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How Can
One Deal with Excessive Emotions?
Q. I have a conflict on how to handle some
feelings. Say that you are in a situation where you feel anger at something.
On one side, I get the sentiment that you should feel that anger and
find an acceptable outlet for it. I mean, go home and beat on the bed with a
tennis racket or go out in the field and shout at the sky if you are angry at a co-worker. Don’t blister his
ear, but find a constructive outlet for it. On the other side, there is the
sentiment that says transmute that anger. Say, yes I am angry, which means
that I want something I am not getting. What is it that I want and what am I
doing to get what I want, and thus rationalize yourself through the anger.
Which way is right?
A.
Both, depending upon where you happen to be at the moment
in your thinking or feelings. Both ways work. They are just two techniques
for helping to get it over with. The person that is
suffering the most from your anger is you. So
you have to rationally decide if the anger is justifiable and what should be
done about it. Do you straighten out your own thinking because it is not
rational for you to be angry, or should you straighten the other guy out because he is causing that justifiable anger in
you? You have to try to see clearly what the root of
your response is. You never become angry when you are in control of a
situation. But bottling up anger and denying it is
destructive. It ends up as hypertension and ulcers
and things of that sort, which means that you really didn’t get rid of the
anger. You didn’t discharge it, you just
internalized it, and now it’s taking it out on you rather than on somebody
else.
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