I was about to crash out.
This article was written by Creative Hub member Talisa G.
I mean, I was about to crash out on my girlfriend's behalf, really tamely and sympathetically.
She’d just texted me in outrage, having discovered her new roommate had been using her $150 shampoo for months, thinking it had been cheap and communal (which it was neither!).
This might seem trivial to some (not really sure how though ngl), but this was pretty frustrating for her.
My girlfriend rarely spends money on herself, let alone on nice self-care items, but shampoo was her thing.
It’s ethically sourced, smells great and ensures great curls, that sort of thing.
So, when she realised her roommate had been slathering it on by the ton, I was expecting she'd be close to screaming.
Naturally, I immediately messaged her asking, ‘Are you losing it!?’
Feeling difficult thoughts in your relationship? Read this.
Her response made me question everything.
She replied, ‘I decided I wanted to be the kind of person who wouldn’t care about that'.
Had I been in her shoes, I know I would’ve lost it.
But she was able to pause her ire long enough to decide what to do with it. To decide who she wanted to be.
How A Text Changed The Way I Deal With Anger
It forced me to sit and examine my own reactions.
I know I would have been so angry at that.
I may have gotten really agitated, even raised my voice.
Whereas my girlfriend had felt that anger and then had decided to not act on it.
When questioned, she had explained it was because she’d come to the realisation anger is usually a secondary emotion to another feeling.
Why Anger Doesn't Necessarily Mean Anything
Anger can often be a defensive response to feeling something else, like sadness, having felt disrespected, rejected, embarrassed, etc.
So, after my girlfriend initially felt angry, having had her expensive shampoo at worst stolen and at best plundered into oblivion, she’d managed to find the time to pause.
She sat with the anger for only a moment before she realised it was sadness, a reaction to feeling disrespected.
And while being disrespected isn't ever nice, she was still able to react differently to the situation, acknowledging being angry was perhaps a bit unfair.
After all, she knew her roommate hadn’t intended to pillage her bougee shampoo.
In fact, he'd been mortified when he realised.
What To Consider When Dealing With Anger
If we can stop for a moment when we feel anger, we can examine it long enough to identify the underlying emotion.
We can then allow this empathic view of our anger to direct us on how we may actually feel towards an upsetting event, allowing us to react and show up as who we want to be.
Before we react to anger, we can try ask ourselves:
- What am I feeling under the anger? (sadness, embarrassment, rejection, etc.)
- Is this how I want to show up in this moment?
- Is this reaction an appropriate response to the situation?
- Does reacting like this align with the person I want to be?
If you need some additional help managing your anger, try reaching out to MensLine at mensline.org.au or by phone on 1300 78 99 78.
