Angry
Dealing with my aging sick parents and their dramas, intensely these two months, made me finally understand the saying of “The best way to be angry is to not be.”
Before this, I tought it was about managing my emotions better. Or about finding a better thing to say, managing my tone, curating my words and such. I thought it was about not letting my energy to be wasted by being angry.
I was partly wrong though. It is actually okay to feel angry. Sometimes, at some cases, it is even important for me to feel angry. However, just because I feel angry doesn't mean I have to be angry. It is important for me to find another way to express that anger, that could be understood by the other person as well.
So, my dad has diabet and enlarging heart problems, and he was being hospitalized again last month. Obviously, we were trying to limit his food intake and change his menu, but he is one heavy food lover, that it would take some fights just to change one menu.
The whole big family and his friends have tried to remind him. Telling him this and that, but he didn't seem to understand and didn't wanna change. Many of them even adding useless pressure by thinkinh that we, as his children, didn't do our best to take care of him.
At one point, I was so frustrated that I ask him in anger with raised tone, “Dad, are you actually planning to heal or to die? I am doing my best to make you heal and keep you alive with us, but looking at the way you act now, it seems like you are actually planning to die. If you really wanna die, I will buy the whole damn cartons of soda drinks and whole damn food you want, and you can eat them till you die. I won't stop you.”
Of course it created tensions between us and we didn't spoke for few days. I know it was kinda bold move from me, for him to take, but I also know it was necessary (I believe hurting words are still needed to create an alert in retrospective manners within ourselves). Yet, I still found that he couldn't really understand or processed it.
What he understood from that event was; – I was mad and worried about him – His eating pattern and habit was bad (not that he didn't know this from his early age, and he thought he still survive up to now, anyway) – He has to change to be healthy (but didn't really understand the why)
The next week, I came and sat with him. I was still angry, but instead of arguing, I showed him the calorie counter apps. I added all of the food that he took in a day and showed how many sugar and calories he had in a day VS how many that he was alowed to have for daily intake. I showed him the value of each food, compared to instant noodle pack, and how long he should walk to burn that calorie of one food. I also showed him what will happen within how many months should he plan to keep his current lifestyle.
Then we agreed to have blood tests in two weeks span to compare the results of every changes on his eating pattern. We will let the result to speak, instead of me and him arguing.
It turns out to work pretty well. He agreed to make some changes and he tried to limit his intake by himself. Small steps, but it is a good sign.
I learnt that it really is best to be angry without really be. Or in other words, to be angry with different and more constructive ways, without the need of explosive anger itself.
I found that expressing my anger by listing the written facts, showing the problems, and addressing the anger created by the situation or issue, works better than being angry.
I also found that showing the numbers or results from neutral third party, do much better result of changing behaviours from the other person, more than my anger does.
Me being angry only shows that I care of them, but it doesn't help them to change, doesn't help them to understand why do they have to change, let alone to be the reason of their changes. While what makes me feel angry was my frustration to the fact that they didn't change to better situations for them. So, should the thing that solve my frustration and make them change for better; is the WHY, then being angry is clearly not the answer.
I am not one of them who advocate on eliminating anger. For me, every emotion and feeling has its' own purpose, use, and place in my life. It's just I have to learn to understand each of them, to be able to use them better in my life. They made me understand myself better in many ways.
So, I still think feeling angry is important, yet I need to make sure it comes out in a constructive ways for all of the parties involved.