Here’s how to banish your rage

LAST week’s And Finally was a bit of a rant, lurching from manners to technology in a few splutters! Most of us need to let off steam from time to time.

It’s bad luck to get into a taxi when the driver has several axes to grind and you can’t escape... and worse when (these days) you open the window in a hairdryer-wind, making your testy mood even worse.

My problem is I can generally see two sides of most arguments — remembering the great days of grammar school debates when you had to be ready to argue any proposition, believed or not.

Equally it’s a great discipline to argue against something you do believe. How good it would be for all young people to learn that art, instead of indulging in narrow-minded shrieking all the time.

It’s impossible not to associate the current crisis in mental health (old and young falling prey to depression) with the polarisation of society. Such rage and division on most issues!

Here again is John O’Donohue’s quotation I chose for last week’s column: ‘Sometimes the best way of caring for your soul is to make flexible again some of the views that harden and crystallise in your mind.’

Think about that. It’s a brilliant exercise to take an issue you feel very strongly about and deliberately formulate the opposite point of view — a useful workout for mind and spirit. Just as physical exercise is essential for general well-being, so this mental exercise can help keep angry, frustrated gloom at bay.

I know it can be hard — but it’s vital to try. Me, I walk around in circles in the middle of most arguments. I voted Leave, but understand why my children voted Remain. I’m driven mad by identity politics, yet try to make myself understand their various points of view.

I can foam at the folly of fashion — then shrug it off as silly fun. Most of all, I remind myself I cannot change things. So what’s the point of rage?

Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.