It’s Okay to be Angry
This is a note entirely to myself:
Anger, like all other emotions, are not good or bad in themselves. They all serve a purpose and are signalling something to you.
I hate anger. I’m not exactly sure why or how or when it started. Don’t feel free to speculate.
So when I do feel anger, I keep quiet. I remember my Prophet’s teaching to literally “La taghdab” “Do not get angry, do not get angry, do not get angry” and to take wudhu when mad and I particularly try very hard not to talk when mad. I might write it down, I might go rant to someone else about it, but never to the person I’m angry with, not at the moment. Because I know people say things in anger that they’ll regret forever and I’m sure I’ve done it before so I don’t do that again.
I then wait, 24 hours, 3 days, a week, and when I no longer feel the anger in me, I ask to chat. I know anger can fester and it has and it’s never useful or healthy by then so I always ask to speak about it.
By then, I’m calm. My forehead is not all scrunched up in the middle, my words don’t rush out like a machine gun, I can breathe and sit and smile even. I like it this way. I think it’s mature and I feel more in control, I can get straight to the crux of the matter without bringing in the past, or raising voices (I can be rude and curt, but I’m not the shouting-type) or any sort of the drama anger is usually associated with. I really like it this way.
Except it seems to never work for me in my closest relationships. By the time I’m calm, when I say “this makes me angry”, I’m not being taken seriously. “How could she be angry when she’s not a raging tornado?” WELL BECAUSE I SPENT THE PAST 3 DAYS DEALING WITH THE INTERNAL RAGING TORNADO SO THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO!
I’m still learning about boundaries and setting them and enforcing them. It takes time and practice and boy, it’s hard.
Earlier for dinner, I had to say “No” 5 times before the waiter stopped asking me to order some new fancy gula melaka drink they had. It was a variation of “No, don’t want lah”, “No, I don’t like sweet drinks”, “No”, “No”, “No I want this one” and writing it down on the order chit myself instead.
After he walked off, I had this uncomfortable ball of anger in the pit of my stomach. What is it about men who can’t take no for an answer? But I also felt bad. Every single worker in the restaurant weren’t local. (And when I say this, I mean they were from a really poor country nearby.)
I know he was probably upselling because he needed to because of commission or whatever capitalistic nonsense, but still. Why can’t people just take my word for it the first time I said it?
Nagging is stupid. Shouting in anger is nonsense. And I don’t ever want to do it even if it may be effective for some people. Because that’s not the kind of people I want to be dealing with in the long run, and most especially not in my closest relationships.
