​Why do we become more angry with our family members than with our colleagues?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
How can we control anger at home? See, there are certain situations in which we let our guard down. At home, this is my home, it’s comfortable. So whereas when we are in office or with other people, we are little bit on guard.
So because we are on guard, we may restrain our emotions more vigorously. Whereas when we are with people who are very familiar to us, we may not restrain ourselves so strongly. Now, there are two aspects to it.
There are some places where we do need emotional release. We cannot stay suppressing our emotions all the time. There are some places where emotions do need vent.
If we are worried, instead of in front of our colleagues, in front of our other people, we may not show the worry. But we may go home and talk with our spouse. There are some places where we do not need emotional venting.
So in principle, expressing our emotions is more natural at home. But then we have to know that our emotions, whenever we form a relationship, it’s not just about me. It’s also about the other person.
So yes, I get angry and I need some emotional release. But then what is the effect of that on others? I have to think of it from their perspective also. Therefore, normally we think of two ways of dealing with emotions.
Either I express them or I repress them. And if I express the anger, it hurts others. If I repress them, I feel choked.
And eventually again I express it in an ugly way later. So we need to go beyond these two options of express and repress to process. We need to process our emotions.
Process our emotions means that we look at what is it that makes us angry. Not just that particular incident but we look at the overall pattern. What are the circumstances when I get angry? And try to anticipate that.
Just like if we are going on a road and I know there is a pothole here. Anticipate that and I go slowly or I go around the way. So like that we should also be able to anticipate.
We may not be able to anticipate every situation but overall we can discern the patterns or situations in which we get worked up. And then when we start feeling that pressure increasing, that we feel I am going to explode now, then we need to take some emergency action. Maybe just walk out of the room or give me some time for myself.
And we find out a way to process our emotions. What is it that makes me angry? And then I try to analyze and think. Rather than expressing it, this is what has made me angry.
And this is how I can deal with it. If I do this then things can become calmer. If I express myself then things can become calmer.
So we can rather than seeing our other family members as the causes of that anger, we can see them also as partners in fighting with that anger. That means when certain situations start making us angry, we can tell them this is just making me too worked up. Can we talk about this later? And if at another time we have made the frames of the discussion clear enough, then they will also accept it.
Everybody needs their space. So at this point I won’t talk about this. Let’s talk about this later.
And then afterwards you can process it. One way to vent the anger is in a healthy way is to just write down. I am feeling so angry about this.
Or just speak it out. Not in front of the person, just yourself when you are alone. And then when you calm down you look at it.
This was a reasonable point. This is not a reasonable point. I am just being too judgmental here.
And that way afterwards in a more measured way, we can express the underlying emotion. So rather than getting worked up about it, we express it in a more measured way.