How many times have I encountered a situation that really upset me - at work, play, home, parenting or...? Of course I don't know, but I do know the answer is basically 'many'. As a person who likes to think of himself as a 'doer', my go to reaction is to act...now. Sometimes I have struck out without a whole lot of forethought. But I've learned over time that the least productive and helpful time to act is from within an emotional state, especially anger. From inside anger, I'm always right. My judgments are pure, my sight clear, my actions decisive, my righteousness well founded. Right. If I pretend I'm not angry as I act (let's call that my passive aggressive streak) I can't fool anyone. When my wife calls me out amidst a passive aggressive upsurge, my classic immediate reaction is NO I'M NOT ANGRY (caps intended).
Having recognized that acting out of anger (or for that matter any strong emotional wave) is not helping me be effective or happy I sometimes default to another backup strategy - suppressing my anger (substitute another strong emotion). That can seem to help on an outermost level, but not really. Beneath the semi-placid surface there is boiling water, seeping steam - resentment, bitterness, complaint. Another failing strategy that doesn’t work, especially in communication. Just last week I was on a conference call and for uninteresting reasons I was somewhat put off by the meanderings, unstated lobbying, and complaint by some of the attendees. Rather than acknowledge or express anything about that I just tried to act as if it didn’t matter. But just by the tone of my communication (and that my more typical tone is upbeat and energized) at least one (and I suspect others) knew. Within a few minutes of the call’s end I received the following note from a wise colleague: “You sounded troubled and unhappy on the call. Anything I can help you with or that you want to talk about?” Ouch, but a moment that inspired a deep breath, an honest response, and outreach to her and others.
That’s what it’s like with aggression: you can’t bury it because everyone will sense the edgy vibrations. So if neither suppression, nor acting out will work and probably make things worse, what can we do? I believe that we must start by recognizing that emotions are not our enemies. Quite to the contrary, emotions begin as straightforward messages that reflect uncertainty, possibly pain or pleasure, insight, and often intuitive intelligence. They are a human’s way to respond and interact with a dynamic and energetic environment (including other people and all manner of external factors). In prehistoric times humans’ immediate sensory and early emotional reactions were a critical means of preserving safety – fight or flight. The first emotional rising delivers instinctual data. The problem occurs as we hold on to these energetic impulses and turn them into solid projections, beliefs, attitudes, and self-oriented justifications. We could call these the gyrations of ego - mental states that cloud the mind and often generate unwholesome actions. Anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, are among the most destructive variations. Their common thread – is grasping.
We can suppress anger and aggression or act it out, either way making things worse for ourselves and others. Or we can practice patience: wait, experience, and investigate its nature. If we think of our temperament as if it were an ocean we know there will be surges, waves, and in some harbors, peaceful waters. It doesn’t accomplish anything to either try to press a wave down, or cut it off to create a smoother sea. And we can’t just build a new boat, a new me and call it ‘The Good Ship Patient Marty’. Rather, I’m suggesting a practice – to de-escalate aggression, and open a different working base.
Let’s look briefly at three steps within a practice of Patience.
WAIT:
When there is an emotional upsurge, the first effort can be to just wait – not speaking or doing anything, allowing space, and letting go to the extent possible of the urge to immediately jump into internal dialogue, which often quickly becomes a spaghetti of confusion. Our dialogues often cycle through criticism, blaming, and remorse – feeling angry then bad about it, but not being able to drop it. The best first step is just to hold and wait.
EXPERIENCE:
If waiting turns into ignoring (back to suppressing) we haven’t accomplished anything. The opposite is a step from waiting to engage in simple, and completely honest experience. I AM ANGRY, maybe furious, confused, or fearful…Can we open ourselves up to that experience in a gentle, honest way? Allowing a lot of space for myself and others (not necessarily meaning a lot of time – this can unfold quickly) – not reacting even while we recognize that internally an emotion is reacting. This can certainly be edgy – sitting still while in contact with the emotional flavor of the moment. It’s a bit like holding a live wire. It takes and builds a type of courage, not to react, which only escalates the anger or emotion. This is a second phase of patience with ourselves as a human being, to acknowledge the taste and inner turmoil of an emotion and not blame ourselves for being something wrong.
INVESTIGATE:
There is an urge within us to resolve every situation, to make an edgy, moody situation ‘right’, sorting out good and bad, right, and wrong, or put the whole episode into a comforting box with some sort of psychological ribbon on it – ‘fixed’ or at least labelled. My experience and learning however is that the hope of resolution is based on a misunderstanding – that things can be made conceptually tidy. Rather I suggest that resolutions are at best temporary band aids. Genuine harmony doesn’t come from applying seemingly solid band aids, but from practicing and becoming naturally good at being as still as we can be with the moody energies of life, as they rise, hang around for a while and ultimately pass away. It is not ignoring but being curious in penetrating our patterns of neurotic behavior, at what is going on. Over the past 15 years Susanna and I have been avid scuba divers. One of the things I came to learn is that the way to be beneath the surface is to relax attentively into the experience. The more in tune we can be with the temperature, currents, lovely and sometimes intimidating environment, air supply, and group around us, the more opportunity we discover to be curious, open, and investigative about the incredible world beneath the sea. This is also a better way of understanding how to be in the ocean of life and emotion.
The bottom-line is that when we learn to touch in with an emotion and both feel and look at it while it is live, we are learning to touch the inherent softness of our hearts. We don’t have to jump on ourselves when we don’t succeed in our practice of patience. We are human and we get try again. This is the opposite of aggression, which keeps us from looking, exploring and being curious in a vain attempt act on a surface reaction to resolve bit of the ocean into a solid, fixed platform split between winners and losers. Behind that hard platform there is something we are holding on to or afraid of losing. Behind that resistance there is softness but lo and behold there is also strength. To the extent that we can cultivate the practice of patience, the letting go of the habitual reactive patterns, we cultivate strength – the ability to move within difficult situations more creatively, more openly and ultimately more decisively. If this seems like a big, impossible task, start small. Practice with little things, rather than the biggest upsurges. The next time someone is slow moving on a green light, try ‘waiting, experiencing, and investigating’ – not a big deal process, just a quick, simple pause, connect with the feeling, and as you drive off a willingness to say to yourself, ‘what was that about’. Just a little bit of letting go goes a long way. And when you can’t let go, and start to beat up on yourself, there’s another moment – to wait, experience, investigate and see where it leads. It’s a gradual process, to learn to choose to wait and soften, to sit a bit with the edginess and to discover the humor in the human journey. Ultimately it’s about making friends with ourselves – with all our imperfections and the slow pace of our progress. As long as we are alive we get to keep showing up – with our colleagues a work, our families at home, and ourselves all day long. Best to practice patience.