OH! Magazine - Australian Version December 2015 | Page 13

HEIDI
DI SANTO

HOW TO DEAL WITH

www.heidi.com.au

( Emotional Fitness )

AGGRESSIVE PEOPLE
Heidi Di Santo helps you deal with stressed out people during the silly season.
t’s that time again. The ‘silly season’
is almost upon us and the pressure
is on. It’s meant to be a happy time but it
often brings a lot of added work and stress.
People have more to do and less time to do
it in. There’s the financial pressure of
buying presents and food and of course
there’s more people shopping and fewer car
parks! At this time of year, individual
tolerance levels are low and unfortunately
many people lose control and take their
anger and frustration out on others.

I

So how do you deal with random angry
strangers when you’re on the receiving end
of someone’s anger? I’ve got four tips to
help you keep calm and take control.
1. It’s about them not you
If you’re on the receiving end of negativity,
what you’ve got to realise is that this person
has lost control and it is more about them
than you. In an ideal world everyone would
be treated with love and respect. So even if
you’ve done nothing wrong and have
provoked the situation, if someone is being
disrespectful towards you, you don’t
deserve to be intimated, shamed, belittled
or bullied by another. If you ever find
yourself in this situation, just know that the
bully is weak and wounded inside and their
wounds are being shown to the world
through their behavior. Start to see it as
their problem not yours.

throwing fuel onto a fire. No good ever
comes of ‘right fighting’. The best thing you
can do is say ‘sorry’ (if you’ve done
something wrong) and walk away. If there’s
been no provocation on your behalf, wish
them all the best and walk away. The
message is don’t engage! By doing this,
you’ll throw water on the fire and start to
diffuse the situation.
3. Diffuse your emotions
Whenever an incident like this occurs,
you’re often left holding onto some often
unwelcome emotions such as anger, fear
and sadness. The worst thing you can do is
to try and ignore or suppress these
emotions. If you do this, your tolerance
levels will reduce and then you could find
yourself being the bully and ‘unloading’
your unfelt emotions on someone else. So
how do you process these feelings? You
allow them to be there and you don’t try to
talk yourself out of them. Feelings are
energy and when you allow that energy to
be in your body the energy starts to diffuse.

I have written a whole chapter on processing
emotional energy in my book ‘I Should Be
Happy But I’m Not’ if you wanted to know
more about this.
4. Get help
If you are the random angry and aggressive
stranger, know that taking your anger out on
someone else is not okay. It shows a loss of
control of your internal world and a lack of
emotional fitness. When you start to take
responsibility for YOU and your inner
wellbeing, you become really powerful.
To learn about how to take control of your
inner world and step into your power, have a
read of my book I Should Be Happy But I’m
Not or download my FREE eBook 5 Secrets
to Success and Happiness. Both are
available from http://heidi.com.au

2. Don’t retaliate
When a random person is angry or
aggressive towards you, the worst thing you
can do is to retaliate. When you meet anger
with anger, things get worse. It’s like

( OH! MAGAZINE ) DECEMBER 2015

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