Last night, me and my husband
were fighting with each other. So, what?
What’s there to write a blog about? Its just normal in married life. Yes,
I know that.. and its just another happening in the past nine years of our
co-existence! Yes, getting angry is
easy; but getting angry at the right person at the right time in the right way
– that’s difficult. Why do we get angry at others?-
Answer is simple:- Because of our expectations.
Not clear? Its very simple dear- Just the same logic, as I had once mentioned about love in one of my previous blogs.
You get angry when you don’t get
something which you expected. Its your need which is primary cause for your
anger. When your needs are not met, you feel frustrated. But, the way we
express differs from person to person.
Just as Abraham Maslow told about the basic
needs of human beings, anger can also
listed as having basic, safety, social , self esteem and self actualization
aspects to its expression.
Anger can be
expressed when our basic needs like hunger, thirst, sex etc are not satisfied.
Similarly anger can be expressed when our security and safety needs are not
satisfied or when our social and relationship needs are not satisfied. Self
esteem and Self actualization needs also could lead to anger.
We actually mature to go for
higher needs like self esteem needs or self actualization needs when we become
aged .For eg: My seven year old daughter throws a temper tantrum when she
doesn’t get her favorite piece of jewellery or chocolate , whereas my thirty
five year old colleague gets angry when his ego is hurt. Some people get angry when they see crimes in
society whereas some people get angry when a dog is beaten up. Some people get
angry when their rights are violated and some people get angry when they are
asked to work!. But, some people remain
immature throughout their life, with regard to anger!
Ok, Now, coming back to fight
between two people. When we are angry at each other, we can only imagine all
the worst things about the person. Only after the anger subsides , we get our
realistic mind back and then we confess that whatever we had imagined about the
person was wrong!
Well, these are all just normal
human emotions. Why should I write about this? If that’s the question ,then
here is the answer. These days , we are
forgetting our basic emotions. We are focusing on showing a perfect face every where.
That’s why , we can see many artificial faces with artificial emotions. People
smile ,even when they don’t like the person. They crack jokes, even when they don’t
know how to. Many husbands keep telling lies to their wives just to make him
appear good. Many wives keep smiling even when they don’t like the way her
husband behaves. That’s coz, people don’t
get angry at each other easily these days. Thanks to the “so called” diplomatic
behavioral trainings and other things! In a highly civilized society, you are
not supposed to get angry dear!! Or rather – express your anger!
But, just like any emotion when
suppressed for long, erupts one day, anger can also erupt… suddenly… and in
such instances, the outcome may be a huge disaster. As I am writing this, the world is going through several such
instances – one in America, where several kids were shot dead by an angry young
man and in India- a huge angry mob is fighting its course for justice- justice
for the young girl who was raped in Delhi. In all these cases, you can see
that, keeping silent for long may lead to a heavy outcome finally.
Now, as a psychologist, my
suggestion is that ,"its OK to express our anger(rather than suppressing it),
in a suitable ,non-harming way for sometime .But if your session of anger goes
beyond 1 hour, then its better to keep silent , drink some water, cry , or close
your eyes, take deep breath and sleep!”
Chao!
CeeVee
P.S: Do you know why Angry Birds
is a super hit game? Its coz, they cater
to our need of expressing our bad emotions like anger, violence and releases us
of the frustration. And angry birds get
angry at Bad piggies only, just as we get angry at bad situations /people only!
P.S 2: Photography courtesy: Manoj . Model: Mythili (in different expressions!) I am posting a better photo of my daughter below, otherwise she will get angry at me, for posting that horrible photograph
