I did not have an anger problem! I mean, how else was my ex-husband going to know how angry he was making me unless I slammed shower doors so hard that they shattered or threw Tupperware at the kitchen cabinets until the floor was littered with plastic? Tupperware, I justified, made it OK. Hey, I am a quarter Spanish… what did you expect?
We’ve all witnessed people at their breaking points: couples fighting in restaurants, mothers or fathers berating their kids in Target. I didn’t used to handle it well when I witnessed violence. One time when I heard a mother hurting her child in a bathroom stall at Sea World, I yelled: “Some people shouldn’t be mothers.”
But then I started reading some books about love and compassion like Your Sacred Self: Making the Decision to be Free by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, A Course in Miracles, and A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. What I was studying began to seep from my head into my heart. If we let it, love can transcend fear and create miracles.
If I could see that woman in the bathroom at Sea World not as an opponent—as someone horrible and flawed—but, instead, identify with her actions as a reflection of my own weaknesses, then I would know what to do to help. Yelling at her only escalated her stress, which did not help her child. Instead of stopping her abuse and apologizing to her child, I heard her tell the little boy that he would “pay for this later.” I was shaking and rushed out of the bathroom.
My turning point came one day when I was at Toys R Us. Just as I pulled into a parking spot, I could see the back door of the car several spots over was open, and a woman was hitting a child who was lying on the back seat of a car. My old self would have done the easy thing: Yell at her from a safe distance or call the police. The first would escalate the situation; the second would be too little too late. Even if I yelled and she stopped, the anger would only resurface again later. I got out of my car and walked over to her. My knees were shaking so hard I thought they’d buckle.
“Can I help you?” I called out as I approached. She looked up at me. Her face was twisted as though she were biting down on something hard. The little boy was gulping for air and sobbing for tissues—likely in a feeble attempt to get the woman’s mind on something else.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“Can I help you? You seem to be having a hard time.”
I will never forget what happened next. The woman walked around the car door and put her arms around me, and started crying. “I’m having such a bad day,” she said through her tears.
“I know,” I said gently. “We all have those days. What can I do?”
The little boy kept crying out for tissues. “Do you have any tissues?” she asked me.
“Of course,” I said. My knees were still knocking like a couple of glasses on a shelf during an earthquake. I brought her a whole box.
She handed it to the boy. “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she said.
“I hope your day gets better,” I said and turned to leave.
“It already has,” she assured me.
I don’t know what became of that woman and child but I know that what mattered to me was the moment. I broke out of my old patterns and reached out to another person who was past their threshold. If we can do something differently, just one moment, and repeat that behavior another time, then we begin to break the old habit, and the pattern shifts.
Usually, when people are under stress, they are behaving the only way they know how. When we break the pattern of our angry knee-jerk responses, we instantly become models for others.
The day I admitted I had anger issues and decided to get help was when one of my daughters made me angry while I was driving. I slammed on the brakes and pulled over. I thought I was going down a small hill, but it turned out to be a quicker descent than I realized, and suddenly I was parked on someone’s front lawn. I tried to back up the way I came in, but the incline was too steep. So I had to drive across some unsuspecting family’s front yard so I could get to their driveway and then back onto the road.
When I heard my kids say, “You’re scaring us,” I decided that my reactions were totally inappropriate.
There had to be a way to establish boundaries without fear and pain as a consequence, but I didn’t know how to do that. I went back into counseling and realized that while there was a great deal of freedom of expression in my family while I was growing up, occasionally it had a “loose canon” quality to it. Under pressure, my family did not know how to communicate effectively, and I was perpetuating what I knew. Spewing emotions does not create a safe environment for open and positive communication, which includes listening and honoring the opinions of others—including children—so that they felt heard and valued. If kids act inappropriately, consequences can be established ahead of time. But ultimately, avoiding the match-to-fire reaction, and the shouting that accompanies it, requires awareness and making the choice not to go there.
A Course in Miracles teaches that there is a cycle of attack and defense in arguments. If you stop doing either, however, there cannot be a cycle. If a child or spouse verbally attacks, and we stay in our heart and express our feelings, it causes the other to deescalate.
Defending is on the same frequency as attacking; it perpetuates the argument. When someone says unkind things to us, it feels as though there is great risk to remain loving—perhaps a loss of control or power. Actually, it helps us to remain grounded and centered so that we can respond in a way that serves the whole family. (Note: This does not apply to a seriously abusive relationship, where there is no right or wrong way to safely respond. If your are in one of those, you should seek professional help.)
It is easy to be an authoritarian, but it creates more problems in the long run. I never wanted a display of violence to be my solution to frustration again—not toward my kids, my friends, or other drivers. And I am happy to say that the way I engaged with my children and extended family changed.
We are all mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers, friends, strangers…strangers are no less part of our family—they are just people we haven’t met yet. For instance, flipping off a stranger while driving (thankfully, I don’t do this anymore.) takes on a whole different meaning when we recognize the person. Why should it? If we can’t get along with cousins and neighbors—how will we ever have world peace? This dynamic can change… and will once we wake up.
Shifting my patterns required that I have as much love and tenderness for myself as I did for the woman at Toys R Us. Can we be so steeped in love on an ongoing basis, and tap into it like a deep well, that when we are faced with challenging situations, we respond out of love and not fear? The short answer is “yes,” but it takes practice to keep our hearts open.
Imagine the kind of world we would have if we all made choices based on love. And don’t think for a second that your choices as an individual do not impact the world. Microcosm reflects and affects macrocosm.
Sure it’s a big responsibility, but isn’t your family worth the time and effort it takes to learn to communicate effectively? If you’re not satisfied with your family dynamics, remember, you are the one who has the power to begin the change—to be the one to love a new way into being.
About the author:
Jennifer Delaney’s photos, poetry, nonfiction, and fiction have been published in literary journals, newspapers, magazines, and ezines. A writing coach and consultant, Delaney is cofounder of The Writer’s Arbor. She is currently studying at Regis University for an MA in Counseling.
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Useful article. But it is so hard to change one’s built-in behavior patterns. It would be nice if we could all sit down and calmly talk out our problems, but we rarely make that happen at home, at work, or around the world. Good luck on your MA in Counseling. We all need you to be sucessful.