outburst, then sunk to the floor with tears of remorse for your actions, trying to console your upset child for your horrible behaviour while mentally scolding yourself about how terrible a mother you are?

I know, personally, that this can become a common experience, and it was during one of these 'episodes' that marked the beginning of this website.  Suddenly I realised that I needed to stop these outbursts from happening because they were not only hurting my child, they were hurting me.  These outbursts make you feel emotionally drained and the verbal criticisms on yourself effect your self esteem and your confidence as a person and as a mum.  If you continue to feel like this, or feel constantly stressed from anger in general, then it will also take it's toll on your physical health.

The way to stop our anger, is to understand what causes it.  The physical feeling that we have when we are angry is associated with the mind/body connection.  What we are thinking about creates a physical sensation in the body that we know as anger. This sensation is caused because of how we are presently viewing what is happening in our lives and how this view is in direct conflict with the reality of what is happening in our lives.

For example, let's say that your child is not eating his/her dinner.  You have a picture in your mind that he/she will eat his/her dinner and that is it.  However this is not happening.  He/She is talking away, jumping up and down on the chair, flicking food around the room and doing everything else other than putting anything in his/her mouth.  You witness this happening and your mind accesses all the beliefs you have that link to what this situation means.  You begin to have a conversation with yourself (or even out loud) about what this situation means.  It could go like this:

"This is ridiculous. Why doesn't he/she just sit on their bloody chair and eat their bloody dinner.  It's going to go cold and I have worked for ages to get this meal on the table.  He/she is being so naughty and I've had enough of this.  He/She should be sitting down properly like everyone else at the table, not jumping around like a lunatic..." and so on.

This conversation is actually the cause of your anger.  This conversation is in complete conflict with the reality of what is actually going on. All stress is a conflict between belief (your thoughts) and reality and when you can become aware of the thoughts that are going on whenever you feel angry, you will be quite surprised at what you are saying to yourself and how this is making you feel.

If you want to overcome this feeling of being angry, you need to retrain your mind to think differently about the challenges of parenting.  The reality is that there will be many challenges akin to unco-operative children at the dinner table, so if you want to go through motherhood feeling calmer, then you need to change how you view these challenges, because your thoughts and beliefs are what are causing the anger.

In The Happy Mum Handbook, this is exactly what you will learn.  This book goes beyond just telling you to walk away when angry, it will teach you to identify exactly why you are angry and how you can turn this anger around by changing your thinking.  Then it will teach you how to find the solutions to the problems that continually cause you to feel stressed and frustrated with the challenges of parenting. 

Using the simple Mind TRACK to Happiness process you can learn to combat your anger and teach your children to understand anger at the same time with just five simple steps.