It took a long time for me to understand that my being a control freak was a sign of my anxiety! Having to have things a certain way can mean one is not comfortable with the uncertainty of things out of one's own control.

When I get angry and recognize it I instantly "stop" and look to see if I can find what is making me anxious. That is helpful to me in two ways; I stop and turn away from the anger (because my focus naturally shifts) and I get to learn what the "real" problem is. The big deal at first though was catching myself while I was angry! That's hard to do :-) Sometimes my anger is in areas not like me normally though (road rage) so I was able to see them first. I remember the really bad road rage I had one afternoon and when I almost had/caused an accident, I realized it and looked to see what was making me anxious, what I couldn't control and realized a co-worker was very ill and I felt helpless. "Helpless" always gets my anger going as a way to mobilize and get to another state.

Anger is a good emotion because it tells us there's a serious problem we need to address. The trick is not to act on one's anger (or apologize if some "action"/words get out we realize we don't want) but to look and find the problem it is being a red flag for. That's why I like anger; I pretend I'm playing Devil's Golf (LOL, I just made this up) and the red flags are the holes. The point is to get hole-in-ones (associate the anger with the flagged problem right away) and then figure out something to do about the problem to make yourself feel better or "move ahead."