How to deal with anger when others hurt us?

Answer Podcast:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
the anger and resentment that comes when people hurt us when we ourselves do something which hurts us, we can correct that, when nature natural elements cause problems, we know we have no control, but with people it’s a more frustrating situation, yeah there are two main things to this, one is the the expectations that we have from others that quite often every relationship there are certain expectations on which the relationship is founded, and when people don’t live up to those expectations, that causes frustration sometimes people may be insensitive and unresponsive or they may be outright hurtful, whatever way it is, now frustration is usually a function of expectation that means if I go to someone and expect a pat, and that person gives me a slap, that is going to cause greater pain than if I go there knowing that this person is my enemy and is going to slap me because there is no expectation at that time of a pat so usually when we have two kinds of relationships one is a horizontal relationship with others in this world, and the other is a vertical relationship with God so in a materialistic society we have only horizontal relationships and we as eternal spiritual beings need a vertical relationship with God and that is the relationship which will give us lasting satisfaction that is the relationship wherein we will find real shelter but when we don’t have the vertical relationship then that same satisfaction and shelter which we could have got in the vertical relationship we start expecting it in a horizontal relationship so we start expecting from people what we can get only from God and no one can actually take that place so when we have only horizontal relationships, when we don’t have vertical relationships we set ourselves up for frustration because we go into that relationship with unrealistic expectations we may not even voice those expectations but we the heart longs for the lasting connection fulfillment that can come only in a relationship with God, that does not mean the horizontal relationships are unimportant but the simple point is the horizontal relationships cannot substitute for the vertical relationship and if we have that expectation then we set ourselves up for frustration so if we have the security of a vertical relationship with God through prayer, through meditation, through study of scripture we are connected with God we experience shelter in our connection with God then we are not so shaken when our horizontal relationships disappoint us because it is the nature of human nature to commit mistakes so we may not others may hurt us and we may think that I would never have spoken like this, I would never have done like that but the fact is we are also imperfect in some way or the other so we will also be hurting others sooner or later in some way, we may try to minimize it but the fact is none of us is perfect so we will all hurt each other some people may hurt others more than more one way than the other way but still we are not perfect we are all finite so the way to stable horizontal relationships is to have a strong vertical relationship because then the horizontal relationship is not entered into with unrealistic expectations then within that there are specific relationships in which some people if they hurt us then basically we have to we have to do the needful first to protect ourselves now protecting ourselves can mean that we create a safe distance between the relationship or we communicate so that there is an understanding that this was hurting and this should not have been done or this should not at least be repeated or sometimes some people are just so so indifferent so insensitive they don’t care that they hurt others so each situation will be different and how we respond will vary but the whole point is if say someone has hit me I went with expecting a pat and I got a slap I can still feel the sting of the slap on my face and if at that time I go and start scratching my face over there I am worsening the wound so at least by understanding this point that by resenting that person and by trying to by cultivating revenge fantasy of that person I am worsening my situation that does not mean that that person should, if that person has done something wrong, it’s not that that person should be indiscriminately allowed to let go some corrective action will be required I’ll come to that part later but the point is the desire to hurt others hurts us more than what it hurts others and we are angry with them because they have hurt us so what we are doing indirectly is we are hurting ourselves more by the desire to hurt them we are hurting ourselves more so if you understand this point because we create negative emotions within ourselves and that hurts us so at least we try to put aside the negative emotions and there may be different ways to do that quite often if we have a trustworthy friend who can open our heart unburden ourselves that helps in getting free from that resentment or otherwise journaling wherein we express our feelings sometimes there are certain feelings within us which need to be expressed but expressing them to others may not be appropriate because initially when the feelings are very fierce if we speak them we may not speak them in a sensitive or mature way and we may end up worsening the problem so just expunting out the feelings in a journal and letting the passion cool down that also helps so then afterwards when the emotion has been vented out and the pressure is no longer there, at least not to that magnitude then we can think calmly and decide what needs to be done and in that there are two aspects, I have a whole seminar on forgiveness I’ll talk about, I can’t go into that but two points I’ll say that forgiveness and trust are not the same thing forgiveness, sometimes when we think that somebody has hurt me, how can I just let that person go like that, they will come and hurt me again so forgiveness is for the past trust is for the future that means if somebody has hurt us we can forgive them, in the sense that okay, they did that I won’t hold it against them, I won’t hold a grudge I won’t hold a revenge fantasy but if somebody has hurt us then we can’t trust them again forgiveness can be given but trust has to be earned so forgiveness means whatever wrong has been done in the past we don’t mentally stew on it we don’t cultivate revenge fantasies but we can’t again foolishly give people the power to hurt us so if they want a proximity in a relationship they have to earn that trust so forgiveness actually frees us from the mental burden of holding on to the revenge fantasy but trust is something which you cannot give freely so we may have to if somebody has hurt us, we can create a safe distance with that relationship by which they don’t have the power to hurt us again so if we see in the okay, I’ll just repeat in the in the Bhagavatam which describes the story of Krishna there there is this whole incident of how there was a tyrant who was trying to kill Krishna and circumstances were such that Krishna, before he was born this tyrant Kamsa he extorted a promise from his father that he will give all his sons so the point is, it’s an elaborate story but Kamsa Kamsa was the villain and Krishna’s father was Vasudev okay, many of you may not be knowing this story, let me not go into this story I’ll just stick to the principle here the principle is that, you know, we cannot we may forgive someone for past wrongdoing but we cannot uncritically trust them so understanding this difference it is forgiving and trusting sometimes we equate the two and equating the two can be injurious trusting a person trusting a person means that we give them power again to hurt us forgiving means we stop unwittingly giving the power giving the past hurt the power to keep hurting us so the security of the vertical relationship and understanding that we don’t have to compound the hurt that we have gotten in the past and that’s why learning to forgive and then taking corrective action that is appropriate so if we don’t we basically have three options if that person is repentant for what they have done then we forgive and forget and gradually the relationship will come back to its earlier level of proximity or intimacy other cases a person may have to earn their trust and then if they gradually change and behave responsibly, sensitively they may earn their trust in some cases some people may encourage it and that time the trust just cannot be earned then there has to be a distance in the relationship by which they don’t get the power to hurt so specifically how we respond to a situation will vary and if we usually when we are agitated by the way someone has behaved just keep thinking about it thinking about it we only make ourselves more miserable by that but if at that time if we seek shelter in God seek shelter in our vertical relationship in prayer, in meditation that calms us down and then how can we best respond to that situation in the relationship