Mirroring lesson about irritation and anger.

Again a beautiful insight I got during a teaching and would like to share.

For me it was a kind of mirror lesson in relation to irritation and anger. Not, one, two, three, so easy to achieve but perhaps a first step in a different direction.

Buddhism calls it the art of looking deeply.

The instruction we got was to find the question you should ask when you're irritated or even angry by someone or something. So you take some time to think this over and all kind of remembrances pass in yourself. And actually that already is a first recognition. Being angry always has to do with something in the past that already happened. Even though it is a plan which has been expressed.

After some time we discovered the question to ask was not, “What’s wrong with this person?”, but “What does this irritation or anger tell me about myself?”.

The cause of your irritation and anger is not in the other person or situation but only in you.

Why?

The first very real possibility, mirror, why this person’s or situation ‘defects’ annoy you is that you have them yourself. But you have repressed them and so are projecting them unconsciously into the other.

Isn’t it surprising that, let’s say the behavior, is irritating you while someone else  in your place would be exposed to this behavior and would experience no irritation at all?

Not many people recognize it at first glance, but it is almost always true. If you take some time to look more deeply and reflect, you might do pretty valuable personal discoveries about and into yourself.

The second mirroring/reflection that you might experience is that the anger or irritation are pointing out at something in your life that, so far, you refuse to see. Now it starts resonating. It has not been revealed, you might say. It is often (still) immobile and you have no alternatives for yourself to look at it differently.

The third mirror that your anger and irritation is caused is because, for example, the behavior or reaction shown does not match by how you would react, or with your expectations. All this is related to how you are programmed. The mirror shows you a way of behavior or response that is different from how you would tackle things.

Irritation is clouding your perception and therefore makes your action/reaction also much less effective. It distracts. Is not it strange to demand that someone else live up to standards and norms that among others your parents programmed into you?

And a final mirror to consider is; Do you believe the other person has the intention to shock you with his or her behavior. You do not - or insufficiently – know the background and experiences of the person that irritates you or makes you angry. Maybe you can see it this way that he/she cannot help behaving the way he/she does. If you really understood this person you would see him/her at a certain point crippled and not blameworthy. Someone just like you and me who also still has to learn a lot.

Irritation and anger, we can learn something from it.

Frans Captijn
Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight

Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow in life and work. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or an organization.” 

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com