I cooked some stuffed cabbage here. My son and I both love them with sour cream. Since he is my growing teenager and can eat anything that gets into his field of vision, I warned him to leave me a couple of cabbage rolls for the evening, and looked forward to eating them after a day of work — hot cabbage rolls with cold fresh sour cream.
The son did not disappoint, left me a portion — but then I discovered that he just ate the sour cream carelessly. I was very hungry, my anger soared to critical levels — and I did not have time to notice how I already turned out to be an angry fury, accusing the frowning boy of selfishness, gluttony and indifference to the needs of others. And at that moment, I felt terribly funny.
The thing is, my favorite idea about frustration, I explain anger and guilt to my clients using sour cream as an example. Once such a metaphor came to mind — and somehow it was inconvenient to come up with another one. And I did not notice at all how life lured me into the same trap.
Frustration is a complex of experiences, that occurs when we don’t get what we want. Influenced by socially prevalent patterns of communication, we bring into our relationships a strong sense of guilt that comes out of nowhere. This is because we have not been taught to experience frustration and come out of it into a state of balance.
Anger and resentment, when something does not go the way we wanted, automatically directs us to look for the offender.
No one taught us that frustration and the resulting anger (and shame) are part of the natural process of life, not someone else’s fault or mistake. Imagine that a tired person after work comes with a dream to eat a tomato salad with sour cream. And in the shop next to her house, as luck would have it, is not. The frustrated buyer is vexed. I don’t have the strength to go far to another store. He doesn’t like mayonnaise. Life has failed.
He climbs the stairs and with each step he winds himself up. After all, if he is angry, it must be someone else’s fault! From the threshold, he begins to shout at the household — that no one in this house can take care of buying sour cream, that he works like a slave in the galleys and cannot even eat in peace. The wife is offended, barks at her son who has turned up, he is frightened by the scandal. The ball of non-existent guilt was tossed several times and went to the most disenfranchised — usually a child. At this moment, he may dream of how he will grow up and be the strongest and loudest, and then he will be angry, and the rest will obey him.
Into this creamy rageI slipped so easily because I didn’t let myself deal with the frustration in a more adult way. Anger and resentment, when something does not go the way we wanted, automatically directs us to look for the offender. Let us not get what we want, but be satisfied with at least being right. If I’m right, it’s easier for me — because if there is no one to blame around, then suddenly it’s my fault? Anger in this situation is a way to divert blame from yourself. But there was no guilt from the very beginning. It’s just that sour cream was not delivered or sold out … And if we learn to cope with annoyance in a different way: we find the strength to go to another store, kindly ask someone from our family about it, or, in the end, give up, we will see that for anger , shame and guilt in this story there is no reason.