On Anger

This morning, my husband got a call from someone in his Madurai office, which made him retort in extreme anger. His voice became louder, his tone increased in harshness and he was simply screaming over the phone at the other person.

At the same time, while I was busy with my household chores, Raghav was talking to me about his explorations and adventures in Minecraft from yesterday. I was trying hard to concentrate and listen fully to him talking, but I couldn't. My husband's screaming was the only thing resonating inside and everything else seemed to simply shut down. So I told Raghav how I was feeling and asked him to wait until his father calmed down to continue his conversation. This happened a couple of times. The last time, he got a little irritated as he desperately wanted to finish sharing what he was thinking about.

Then, he went to the dining table, took out a pen and a piece of paper and wrote out something that he went and gave to his dad. A little later, my husband's voice softened and he stopped screaming. Later, when I asked Raghav what he had given his dad, he brought out the piece of paper and showed it to me....

 

And then we spoke some more...

Me: What do you think we can do when we feel so much anger?

R: I don't know. But maybe not show it out like this.....because when you get angry and scream, the other person gets angry, and then you get a little more angry, and the other person gets a little more angry, and then it never stops.

Profound but simple words that tell me how much he has observed and thought about without maybe even being conscious about it. Or maybe he already knows. I don't know. And I also know how tough it is for him to remember this when he himself gets angry :) But I quietly told myself that I could use this to remind him :)

But this is a huge learning for me about anger, how to deal with it, and about my son. The fact that he could see the 'pattern' that we get into because of anger, the fact that he chose a beautiful, non-intrusive way to tell his dad what he felt by writing it out instead of telling him orally, the fact that he actually wrote it all out (because writing is something he doesn't care about at all) are all beautiful things that I would love to stay with today. I love these little gifts that Life brings me day after every wonderful day!