Staying Cool: Understanding Anger vs. Frustration Part 2

My current newspaper column

 

By now you’ve heard of Steven Slater, the former JetBlue flight attendant who has become a folk hero of sorts. Several weeks ago Slater quit his job which is nothing unique or noteworthy, but how he did it has garnered plenty of attention.  The irritated flight attendant used the cabin intercom to cuss out a rude passenger before grabbing a few beers from the beverage cart and exiting via the plane’s inflatable emergency chute.  If that were just a scene in film I’d laugh and cheer the guy, but it wasn’t an actor and the plane was real as were the greatly inconvenienced passengers.

A part of us can identify with a worker who is “fed up” and in some ways we admire the courage of one who throws caution to the wind and walks off the job with a variation of “Take This Job and Shove It” on his lips.  How many times would we have liked to or wish we could now? But as Shumley Boteach wrote in WashingtonPost.com, “When did we elevate whiny brats to hero status? While the nation fawns over this ill-tempered quitter, hundreds of thousands of young Americans are putting their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan, enduring pressures that a spoiled child like Slater can scarcely comprehend. Where are their fans? What does it really say about American culture that we worship those who crack under pressure more than those who handle it with courage and strength?”

In my last column I offered the following distinction between frustration and anger. Frustration is the response to a blocked goal or desire.  Anger is the response to a perceived injustice or wrong. Anger in itself is not a sin.  The Apostle Paul said, “Be angry and sin not…”   How do we do that? 

I have found the Anger Ladder in the writing of Dr. Ross Campbell to be helpful. It was originally published in his book How to Really Love Your Teenager but it speaks to the healthy/productive vs. unhealthy/destructive expressions of anger at any age.  I commend it to you for your reading and consideration.

If I may I’d like to just point out a few tendencies that I see in many couples that actually escalate the anger and makes for very ineffective conflict resolution.

 

1. CONSTANT INTERRUPTION:  No can finish a thought or sentence for being cut off, refuted, challenged, or corrected.   Try listening and seeking to understand for a wild change of pace.
2. SARCASM:  This is a favorite of many because sarcasm allows us to get in a jab while also being clever.   “I’m thinking of buying a king-sized bed because your mother is here so often I think it’s just a matter of time before she’s sleeping with us.”
3. NAME-CALLING and LABELING:    This is when we use high-powered nouns in name-calling ( You _________, or You’re such a __________ .) and adjectives in labeling ( You’re so ___________ .)
4. YELLING:  I’ve found we yell for one or more of the following reasons:  A. We feel we have to yell in order to be noticed or taken seriously.  B. We don’t feel our feelings or position is being respected.  C. We are seeking to overpower the other person’s position with volume or venom. I say to couples, “There's no need to yell unless one of you or the house is on fire.”
5. CUSSING: Where yelling and name-calling meet in a bad part of town.

There are a number of ways we respond when we are angry, primarily in the reflexive ways which come most naturally to us. But hear me clearly: your relationship cannot afford for you simply to do what comes naturally to you.  If you and I simply do what comes naturally to us in our relationships we will do damage. Almost all relational growth means doing something that feels unnatural, especially at first.

-- rLp --

Comments

[Genevieve Jones]

After 16 years of marriage I have learned there is one rule that must not be broken; no name calling. Comparing your mate to something vulgar or repulsive is the same as wielding a weapon of destruction. By breaking this rule, you will break the heart and soul of the one you promised to love. Once their heart is broken, it will be as if Humpty Dumpty had fallen again, because all of the King's Horses and all the King's Men will be unable to put your marriage back together again!