Dialogic Magazine

By: Haven Tobias On: November 24, 2010

We need a community dialogue about the anger that impacts our political parties, our schools, our churches and our airways, giving rise to loud and uncivil exchanges in private and public venues.  There is anger on our roads, anger in our malls, and anger pretty much constantly on TV.

A lot of folks seem to agree there is too much anger today.  Most people seem to be aware that anger rarely accomplishes anything but breeding more anger. And many people know that when they have been angry, they’ve usually said or done something they wish they hadn’t said or done.  But a lot of people don’t seem to know what to do about it.  Let the dialogue begin.

I can only offer myself as one small, and sometimes faltering, example.  If I have my TV  or my radio on, and suddenly there is some talking head using angry words, being spiteful, and usually saying something that is factually questionable (anger and not telling the truth go hand in hand), I turn it off.  I don’t need to react.  In fact, I don’t even need to respond.  For sure, I don’t need to respond out of anger.

If I am conversing with someone, and he or she says something in anger that is unkind and unfair (anger is almost always both unkind and unfair), I have a number of options open to me other than just reacting.  The most important of these is the option to remain silent.

If I just breathe a couple of breaths, in silence, then what I will finally say will be a lot better than what I would have hauled off and said.  I can stop and think about where this person is coming from.  Often anger comes from fear and egotism.  It may even come to pass that some compassion for this other person will well up. I can think of what anger would do to me.  It would speed up my breathing, it would tighten up my muscles, and make my heart race.  Who needs it – much better to keep my breathing even, my muscles relaxed, and my heart open.  So, those few breaths have allowed compassion and releasing to at least temper anger.

I certainly have never come up with the “bon mot” when I fire from the hip.  I would have been better off just taking a hike.  In fact, that’s a great idea.  A nice walk has always been way more useful to me than any clever thing I think I woulda/coulda/shoulda said.  The wonderful thing about silence and walking is that besides being therapeutic, they are also free.   What a deal!

After the anger passes (and it will) I can communicate in a more positive, civil way.  If you agree that positive, civil communication is what we need more of and what we want more of, please write a letter too, or start a discussion in your family, your church, your organizations.  The dialogue begins with us.

Tags: dialogue, society and culture

Haven Tobias

Haven was born in Chicago and lived there sixteen years; she moved to Albuquerque and lived there the next ten years; then she moved to Norman and has been here, for the most part, ever since. Haven has been a mother for 38 years and a lawyer for 35. Haven was raised with a Methodist minister grandfather on her father’s side and a Christian Scientist grandmother on her mother’s yawing for custody. At the age of 28, she converted to Judaism. A decade ago Haven discovered meditation, and is a daily practitioner and a student of Buddhism.