Abrasions to the psyche occur in
the everyday rub of life. Our hearts become hurt, especially when we have no
protection-of-God in place. And if we have no safe release regarding recourse
to those who inflict hurt on us or cause us to become frustrated, we tend to
transfer our hurts onto those we love. This is because we can, and because they are more representations of ourselves than we
realise. Why else would we expose ourselves so honestly?
Those we love most are most susceptible
for receiving our negative emotions because they may be least likely to reject
us or attack us back in a dangerous way. With our family and loved ones we are
afforded a special allowance of grace. Even when we overstep the mark we
generally have a way back.
We hurt those we love the most,
and too regularly, if we have no other outlet for processing our hurts,
tensions and frustrations. What burns within must eventually purge.
Times When We Are Not Afforded
Psychological Release
In many of our workplaces, for
instance, we work for people, or with people, that incite within us reactions
we simply can’t bear. This causes significant stress, and, as a result,
anxiety. And even if we don’t consciously feel anxious, there is the rumbling
of unconscious anxiety that plays itself out in many negative ways.
When we are not afforded
psychological release the transfer of our anger is an obvious threat.
I used to wonder why I sometimes
would be angry with family members upon arriving home from work. The stresses of
working, the work, and the people involved in the work, all came together, and
no matter how much I was looking forward to seeing my family, I sometimes
treated them poorly, and I didn’t know why. And because I was taking my
frustrations out on those I loved I became increasingly angry with myself. A
negative cesspool of events had emerged.
The truth is when we have no avenue
(or we see we have no avenue) for responding appropriately and effectively with
workplace or other external stresses, we turn the stresses in and onto ourselves, and then we, as a result, transfer
them onto the ones we love. We can add complex extended family relationships
into this mix.
Whatever is external and out of
reach, that which causes us frustration, threatens as a cause for hurting the
ones we least want to hurt.
The Better Way
The better way than anger, which
is transferred onto others from our inner emotions that we cannot bear, is
honesty—a risk of vulnerability requiring courage.
When we can allow our authentic
hurt and frustrated feelings to emerge, just for a moment, we not only open the
pathway to God’s healing through our honesty, we don’t hurt our loved ones, and
we even build intimacy. Just for being honest.
A better way than transferring our
unprocessed anger is just being honest in our weakness. Everyone has weaknesses
they cannot bear. Honesty is the only way.
Compassion For The Angry Love One
Not including abuse, we can afford
to extend to our loved ones a little scope for grace, especially when we
understand they may feel trapped without a process to deal with difficult
situations.
This grace should extend to
ourselves, because, of course, we will also grapple with stress and anxiety
issues because of our dysfunctional relationships. All of us have them.
A compassionate ear and a kind
heart are what frustrated people need. We can understand their anger prevailing
upon us, because we may be the only ones these emotions can be expressed to.
When we are compassionate we may be able to usher the angry one towards the better
way of honesty.
***
Hurting our loved ones because we
are angry about other things seems such a waste.
There is a better way. When we can
share the source of our angry feelings with our loved ones, just being honest
and taking care not to burn them with our anger, healing and intimacy are
forged.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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