Angry Behavior is an Attempt to Get Back to Love
One of the biggest challenges for relationships is angry behavior. Most of the focus on how to solve this problem is to reduce reactivity. This is a worthy goal but offers no solutions for when reactivity happens. This often leaves people judging themselves when they are reactive and missing that it is a misguided attempt to get back to love.
I had a recent blow out with my daughter where I behaved badly and sad hurtful things. We revisited the situation recently, and I acknowledged I was out of line. I was struck by how magnanimous she was. She said we can all get crazy at times. I just need to know you don’t think it is okay.
I was very grateful for her level of forgiveness and understanding. She was able to see my psychological innocence in a way that I had not been able to.
So in addition to the worthy goal of reducing anger and reactivity, relationships also benefit from the people in the relationship having the capacity to not take bad behavior personally and to forgive the transgressions of the other person by understanding the drive behind it is an attempt to return to love. I am not condoning bad behavior here, and I am not saying that anyone should stay in a harmful situation. I am pointing to the messy process we humans sometimes find ourselves in, in our attempts to reconnect.
I know I never want to lose my temper again. But I might not live up to that intention. I am grateful to know that the intimate relationships I have in my life have room for my imperfections and my imperfect behavior as I learn and grow.
Anger is definitely an area of growth and learning for me. In the midst of conflict and angry words it is easy for me to take what the person is saying seriously and feel hurt. I forget that their words are a reflection of their distorted thoughts in that moment. When I forget, I try to make sense of what is being shared and try to figure out a solution. But, what they are saying is not how they see things when they are in a good feeling. I am wasting my time trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist when they are in another state of mind.
Sometimes I see this so clearly and recognize the angry words are a reflection of their suffering. And others I don’t see it at all. This has nothing to do with the other person or what they are saying. It has everything to do with my state of mind and how clearly I am seeing things. If I am not connected with my loving essence and feeling open-hearted because I am identifying with limited thinking, it will be easy for me to take what is being said personally and feel hurt by it.
What helps me now is to see my own humanness, to see how lost I get, and then to remember how quickly I find my Self again. I can go from the depths of despair to feeling lighthearted in minutes, and it doesn’t even matter how long it takes for the switch to happen. All that matters is that I know it will.
I share this as an encouragement. Relationships can be difficult. Intimacy is not easy. It is wonderful and comes with beautiful feelings, but it also helps us to see our blind spots. My girls are helping me to see how stubborn I can be. They are showing me my arrogance. They are reminding me of how I distance myself when I am scared. Their light reveals my shadow. And it can feel icky and uncomfortable. I do feel shame at times when I see my limitations.
But it is also very healing to know that these perceived limitations are not barriers to love. They are not barriers to worthiness. They are not impediments to waking up to who and what I am. They are the path. To feel shame about them is like being ashamed of the stairs that I walk up to get to the second floor of our house. They are just part of the journey. Blind spots are not wrong or bad. They are an integral part of the human experience as we wake up to who we are beyond the human experience. The gift of our humanity is that we get to feel our way into our true nature. It is trial and error. There are lots of bumps along the way, but we learn experientially through this gift of life.
Anger and reactivity are part of the learning. They help us to see who and what we are not. The pain of the feelings of separation reminds us that we are looking in the wrong direction. Emotional suffering is the indicator that we are lost. But sometimes we need to get lost in order to find our Self. Waking up is not an intellectual process. It is experiential. We have the gift of the human experience so we can find our way home. Use it all for your growth and learning. Embrace it all — even the parts that make you cringe. Let your heart open to what you don’t like about yourself and wish were different. It is in the opening and the acceptance that more gets revealed.
I don’t know why learning happens the way it does. But I am grateful for the inner freedom and expansiveness that happens each time I remember that my true nature is untarnished by my human foibles and that love can prevail in this world of form as we have room for each other’s foibles. The more I don’t need others to be perfect or to act a certain way, the freer I feel. The more I am able to recognize the truth of my impersonal true nature, the more I can see that imperfections don’t exist. There is just what is. And it is all an attempt to experience the love and wellbeing of who we are from the level of consciousness we can express from. We are all doing that with greater and lesser effectiveness. Even anger is my attempt to get back to love in its own twisted way.
Rohini Ross is passionate about helping people wake up to their full potential. She is a transformative coach, leadership consultant, a regular blogger for Thrive Global, and author of the short-read Marriage (The Soul-Centered Series Book 1) available on Amazon. You can get her free eBook Relationships here. Rohini has an international coaching and consulting practice based in Los Angeles helping individuals, couples, and professionals embrace all of who they are so they can experience greater levels of well-being, resiliency, and success. She is also the founder of The Soul-Centered Series: Psychology, Spirituality, and the Teachings of Sydney Banks. You can follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and watch her Vlogs with her husband. To learn more about her work go to her website, rohiniross.com.
Christine Heath & Judy Sedgeman – Spirituality and Resilience
When you no longer give authority to the fear-based thoughts in your consciousness, all you are left with is happiness. Through the teachings of Sydney Banks, you can see how your psychological functioning works, which makes you less compelled to follow those thoughts that do not serve you. Becoming more aware of the wholeness and integration of both your human and spiritual natures helps to ground you in the unchanging essence of who you are, and ride out the ups and downs of your emotional experience more gracefully. Accepting the normalcy of your humanness will naturally reduce your anxiety and fear and enhance your joy and happiness in each moment. By placing less pressure on yourself to feel a certain way or be hung up on self-improvement, you may find that low moods do not derail or debilitate you; instead, you will become much more attuned to your innate wellbeing and peace of mind and experience more happiness as a result.
Greater psychological freedom is the gift that keeps on giving. How grateful would you feel if you no longer had to listen to your negative, self-punishing and painful inner narrative, day in and day out? Understanding the role of thought and recognizing how it creates your feelings of insecurity and self-doubt is truly liberating! You will be better able to hear and heed your inner wisdom and become less driven by the noisy thoughts of fear and constriction. As an ongoing practice, this allows you to more fully experience your resilience and reach a greater sense of clarity about how you want to move forward in your life. As a result, you can live in a way that feels authentic and true in every area, including your career, family, home, creative expression, play, relationships and overall well-being.
Your ability to enjoy life comes from being present in the moment rather than caught up in habitual, negative thoughts that take you out of the Now. Sydney Banks’ wisdom supports you in becoming aware of how you get seduced by your limited personal thinking and thus, create a painful reality of misunderstanding, fear and restriction. When you recognize how and why this happens, you can step free of the pattern. This understanding assists you to dismiss unhelpful thoughts and not take them seriously. Unlike traditional self-help or therapy, experiencing more psychological freedom and enjoyment does not rely on techniques. There are no magic bullets on the path of well-being. All you need to do is follow an internal compass that points to the truth of who you really are—beyond transient thoughts to your unchanging, formless essence.
In our culture, success is often associated with hard work and narrowly defined as material gain. However, authentic success, as shared by Sydney Banks, includes such intangibles as happiness, well-being, love, joy, compassion, and peace of mind that are innate in each one of us, along with outward goals and achievements. It honors the whole person in all walks of life, whether you are a professional, leader, executive, solopreneur, employee, mother, teacher or student. From this knowing and experience, you can access the infinite wellspring of love that is your essence, then share your gifts with the world from a place of fulfillment and meaning, through a profound understanding of the interaction between your psychological and spiritual natures. While conventional success can deplete you, authentic success only fills you up.
Are you self-critical, hard on yourself, and constantly trying to “fix” whatever you think is wrong with you? Perhaps you have tried all kinds of different personal growth techniques and spiritual practices in the hope of solving all your problems. This cycle can be exhausting and never-ending, because there will always be something to improve about yourself, from that mindset. Sydney Banks’ teachings can help you to see how your humanness is normal and not something that needs fixing: as a spiritual person, you don’t need to change or eradicate your humanness! Seeing yourself as normal allows you to love and accept yourself exactly as you are—warts and all. Adopting this perspective naturally brings out the best in you and helps to find peace with your personality. Self-love and self-acceptance is your natural state, and any disconnection from your true nature is only temporary. What a relief!
One of the first areas people often experience profound transformation from the teachings of Sydney Banks is in their relationships, both personal and professional. While it often seems like another person’s irritation, anger, indifference, insensitivity, rudeness, etc., directly affects your experience, in reality your disturbance is a product of your own individual thinking. By making someone else responsible for how you feel, that person automatically becomes the cause of your suffering. Once you understand that you always have a place of well-being inside, independent of another’s behavior, it is easier to maintain equanimity through their changing moods and behaviors. Romantically, you may experience deeper love and intimacy with your partner, but the teachings benefit all relationships. This awareness supports more authentic connection and expression, while facilitating greater understanding, improved communication, reduced reactivity, more acceptance of self and others, and improved ability to work out differences and find common ground. Best of all, just one person shifting in a relationship is enough to transform it.
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Kiran Rapal
25.05.2020 at 08:07Thank you for sharing this in such transparency Rohini. I recently had an incident and have been stuck in the unworthiness and self judgment. I would love to explore more on this exact emotion of rage and anger. I seem to love it because it keeps me safe but there are times when it is unleashed in a way that is not a self loving choice and drops me into the pits of shame and unworthiness. This sharing was insightful. Thank you ♥️
Gretchen Blais
25.05.2020 at 08:54Rohini, I so appreciate what you say and the way you say it. I think of all the years I suffered because of self judgement just because I didn’t know there was another way. I am so grateful I am where I am in my understanding of the inside out nature of experience. I get to live more peacefully and with more joy.
I do have a request if it is possible. On my screen, the print is gray, the contrast between the background and the printing is such that it is difficult for me to read and tires my eyes. Maybe it is just my screen and I need to figure out what to do. If it is my screen, I will find someone to help me. Thanks for all that you give and that Angus gives also. Love and blessings…
I tried three times to send this note and received an error message. I needed to fill in name and email address. I could not find a place to register that information. finally I clicked on the white blank space several times and a box finally showed up so I could provide the information.
Hilda Rhodes
25.05.2020 at 15:45Hi Rohini Yet another insightful post. I have just stopped fostering teenagers full-time which is the right thing for me at this time. However your post has helped me look back at my last placement with a less criticism of myself. Thank you.
Jeanne Monteiro
25.05.2020 at 19:56As usual, a beautiful read! Anger is something that I was always taught was unacceptable, and something that I’ve often felt ashamed of. I love this perspective…it feels so TRUE and so LOVING. Thank you, Rohini.