A while ago I had a discussion with my brother regarding phobias, fears, paranoia and other psychological phenomenon, and we were in disagreement about some points. After a while I noticed that I was screaming rather loudly and that I sounded and felt quite agitated. I also noticed that my heart rate was fast and irregular. I had once again slipped into the anger character without noticing. Once I did notice that I was in this state – I breathed my self back into the physical reality – and I said to my brother “forgive me for screaming and yelling, and for trying to dominate you”. Once I had opened this up, my brother also felt that he could open up and point out the faults in his way of communicating. This is yet another example of taking a step back in humbleness, and to lead by example: being a beacon in your personal reality that sends out benign signals that others can pick up on and apply.
So, in order to discover what triggered the anger reaction in the first place, I have to place myself back in the situation. The factors that ‘made me’ go into this reaction were primarily three. One of the factors were that of perceived inferiority, where I judge myself as intellectually 'less than'. The other factor is that of the opposite, superiority, where I rather perceive my information and knowledge and opinions as 'more than' and want to dominate and win the argument – which is actually me wanting to beat and win over my own perceived inferiority. And the reinforcing factor is again that of model learning, meaning only having been around people throughout my life that communicate in this dysfunctional way. So, what is cool is that I at least have the ability to take a step back in these situations and deescalate, but what would be even cooler is having the ability to stop the pattern altogether and catch it before it’s even triggered. For this self-forgiveness is an excellent tool:
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to dominate my brother because I fear that I will be dominated myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to discuss within the starting point of wanting to dominate, instead of the starting point of reaching common understanding and a reasonable conclusion together.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself discuss within the starting point of fear.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself believe that I will lose ‘honor’ if I ‘lose’ a discussion.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that there is such a thing as ‘honor’ in the first place.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that discussions is about 'winning' and 'losing'.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place a greater value in how others view me, or rather how I perceive that others view me, than that of truth, common sense and creating peaceful, non-toxic relationships.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define a discussion in terms of winners and losers, instead of defining it in terms of finding common ground and reaching the best solution together.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to value my own perspective as truer and more worthy than the one with a seemingly opposing view.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to view, disregard and judge the seemingly opposing perspectives as flawed, stupid and worthless.
I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to place myself in the shoes and perspective of the one I discuss with.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to trap myself in ‘ego’ – within believing that MY point is THE ONLY point – actually believing that this is empowering, instead of seeing the dysfunctional relationships creates, as well as the dysfunction it exposes within myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with anger towards arguments that I find flawed, stupid and worthless – not considering that many times it is arguments that I made and views that I held myself earlier in life – thus here being quite hypocritical and inconsiderate – instead of looking at how these views have morphed and mutated over the years through experience and information – thus I in these moments I stop – I breathe – and I slow down – to instead focus on sharing my own history within the point and how I came to change my view.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be offended by statements and arguments that are of a mocking, generalizing and contemptuous nature, and in those moments go into anger and feelings of hate towards the person making them
I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to be honest with myself about all the times I have done the same, meaning used mocking, generalizing and contemptuous statements -- thus when faced with such statements instead of going into emotional reactions I slow down – I stop – I breathe – and once grounded and stable share with the other individual why and how I used to do this myself – and how such language is just war tactics within fear and domination instead of having a real and productive talk together.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to go into an emotional state when I perceive that I’m not being taken seriously within a discussion.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with anger and perceive that I’m not being taken seriously when discussing a point that I have invested great time in, such as psychology, and in such moments because I’m so wound up make very little sense at all -- thus when and as I see that I’m going into this belief that I’m not being taken seriously – I stop – I breathe – I slow down within myself until grounded and can speak each word without any emotional sparks – and I lay forward the information I have objectively without it having to define me in any way.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to go into frustration for not finding the right words – which in itself is based on a self-belief of myself as flawed and inferior – which then leads to anger and an escalation in terms tonality and voice power – here trying to dominate with as stronger voice and anger as a way to balance the inferiority-superiority polarity that I experience and perceive within myself – thus when and as I see myself going into the alternative dimension of an inferiority character – I stop myself – I breathe – and I focus on stabilizing and grounding my voice and tonality until harmonious and balanced, and push myself through the perceived limitations and fears of expressing myself without any ‘weapons’ or ‘battle tactics’ — because I see and realize that dropping all confrontational and escalating language and tactics will create a fertile breeding ground to grow and expand in.
I rarely get angry when discussing things with people but I do often get so frustrated with people that I get up and leave.
Of course it can be futile to discuss with certain people at certain times; then leaving is the sane thing to do. Discussion has to be from a point of willingness to understand from both parties
people easily get like this when discussing something they are passionate about, i find
Those three words "I forgive myself" can be very powerful and life changing.
I laugh and smile at people when I argue; specially when I start pointing out that their arguments are senseless or childish. It is amazing to see what a bunch of dumb excuses is a person able to "pull out of the hat" jut to win an argument about something trivial.
I don't like to argue and I rarely get angry. My mother says that is because I don't care about anything...