Sitting with anger and compassion

Meltdowns are inevitable. My two older daughters still get them from time to time. More recently, my eight-year-old had one. It was over a petty issue and not pretty.

Nevertheless, she was angry. What didn't help was having a slew of people around her that only made her embarrassment and frustration grow bigger. Outside comments from others rarely help. Even I, as her mother, can only offer some solace, if any.

So what does one do? As a parent? As someone witnessing their child in an uncontrollable state of sometimes 'whacky' outrage?

I started by talking to her. I failed.

I tried again. I failed again.

Finally, I had to remove her from the entire situation. She was not happy. It made her angrier!

What does a parent do, again?

Words fail us in moments like these. Words are irrelevant during these highly emotional bouts of anger, frustration and emotional exhaustion. Words do not suffice. Words are merely that, words. The feeling is what is important.

I took her to the car and we left. My husband and I let her grunt and sob her way through her anger. We asked her to breathe and try to 'collect' herself. I'm sure in her young mind she thought, "Collect myself? Clearly, you have no clue mom and dad!" 


Before going home, DH dropped me off at a frozen yogurt cafe with the younger two. He stayed in the car with Sabrina.

He's really good at talking her down from her anger most of the time. My role is more disciplinarian/authoritative since I'm the one that spends most of the time with them while DH works. This is just how the dynamics work in our home. We try to gauge our strengths with respect to balancing parenting issues. There is never an ideal situation but we do our best.

In the 10 minutes we were gone, DH did an interesting exercise with Sabrina. He guided her through sitting with her anger and owning it and deeply feeling every ounce of it. He shared this with me later.

He said to her, "Sabrina, you've very angry so I want you to say the first thing about me that comes to your mind. Anything."

Sabrina: "You are the worst daddy in the entire world! I hate you!" she yelled as she cried more.

DH: "Okay. That was good!" he responded to her.

Sabrina: "Daddy, I really didn't mean that but I do feel better." She said through teary eyes.

DH: "This is good, Sabrina. This is what you're supposed to feel. Being angry is not a bad thing. It is an emotion that you have to allow yourself to feel."

Then he proceeded with her to channel her anger with how she felt about me.

Sabrina: "But I don't want to hurt mommy's feelings. I love her but I am angry!"

DH: "This is okay. This is not bad. You're allowed to be angry at mommy. Being angry doesn't make you a bad person."

She ended up saying the same thing she had said when she used my husband as the focus, that I was the 'worst mom in the world.' Then her heart became compassionate because she became aware of herself and how she felt when she was angry.

So what was the purpose of all this?
He was teaching her the beauty of anger. Anger is not bad, it is an opportunity for compassion. Compassion is inevitably born. Compassion for herself. Compassion for others. Knowing the difference between anger and compassion was what he wanted her to feel.

Maybe you think that all this sounds lovely and easy? It is not. We all know that parenting is a challenge (if you are a parent, that is.) Melding personalities and emotions and situations are never-ending. There is always work to be done, but you knew that already.

I struggle everyday with trying to live in awareness. Trying to parent in awareness. It is a work in progress. I don't have the answers to most things. Who does?

What we all have is the way we 'feel' things. This is a moment to moment experience and we are trying to build this awareness within our children. It is very easy to get caught up in the minutiae of life, I do it all the time.

I've noticed that when I allow myself to sit with my anger, no matter how big or small it may be, I release something new about myself. I find a different perspective, meaning, experience that I can glean from. I want my children to have this experience as well. No thing is absolute or guaranteed to give you a certain outcome but in order to see the lesson in things, we must become aware and sit with whatever it is that we're experiencing.

Just as my daughter will continue to experience many meltdown moments, I will be learning something new each time she faces a challenge because this is what parenting and life is all about. Learning and becoming aware of our 'selves' because there is beauty in this.

Pain and suffering certainly sucks but somewhere between the ugliness and pain of it all, there is something to glean from it... something raw, something beautiful, something healing...