We make a lot of assumptions about
anger, like when we are on the receiving end, and how terrible some people are
when they are angry at us. But if we were to explore the reasons for people’s
anger, we may be surprised to learn the source of it.
The cause of much anger is sadness
or fear, and certainly unconscious to the individual.
Tracing back the reasons for a
person’s anger, we always find there is a reason. There is some cause deeper
down that explains the effects of people’s behaviour. Not that this should
warrant anger, and the caustic affects of such aggression, but we can
rationalise why.
Empathic Responses to Anger
It takes a fair degree of
insightful compassion to understand much of other people’s anger, particularly when
we are hurt by it. But when we understand it is often sadness or fear, deeper
down, which drives the angry outburst, empathy is more of a—okay-I-get-you—sort
of straightforward response.
It may mean we are fearful,
because in times of aggression and abuse there is very real cause for fear.
When we understand there is a reason
for the anger, that it’s not just about us, there is room within us for a
semblance of peace, where resentment has less of a place.
Empathic responses to anger are
best for all concerned; chances are the person angry at us will make a bid to
redeem themselves—to apologise. If we were to resent their outburst, we might
lash back at them, and the relationship would therefore be no better; in fact, it
could get a lot worse.
Empathic responses to anger not
only give the other person a second chance; such poised responses give the
relationship a second chance, too. Where we show the empathy of caring, because
we assume a person’s anger comes from their fear or sadness, and we have compassion
for them, we exemplify God’s grace. We have been forgiving towards them on the
spot.
Grace and Forgiveness Gets Them Thinking
Having grace in our interactions
with people and, indeed, forgiving their transgressions—whilst it doesn’t
implicate us to trust them again—facilitates the angry person’s self-reflection.
Where there is no resentful anger returned, and a void of emotion and judgment
is presented, it leaves the angry person with something to think about because
of the absence of conflict.
Grace is space. That’s how we
should think about grace. The forgiveness in grace is the beauty of compassion
to disregard the offense without challenge. Such relational space in grace is
so foreign in day-to-day human relationships it strikes the angry person as
distinctly odd; bizarre; a cause for great subliminal reflection.
***
When we understand the fear or
sadness involved in much of people’s anger, it’s not hard to feel more
compassionate. Compassion drives the extension of grace. And grace is space; for
the relationship; and, for the angry person to reflect. Grace is the ability to
accept an apology without needing to return fire.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
I wish some people in my life would understand this. i take my anger out on myself...and that's wrong and I get reminded of that but at the same time hardly anyone wants to know why. The following seems to have been adopted amoung certain leaders at my church along with the teaching from scripture on how to deal with someone who has wronged you which I can't find reference to. You know, go to someone and talk to them and if they won't listen take someone with you then finally go to leadership etc. All this leaves me alone, confused and unable to talk to anyone about what is going on...because it would be gossip. Which is talking to anyone bout someone else in a way that they could be identifiable.
ReplyDelete"Six Points to Ponder When Loving Others
It was 1752, and John Wesley led a group of Methodist men in signing a covenant which each man agreed to hang on his study wall. This covenant contained six articles, which were as follows:
That we will not listen or willingly inquire after ill concerning one another;
That, if we do hear any ill of each other, we will not be forward to believe it;
That as soon as possible we will communicate what we hear by speaking or writing to the person concerned;
That until we have done this, we will not write or speak a syllable of it to any other person;
That neither will we mention it, after we have done this, to any other person;
That we will not make any exception to any of these rules unless we think ourselves absolutely obliged in conference."