As I mentioned last time, when they mirrored my intention for my day walk, Ruth and Larry helped me clarify something about anger. I have long understood that when I have a very angry, charged response to a situation, it is usually because I am feeling hurt about something. The anger is a defense, which for me feels more comfortable than the feeling of hurt. (This is not so for everyone; for some people feeling angry is a very uncomfortable feeling, and they might have a different defense mechanism for helping them not to feel angry.)
So I have learned that anger is the clue that I am feeling hurt. It also provides the strength I need to take care of the hurt, as well as to respond to the outer situation. So I have known this for a long time, but since I don’t like to feel the hurt, I usually still go with the automatic response of the anger, discharging it to try to get rid of the person or situation that hurt me, rather than attending to the hurt. It’s only later that I get around to feeling the hurt, and maybe calm down and talk to the person in a constructive way.
Anger diagram 1
event that hurts me – angry outburst – go away and be alone – feel the hurt – understand what happened – apologize to the person and try to undo the damage of the outburst
Sometimes the final step is expensive, if I actually damaged an object, and sometimes it is not possible to undo the damage and I lose a relationship. It is also interesting to learn over time that the “event that hurts me” is often not as bad as I thought. Due to my own history, I can interpret things inaccurately, feeling hurt when there was objectively no hurt intended. As I described this sequence of events to Ruth and Larry, I could see that I need to make a change in the sequence.
Anger diagram 2
event that hurts me – go away and be alone – feel the hurt – take care of my hurt self – understand what happened – talk to the person if necessary, saying what happened, how I feel, what I need, and what I want from them (this last point describes the four steps of non-violent communication, by the way)
So you can see that the angry outburst is missing from the second diagram (darn!). Instead, I take care of my hurt self. Also the nature of talking to the person at the end is different, since it is not about damage control but about asking for what I need.
So this is part of what emerged with the mirroring process. But there’s more to the story, and I’ll tell you that next time!