Remember people do what they do. If you respond with righteous, dogmatic anger that self-defeating emotion is constructed by you. This is not to blame you or condemn you but to encourage you to adopt the Principle of Emotional Responsibility. Remind yourself that others give you an opportunity to make yourself upset. Your rigid musts, absolute shoulds, have to’s lead to your righteous, dogmatic anger.
Alternatively you could stay with strong preferences. We have the capacity to think in a preferential way but it is hard to do so when we are tired, under pressure, or when we strongly want something to occur.
We easily go from “I strongly prefer and want you to do this for me, and I believe that it is not unreasonable for me to desire this from you, so THEREFORE YOU MUST do this for me.”
This is an irrational belief. You are jumping from a preference to a dogmatic belief, a demand. Even when you want what you want and what you want is reasonable it NEVER means you have to be given what you want.
Work on understanding this elegant reasoning. If you do understand this it will help you to stay in a preferential mindset. When you do not get what you prefer you will be annoyed, displeased, disappointed, sorry, and frustrated. If you have been significantly transgressed you may even have a stronger emotion of constructive anger. This type of anger will enable you to respond in a measured way. But all of these healthy, constructive emotions are light years different than dogmatic, righteous anger because dogmatic anger rests on dogma that the other person should, ought, must do or not do something. Healthy negative emotions rest on the idea that you want people to do treat you a certain way but you acknowledge that there is no law of the universe that governs how they treat you.
So REBT distinguishes between two sets of negative emotions. Unhealthy, inappropriate, self-defeating negative emotions and healthy, appropriate, and self-helping negative emotions. The latter help you change what you can change. They enable you to accept what you can’t change and still have some room in your life for some degree of happiness despite having an ongoing problem that cannot be changed. You need to understand this distinction so you can identify instances when you are experiencing dogmatic, righteous anger. When you notice that you are crossing the line into dogmatic anger step back and look for the absolute must, absolute should that underpins your dogmatic, righteous anger. Then see if you have any of the three secondaryderiviative beliefs that often are created by your musturbation, your dogma, your demandingness. There are only three to search for:
1. It is awful, terrible, the bloody end of the world that my must was violated…
2. It is unbearable that my must was violated.
3. You are a totally bad, rotten person because you violated my must. You are all bad. You deserve to rot in hell.
Usually people have a must and at least one of the three secondary beliefs. Try to dispute (i.e. question) your core must and the one secondary belief that it spawns. Then try to create a rational alternative belief that will acknowledge that the other person violated your preference but also acknowledges that your preference is not a natural law of the universe regardless of how sensible a desire it is. Also create a rational alternative belief for the secondary belief that was generated by your core must.
Think about REBT. It may come in handy as you enjoy the Thanksgiving meal with your loved ones. Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy the good in people and accept the negative traits that they also possess.