When faced with an angry person we want to know
How to calm someone down
Anger ruffles our feathers – and makes us want to become angry too.
I remember times during childhood when I was trying to express my feelings over some hurt and I would begin to say what I felt in a haphazard kind of way with emotion and tears mixed in with words, all I wanted was acknowledgement of my pain. Not necessarily that someone agree with me or take my side or fix the problem. When I tried to express myself the response was not the desired one, usually it was some form of sentiment like “you have a much better childhood than I did so be thankful” or a resentment because the person receiving my words was not emotionally mature enough to understand my feelings as they were already in so much inner pain.
In frustration and anger I would scream “you aren’t hearing me.” See it wasn’t that my words weren’t heard but that the meaning behind them was mistaken. I wanted to be recognized as an individual with feeling and emotions that though maybe misguided and immature had a right to be heard.
We all have painful situations, people reacting and interacting. Sometimes we listen to their words but overlook the cry of their heart.
When someone is angry, when they misinterpret what we say or do, we could humbly say “I’m sorry I hurt you, what have I done that made you feel that way. This is better than feeling offended that our perhaps good intentions were misunderstood
You see we can’t argue with how someone feels. God created us all with different personalities, different pasts and a different response in any given situations. Think about two people sitting at
We can’t change how a circumstance or someone else’s words make us feel but we can extend grace to not take offense.
When someone is hurt the emotion that is evidenced first is anger.
Often we don’t see past the anger. But only think ‘this person is angry and anger is a sin’ but instead we should be asking ‘why are they angry’? Anger could be for selfish reasons but anger is also a mechanism of self defense . It is the alarm going off that alerts us to inner pain . Like the fire alarm that goes off when heat reaches the smoke detector. The problem is that many are too emotionally scarred to even know why they are angry.
Frequently when someone is angry, they want to be heard. They want someone to understand that for whatever reason they are experiencing pain. People are hurt from words, grief from a loss, insecurity because of impending change, feeling of worthlessness because of an opinion that they voiced that wasn’t considered.
When a friend or family member is angry can you stop long enough to ask, “Why are you angry?” And listen to their response.
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