Last week we looked at exploding based on the following two scales and I pointed out I lost it after being Overly Patient and Under Reacting. This caused me to bottle up to the point I suddenly had an Overreaction:
Impatient (-10)————-Patient to a Point (0) ————-Overly Patient (+10)
Under React (-10)————-Healthy Reaction (0) ————-Overreaction (+10)
Because these two scales are so well connected, I thought I should look at it a little further… mostly because I need to understand it better. (Yes, these lessons are mostly about me. And yes, I’m that selfish, but at least I’m self aware.) Where we land on these scales will vary because we are highly affected by circumstances (e.g. hungry, tired, drunk, in pain, stressed, late and/or rushing, etc.), but regardless of what’s happening, we should be working at being in the healthy middle spot for both scales. At least, we should be working on this if we want to be someone with good self control and not a jerk. Some people I see in the world seem to be working really hard at being the latter and doing really well at it. I’m not sure if I should be congratulating them: “Wow, congratulations. Here’s your certificate saying you’ve achieved your goal of being a huge jerk face.” One of the best things we can do for ourselves to improve patience, kindness, and self control is to do our best to be fed, rested, and on time because it’s a lot easier having self control if we’re at our best.
Using the two scales, there are nine basic setups we can have (look at me doing simple math with words)
- Impatient and Under React: This can work okay since most people won’t even notice the lack of patience. It’s really just felt by the impatient person. The downside is it can build up to an explosion later.
- Impatient and Healthy Reaction: This is a better option since the healthy reaction means no one is hurt and the emotion is handled properly, which helps prevent future explosions.
- Impatient and Overreaction: This is arguably the worst situation since the person will just look crazy without much of a reason.
- Patient and Under React: Like all under reactions, patient or not, this can build up to an exploding point.
- Patient and Healthy Reaction: This is the ideal situation because the person is properly patient and handling their emotions the way they should. Seeing the scales it’s tempting to think this is easy, but as someone who teaches being healthy, I can still only dream of being in this category. I find trying to be patient easily pushes me into being Overly Patient.
- Patient and Overreaction: Any overreaction erases how patient someone will appear. Even if they are at a healthy patience level, they’re going to look impatient and/or crazy from their overboard actions – people judge what they see.
- Overly Patient and Under Reaction: This is arguably the most dangerous of all the categories because you’re really building up a potential time bomb. Being a pushover and bottling up because there isn’t healthy emotional release is not going to end well… except maybe for the drywall company making money off repairs.
- Overly Patient and Healthy Reaction: At least in this category there is hope that some of the built up emotion will be vented out properly to reduce the risk to the person and those around them. I would say on a good day (bad day is a different story) this is the category I most frequently land in, but these are always eventually followed by an Overreaction. As one contractor said to me recently, “It’s amazing how calm you are with everything going on. Are you going to one day snap and take out a McDonalds or something?” It was a fair question… hopefully the answer is no.
- Overly Patient and Overreaction: Here’s a category that many who are Overly Patient and Under React end up. You can only handle so much before you lose your mind. Most people end up losing their minds because it’s been too much of being a pushover and/or bottling up. The end result? KABOOM!
To add to the complication of these scales is who you are will affect how these categories are experienced. For instance, a few weeks ago we looked at aggressive people. To another aggressive person, someone barking at you is normal and healthy, but to a very gentle person, the slightest bark will be too much. This means what’s healthy to one person is an Overreaction to another and what’s healthy to another is an Under Reaction to someone else. The problem with social interactions is even when it’s broken down to simple scales there are a lot of variables that make the situation complicated – yea.
One of the most important factors that should be considered with these scales is what kind of reaction are we giving? We might be under reacting, but we might be causing more damage than we realize or we might think we’re being healthy, but someone else will think we’re being mean. There have been many times I was presenting as calm and my wife thought I was being condescending, which is a pretty common interpretation even if that’s not the goal. Of course, when someone trying to be calm is accused of being mean, it’s hard not to explode.
When bad things happen and our patience is challenged, our reactions can land in six basic categories:
- I Hurt You: The root of this can be a misery loves company or more revenge/punishment based, but either way it’s pretty nasty.
- I Hurt Me: Some people are too afraid of repercussions to hurt others whether a fear of conflict, being attacked back, or feeling guilt for hurting someone. Meanwhile other have simply learned it’s easier to attack themselves. Attacking can be verbally or physically hurting themselves. Either way, the self hurt will likely carry emotional damage as well because it likes to be a tag along.
- You Disgust Me: Going beyond hurt, disgust is more judgement and revulsion based. It’s looking down on the person, and thinking they deserve to be hurt.
- I Disgust Me: Similarly, this goes beyond hurt and really breaks the person down emotionally.
- I’m Trying to Scare You: When anger sets in, a lot of people get loud or use threats to scare the other person enough to get them to back off. They don’t want to hurt the other party, they just need space and they’re not able to recognize and/or know how to communicate this properly or the other person simply doesn’t leave them alone.
- Emotional Outburst (i.e. venting): Sometimes we just need an emotional release like a pressure valve. This is best done alone, but unless we train ourselves to bite our tongues until we get alone to release the emotion privately, we’ll likely say and/or do something that can appear mean or scary when it’s just a release.
This week may you consider how you can have a proper emotional outburst by yourself to limit the hurt and/or judgement you cause with your anger.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)