What's the lure of passive aggressive
behavior?
Why would anyone be tempted to act out
their anger in this distorted fashion?
And even more importantly, what's the
cost to the actor?
We know how annoying it is to be on
the receiving end of these sneaky anger attacks, but we usually don't stop to
think about how doing this negatively impacts the passive aggressive person.
Two really self destructive consequences
come with passive aggressive behavior:
First, by dealing with anger
indirectly, the passive aggressive person never gets to check it out - to find
out if their assumptions about their grievances are correct.
Secondly, and this one is really unfortunate,
when anger is dealt with passive aggressively, it never really gets totally
finished!
DANCE WITH IT! EXPERIENTIAL APPS
An opportunity to
experiment with some fun
ideas...
Q. AND A. ABOUT ANGER AND 'P-A' BEHAVIOR
What causes anger?
Obvious answer: Something uninvited invades our personal space either physically or
emotionally.
What is a healthy response
to feeling angry?
'Check it out before you shout!' Make sure that your perception of the
situation fits the facts. Something obviously
didn't feel good, but sometimes we can be mistaken about the other person's
intent - and of course, sometimes we are right on!
Once you are sure of the 'facts' anger needs to
be released. This does not mean dumping
on another person! Sometimes we can work
it through without even talking to the person who made us angry. We can talk to others about it, we can have
imaginary conversations, we can release it creatively with physical activity. And finally, of course, we can have a constructive conversation with the
person we are angry with.
You know you are done with the angry feeling if
you laugh or take a deep sigh or relief!
How does direct anger get
distorted into passive aggressive behavior?
When we deal with anger passive aggressively, we
make excuses to hurt the other by using our 'weaknesses' as the reason for letting
them down. We hide behind the shield of
our own problems as a way to indirectly attack and hurt the other person.
Why should we work through
our anger?
Working through anger means that it is no
longer an active problem. Holding onto
anger increases our own suffering. Old
anger is a burden that smolders and adds weight to our lives!
And check out our down-loadable relaxation
mini-meditations at
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