One of the words that has bad press, It’s anger.
Is it wrong to be angry? Is it a sign of weakness? Of bad character? Of emotional overflows? In children it can be confused with whims. In adolescence, with rebellion.
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The tackling exercise
This emotional state can be of varying intensity. More angry, less. It can appear as fury, disguised as irony, silence, or through violent demonstrations.
Processing anger is a learning process. Being able to accept the reason for anger without judging and being able to express it without attacking or hurting us.
But do we dare to accept that we are angry?
To exemplify it, I’m going to tell a simple, recent anecdote.
While in CABA I decide to take a taxi on the street. While driving I notice that the driver is quite attentive to his cell phone. At first I don’t register it, but a honk from a car behind makes me react. The man did not move forward because he was paying attention to his messages.
We continue the march and was attentive to both traffic and cell phone. It seemed almost literal that one eye for each focus of attention.
I fretted, feeling at risk, while also observing the ability to do both.
My thoughts admired this possibility at the same time as I told myself: “It’s not good, the reflexes are not the same and if something happens to you you will regret not speaking.”
I rehearsed kind words to say how angry it made me that he drives and pays attention to reading messages. And my internal conversation continued “…what if you open your mouth and an ugly tone comes out and this man gets violent? You don’t know him Laura, he is not a self-employed person” and my internal conversation took a while to say a word. When I left the cell phone for a few seconds he told me again: “that’s it, he put it away, that’s it.” But it only lasted a few seconds.
This is how the trip ended. I arrived safely and he will have continued his day unaware of my discomfort.
I don’t feel satisfied because he didn’t do his job responsibly and I didn’t do mine either. That of being able to express my anger clearly, calmly and responsibly.
This very everyday story ended like that, without further ado. It can be diluted in memory if you want. But I decide to transform it into a note to share.
I reflect on the little energy and availability in general with which we exercise our dialectical and expressive practice with scarce resources: good-bad-a little-a lot-I don’t know-no-yes.
In so little room for discourse we miss out on finding ourselves in this ocean of sensations that we are. We avoid saying what we feel and let it pass, but then it comes against us, because we carry it as burdens, resentments or accumulated anger.
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Adolescent consumption
I propose the exercise of relating our sensations to ourselves or to others, without complaints, demands or aggression, trying to focus on the mere description of what happens to us.. Learn to speak.
Perhaps this way we can take an evolutionary step, recognizing ourselves as human beings, sentient, sensitive, we are much more than an artificial intelligence.
Lic. Laura Collavini.
Psychopedagogue.
President of the Being Foundation.
Author of the book “My environment and I”