Who are you really mad at?

It’s interesting the way pain works. Sometimes the thing that hurts isn’t where the problem actually lies. For example, you can have something wrong with your spine, which actually causes an ache in your elbow, or a weird feeling in your fingers.

Heartache works in a very similar way. You can be very upset with your spouse one day, but for some reason you end up hating your hair at that moment and chopping it all off. Or you might lose your temper with the clumsy check-out girl taking an hour to bag the groceries for the dinner that’s supposed to be ready in 20 minutes goddammit.

For millions of different reasons, we often transfer our anger and hurt away from the true cause to something else. Or someone else. And it always seems to increase in intensity during the exchange.

For example, you finally realize the guy you thought was perfect for you is in fact a complete scumbag. Naturally, you hate him. Hate him hate him hate him.

And you ARE justified of course. But the thing is, he’s out of your life (finally). You’re done with him! You can move on! He is no longer tormenting you.

Ah, but yes he is, because you’re spending all that time being angry. Every time your blood pressure rises when you think of him, or you mentally rehearse what you want to say to him, or you have an angry conversation with him, he is tormenting you.

So I have to ask, are you really mad at him?

Or are you really mad at yourself?

Sure he is a jerk. But who’s the one who fell for it in the first place? Who’s the one who gave so much love in return? Who wasted all those years hoping and believing it would all work out?

Listen, I’m not beating you up. I’m beating ME up! I do this exact thing! I get so mad at someone for doing this or that until I realize I’m actually mad at myself for letting it get to me. Or mad at myself for allowing it to happen.

Someone once told me we hate people who have qualities we hate in ourselves. I’ve never been able to see that one. Although I know I dislike people who have qualities I NEVER want to have. But I know I dislike people who make ME feel uncomfortable. I don’t like them because they push my buttons.

But here’s the thing – I let them push ‘em.  Here’s an example of button pushing. There are a billion people in the world and they can all comment on my hair and I wouldn’t give a flying cluck. But there are two 81-year-olds with absolutely no experience in hair design who happen to be my parents who now believe my hair “does absolutely nothing for me” and that they are the only ones in the world who would tell me the truth. So although I will try to convince you I’m beyond the button-pushing stage, I’m writing about this little incident two weeks after it happened. Having said that, I have not changed my hair. And of course I’m angry. Angry that I’m still angry. Angry that after all these years I still actually absorb those little comments and process them.

I’m not angry at them. My life is really my life now. And they are who they are – and they’re not gonna change, that’s for sure.

I learned many years ago you cannot change the way people react to you. But you CAN change the way you react to them.

That is the key. If you are continually angry at someone or some thing way after the fact, my guess is a. you’re holding onto that anger because it’s an excuse to not confront the real issue or move on, and b. the real person you’re mad at may be the one you see in the mirror.

Just don’t get mad at me for bringing it up.