Fear Anger Hate.
That’s probably too much to cover in a single blog post but you know I am undeterred by a challenge. I’ve been considering these things a lot lately…because I’ve happened to notice them at lot lately. I’m
not saying there is more now than ever before – that’s a feeling I have, not a
fact. I’m actually trying my best not to judge it at all but merely observe it
without being sucked into it.
That too is a challenge. Just this week, I’ve used my own anger, fear,
and hate as material for funny musings about my own irrational tree decorating and shopping behavior. But these emotions – or my reactions to these emotions – can cause
pain too. Pain is not funny. Anger, fear, and hate harm us. They cause physical
maladies in those who don’t address these emotions in a healthy way and they
injure (sometimes irreparably) those around us when we act on these emotions indiscriminately.
As I attempt to objectively observe the anger, fear, and
hate that I see around me and within me, I am also searching for ways to
understand it. I have a fascination with neuroscience that I really wish I had known about when I was
in a position to make decisions about my vocation. Not saying it’s too late for
me – it just isn’t the right time now. Fortunately, I live in a time when instructive
materials are available to me outside of a formal educational environment and
so I spend a lot of time reading books and online articles about neuroscience –
the study of the brain and nervous system. To me, there is no greater mystery –
more fascinating frontier – than the pathways between human thought and action.
Thought…feeling…word…deed.
You’ll notice that thoughts and feelings aren’t the same
thing. I’ll let that sink in for a minute because I sense that might be a shock
to some people. Now, hold onto your hat because there is more…our thoughts aren’t
necessarily fact either. Our own
thoughts – no matter how certain we may be of their veracity – do NOT equate to
absolute truth.
I’ll let that sink in for a moment too.
Just because one says what one thinks, does not mean they are “telling it like it is.”
I’m just going to leave that right there for you to ponder.
Now, if you’re still with me, you may be asking, if we can’t rely on our own thoughts – even
those formed by years of study or experience – and those thoughts lead to
feelings, how can we know that what we say and do is right?
Well, you can’t – and that’s why it behooves us to carry
some humility with us at all times. Humility helps us recognize that the pathway
isn’t linear or one-way. It’s not “bad” to have incorrect thoughts, but it
might result in bad behavior if we don’t recognize our own fallibility. That’s why we should probably think, feel, and
rethink before we spew words based on
our thoughts and emotions and/or act on them. We are human. We can mature and – really, you’re going to have to
sit down for this next idea – we can
change. We can change our minds, we can change our feelings, we can change
our words, and we can change our actions.
And we can do so without fearing that change or hating
anyone who thinks, feels, speaks, or acts differently.
I read an article earlier
this week by a mediator who has clearly spent a great deal of time – years, in
fact – trying to understand the source of anger in himself and in others and I
found that his particular viewpoint on this emotion really spoke to me. I told you once that fear is an emotionwith which I am intimately familiar and that anger is one of the many fruits ofthat seed. Of all of the children of fear…anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret,
greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, false pride, superiority,
ego…anger is the one that manifests first and most frequently when I am afraid.
Because of this, reading about his experience helped me frame not only the
source of my anger, but offered an accessible strategy for examining it and
responding appropriately.
The author, a mediator named Oliver Ross, began by
discussing expectations, specifically, how we develop them early in childhood
and often fail to adjust them as we mature. As adults, when people or
situations fail to meet these expectations (control-based expectations), we
feel angry because it shatters an illusion for us. If we’ve built our belief
system – our rules about how life should be or how other people should behave –
on a foundation of unrealistic expectations (of others, ourselves, or the world
at-large) then we have a house of cards just ready to crumble when those
expectations aren’t met. This crumbling causes us to feel angry.
Feeling anger is completely normal, by the way, and at times
it is completely justified as Ross takes the time to point it out. All feelings
are part of the human condition and, like thoughts, are not inherently bad. In
fact, I have always believed that we have to experience these so-called
negative emotions completely in order to enjoy the positive ones. There is
science to support this belief too. For instance, the neural pathways for hate
(the “hate circuit) appear to activate two of the exact same portions of the
brain as the “love circuit”. (Thin line between love and hate?). The most significant difference that neurobiologists have identified between these two seemingly
opposite emotions is the ability of love -- specifically romantic love -- to shut down the part of our brain
that passes judgement. (Love is blind?) What I’m saying is that no emotion is
bad in and of itself, but how we react to our emotions can be downright evil.
That’s why the rethinking – throwing
that process into reverse – is so important. You can stop hurting before it starts. You can not say words that can’t be taken back. You can not do things that can't be undone. It’s
worth our effort each time we feel angry to engage in some self-examination and
at least try and identify the source. Otherwise,
we risk reacting to feelings that are based on our own unrealistic expectations
– thoughts that aren’t true.
I recognize that I’m using a lot of “we” and “us” in my language but if I’m
realistic about my expectations, I
can’t expect that anyone else should decide that now is the right time to
examine their own anger despite the
plethora of angry rants, memes, comments, and passive-aggressive ambiguities
that I see on social media ALL DAY LONG. So if I want to let there be peace on
earth this December, I’ll let it begin with me. I'll just examine my own anger –
with as much objectivity as possible – and you can continue to do what you want
to with your own.
So…how might I turn this journey of self-examination into a
30-day challenge? And how might I do it knowing that my children will be on
holiday from school for HALF of those 30 days?
I’m going to begin at the surface with the most obvious and
least appealing indicators of my anger…cursing. I am ashamed of how hard it’s
going to be for me to change this habit. I know it will be a challenge because
I know how many f-bombs I dropped on the road to getting my perfectly-lit
Christmas tree in working order this past weekend. I had some help identifying
this particular habit as one that I should
seek to change. Sunday night we were all sitting in the family room talking
about something and I let a colorful metaphor fly out of my mouth –
I don’t even remember what it was, not an f-bomb but one of its firecracker
cousins. And then the boy – my baby boy – let one fly right after me.
That pretty much decided it for me.
30 days – no curse words. Not when I talk. Not when I write.
Not when I run. And if I do, I’m putting a quarter in a jar the contents of
which I will donate to charity on December 31. I will not punish myself from thinking them,
only for not having the self-control to vocalize them. As I mentioned earlier,
thoughts aren’t always true but we have the ability to rethink before we speak and act and this will be part of practicing
that discipline for me.
It should be interesting to see how many sentences I fail to
finish or how creative I’ll become about my self-expression. You know I love
words and I just have to wonder what percentage of my vocabulary goes unused
when I rely on the old *&*$# standbys. Will I explore the use of milder, more archaic
expletives? Will I start sounding like The
Fantastic Mister Fox (What the cuss!)? Or will I simply stop completing
sentences altogether? And if it’s so entrenched in my daily speech, how will I
even notice that I’ve uttered something forbidden?
Two words.
Disapproving. Teenager.
The girl will notice ALL of them.
It’s December 2 and there is $1.75 in the jar.
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