Anger Is A Step Towards

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How fake life will be with only "good" feelings - full of pink clouds and happiness. It rarely rains in the desert, but it also shows its character with sandstorms …

I got angry with my friend. Very close and dear to me. And I wrote to her about it in a letter.

I chose my words and listened to my feelings, wrote about my thoughts, feelings and gurgling in my stomach as a sign of my bewilderment, anger and irritation.

I wrote in simple words, without psychoterms and therapies - fortunately, we are both psychologists, and we know how to communicate in terms. She gave examples of her fantasies and assumptions. Reflection and sympathy. And she began this letter with the words that I am very, very sorry, what is happening to her and how …

Subconsciously, I was waiting for a reaction such as accusations and resentment - “how could you ?! I give you my whole soul, I endured your stories, and you?!.."

Or rejection: “I don’t need your anger, I only need your love and support, fucking what, I’m leaving you.”

Or dry: "Olesya, we have nothing more to talk about, sorry, goodbye."

And for two days my mailbox was silent as a spy in the camp of the enemy.

But I thought…

… That in love and friendship, honesty is more important than sweet syrup, in which you can choke on pusa-pusa. But the notorious "I understand you", "we will succeed", "everything will be fine" will be in abundance (well, as in the story about the nail).

… That love and friendship are about accepting a dear person with any of his feelings. What if to be only good, then with whom and where to be bad ?! And the opportunity to open up in your feelings, and accept them - this is intimacy, because honestly, without illusions.

If I am angry, it doesn’t mean I don’t like it, it doesn’t mean I condemn. Anger is a step forward. Always. I am as angry as I am, as I am as happy as I am happy - without rules and patterns. Does the child ask how to laugh when it's funny, or how to cry when it hurts?

Aggression according to Fritz Perls, the gestalt approach of which I practice both in the office with the client and in life, is a step forward. New. To yourself. To another.

One of the resistances in gestalt is retroflection. This is when I treat myself the way I would like to treat others. I want to reply to the saleswoman who was naughty to me, but I am angry with myself - that I am so submissive; I want to hug, but I sit with my arms around myself and do nothing, because I thought of myself that I would interfere …

The result of such an attitude is often psychosomatic - a headache (from holding back), a stomach ache (eating away at myself with anger), or other options. Once I realized that for expressing certain feelings you can get a slap on the head or be left without dinner, and the pattern has become entrenched: being angry = dangerous and painful. It's easier to suppress, close this feeling in yourself. Do not cry when crying, do not answer when it hurts, and a lot of "not …".

Two days later, I received a response from a friend. It didn't have any of the three responses I expected. There was … gratitude. For honesty. For the support provided in this way. For an example of the manifestation of openness and the risk of being vulnerable. That "happiness is giving each other the opportunity to be different and remain interesting." And I answered her: “life is good. The fact that I have found a friend with whom I can be Alive."