I beleive that anger stems from disempowerment. But first, let me distinguish between anger and between upset: Upset is when you are displeased, hurt, or aggrivated by something. This does not need to turn into anger: You can simply sit down with X and calmly explain to him/her why this upset you, and then look for ways to remedy the situation (if possible). Not doing so is not 'being nice", but rather, it is having a dishonest relationship in which the frustration from all the times you kept quiet will probably boil over into spectacular anger at the point when it becomes too much to keep inside, and the other person will be shocked, because since you never communicated, they never even knew they were doing something wrong.
Anger is when instead of having this effective discussion, you express your upset in ineffective and hurtful ways - yelling, cursing, etc. Not only does this harm your relationship, but also, it often prevents the real issue that upset you from being discussed, either because you are expressing that you are upset instead of why you are upset, or because in reaction to your anger the other person becomes defensive or angry.
That is why I beleive in a) having those productive conversations, which prevent anger b) deconstructing your own anger, by working back through the fight chronologically, to figure out exactly what triggered your anger - by which I mean not just which remark/action by the other person, but which feelings that remark/action triggered in you that made you act inappropriately, and why that remark/action produced that feeling. It is best to do this with a notebook in hand, lest your anger deconstruction turn to mental fight rehashing, which resurrects anger, and also, because it is easier to find patterns if you write things down. I then try having discussions with people, saying, "When you say X, it makes me feel Y, because Z", so that they know how not to upset me in the future.
In general, I beleive that while (and this is pretty much straight up Cog Psych, though CBT is more popular now than straight up CT, and there is a reson for that) life presents us stimuli, how we react to those stimuli is dependent on our mental processes response to those stimuli, which is dependent on underlying schemas and assumptions that we have in our head. That is why I am a big fan of engaging in positive internal dialogue: I am confident today because I spent two years looking myself in the mirror each morning and telling myself "I am a good person. I am a human being. I am allowed to make mistakes". My previous internal dialogue was "You idiot! You made a mistake!" - and when I had that internal dialogue, I was a lot less happy. Sometimes I catch myself on the cusp of slipping back into that, especially on days when I have PMS, but luckily I catch myself most times - confidence, like happiness and lack of anger, is a process - and all of these processes depend on one's feeling empowered, which is why it is so important to a) always try one's hardest and pursue one's dreams b) pursue relationships with equal power dynamics - which revolve around openness and honesty, because without that, equality is impossible.
I heard that the Torah says "Love one's neighbor as oneself", because it is realistic: You can't love someone more than yourself, but you can love someone as much. This means that if you don't love yourself, you won't be able to love others - since you can't love them more, and you love yourself zero, you can only give them zero too.
For me, I beleive that the task of self-empowerment is crucial not only to myself, but to the people in my life, because the more self-actualized I am, the more I have to give. I woke up this morning wanting to nurture - to hug, to kiss, to smile, to say kind words, to cook - and that made me so happy, because to want to do for others is a beautiful feeling. I was also happy because I think that at the stage when you want to be in a relationship in order to give, not because you need to give to prove to yourself that you are worthy, but just because - you want to, means you are ready for a relationship. While I am currently single, I am glad to think I would be ready should someone I am interested in come knocking on my door.
Now I will have the song "Knocking on Heaven's Door" stuck in my head for a solid hour. Shabbat shalom everyone - may our lives be blessed with love and kindness, and may we all have the desire to nurture each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment