An Angry Outburst. Forgetting to Ask 'What is This Person Reminding Me'?

Last blog I shared the ‘What is this person or event reminding me?’ question that I ask myself when I have been triggered and want to respond in a more compassionate and less judgmental way, to both myself and others. It involves awareness around the emotion being triggered and resisting the temptation to suppress, feed or inappropriately express the emotion. 
 
Then I ask myself this simple question: What is this person who is behaving dishonestly, for example, reminding me? My wise self tells me it is not nice for others or themselves when they behave this way, so honesty, truth and kindness are the way to go. I am then able to have compassion for them and for me and to genuinely thank them for reminding me to be honest, kind and truthful. 

This can be really tricky with strong emotions as I discovered the other week when I became angry over a manager’s accommodation booking bungle and subsequent refund refusal that I inappropriately expressed my anger in an outburst. I perceived the managers behaviour to be dishonest and manipulative and I told him so with an angry outburst of ‘you are behaving like a f****** arsehole!’ If I am honest I don’t recall if I remembered to label his behaviour and not him and may have said ‘you are a f******* arsehole! OMgoodness no time for doing any awareness or asking my wise self what this person was reminding me! 
 
When I calmed down, I was tempted to give myself a hard time over such an extreme reaction. However instead I tuned into my wise self to be reminded of a few things......
 

• I could release some of the anger I was experiencing by doing something physical like a brisk walk, run or some yoga.
• I could ring a friend that I trusted to understand, show empathy and not be judgmental. Someone I could safely express how I felt and what had happened without them feeling the need for placation, advice, judgment, sympathy, shame, blame, or show disapproval or disappointment in me. I am so fortunate and very grateful to have empathetic, understanding friends in my life. I hope I am learning to be one too.    
• I am human and as such I will make mistakes and not always be in tune with my wise self. Forgiveness and self-compassion are healing here.
• I am human and I will forget to put the tools I have been so grateful to receive into practice. Again, an opportunity for self-compassion and forgiveness.
• I can contemplate the question ‘what is this person reminding me?’ after the event.  It is great way to learn and develop compassion. 
• I can do a ‘4 forces’ practice to get this off my conscious and make amends 

The Four Forces Practice
I learned this practice from Lama Marut many years ago now and find it an invaluable way to deal with things I regret doing, like telling someone they are a ‘f****** arsehole. This simple practice helps to make amends for something I have done and to clear my conscience.
 
This is how I remember the four steps. 
1. Refuge
As I understand it, we take refuge in our understanding that we have done a misdeed and that it will have a subsequent consequence and weigh on our conscience. It is about taking responsibility for our actions and their results. 

2. Regret
Regret is the genuine feeling of wishing we hadn’t done or said that particular thing. While I still feel it was appropriate to be clear and assertive in this situation, I regret swearing at this person.  

3. RestraintCan I restrain from doing this particular thing again? Make this realistic and doable. For how long and in what way can you restrain. In my case I thought, ‘yes, I can phone him back and restrain from swearing at him in an angry outburst’. 

​4. RecompenseThis is a little activity we think of that makes some amends for our action. It is completely up to us what we decide to do to make up. It can just involve you and your mind and doesn’t even need to be expressed or done to the other person.  I decided to ring this person back and to apologize for swearing at him and to see if we could resolve things peacefully. He apologized too and we did negotiate a compromise. 
Recompense can involve forgiving the other person and forgiving ourselves too. Again, we can just do this mentally if that is what is best. 
 
With love, appreciation and very best well wishes to us all 
Maree xx