Reactive Patterns

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone could offer me some advice?
In many ways I feel my practice is really taking off, since investigating and incorperating many of the ideas and stratagies for awakening, that I have found on this site. However, by becoming more aware of myself i am coming face to face with some really unskillful reactive patterns.
All though the probelm manifests in many ways, with many different people in my life, it can be summed up as this:
I enter into an exchange with another person, they say something that I disagree with or dont like, I expreince waves of thoughts, I AM RIGHT, they are WRONG accompanied by painful body sensations, I then seek to set things straight by trying to persuade them, in a calm and logical manner where they are wrong (funnily enough , this rarely works)......and before I know it, I am caught in vicious cycle of agrument, anger, self righteousness and usually a lot of anxiety symptoms.

The trouble is that, during these exchanges all mindfulness is lost. The belife that I am right becomes primary and my desire to assert this feels impossible to resist even if causes me pain.

Im not sure how to approach it, it feels so automatic that I come round hours later. I dont want to be on the emotional roller coaster and yet I dont want to abandon my ideas and opinions.

I read the anger and metta thread and am going to have a go a pema chodrons book. I thought I would ask for advice, as either im noticing it more, or its getting worse. I am only really starting my journey down the stages of insight and havent expreinced anything like an A/P event....so its a habitual probelm, as opposed to DN stuff.

Any advice would be appriciated!

I used to do that all the time. Parenthood helped cure me of some of it. My little son would come out with some outrageous comment, I'd try to set him straight, he'd insist he was right, and finally I'd say, "I'm not going to argue with a Pumpkin-Muffin" (my favorite nickname for him when he was a wee thing). So the other day I'm sitting next to this guy on the airplane, who tells me how he agrees with the union-busting tactics of Wisconsin's governor, and I think, oh well, I'm not going to argue with a . . . . or whatever you can substitute. Actually, what I thought was I don't want to spend the next 90 minutes with this guy wrangling about politics, after which I'll never see him again.

But really, I still try to set people straight (the AF thread a couple of weeks ago is a case in point). What I've noticed from reading on this website is that people have the grace to back down and/or stop arguing. There is terrific modelling of how to do it, right here. I have not encountered it on forums elsewhere.

Thanks Laurel........Sometimes I feel like im surrounded by Pumpkin Muffins and possibly related to a few as well! lol.........thats a great phrase, and I think it might help a little next time I feel im getting pulled in (or pulling myself in!).