“How do you Know when you’re Angry?” I ask the 15 “at-risk teens” sitting in a circle at 8:30 a.m. . I go around the room, one at a time.
“My heart races”, “my fists clench”, “I get hot”.
“Good. These are your Early Warning Signals. When you can identify the signal of your anger before it comes out of your mouth you have a chance to change your behavior.”
“Let’s do the breathing. Inhale, two three Pause Three heartbeats, Exhale, two, three Pause three heartbeats.” ( you can be guided through the breathing exercise at www.TamingYourAnger.com ).
My vision is to teach Emotional Intelligence as basic curriculum in modern education.
To begin, I’ve been teaching at what I sometimes refer to as both the basement and the penthouse. I’ve been teaching EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE and TAMING YOUR ANGER (www.TamingYourAnger.com ) in the basement of our educational system for the past year at a Continuation Charter High School for kids suspended from their regular high school. I call it the basement because these kids have nowhere to fall. They live in a world of gangs, drugs, violence, poverty, etc. and some of these kids are changing their behavior: demonstrating more self control and greater Emotional Awareness. I’m very excited that, in the spirit of “Each One Teach One” some students are now teaching the basic course material to other, new students. A group of them also volunteered to participate in a documentary to share what they have learned and you can see a clip of it at http://youtu.be/prE-g4HVM-s
I also teach the same work at the penthouse of higher education, USC’s Ostrow School of Dentistry. The “penthouse” because these extremely bright and competent students are attending one of the finest schools in the country. They are learning to better attend to frustrations and anxieties which come up in their training as well as frustrations or anger they may experience in primary relationships.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how to bring this work to your community, please contact me at: wolfti.org@gmail.com
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