Choosing compassion over anger

Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I am a big fan of training your brain.  The more you condition and repeat a response, the more difficult it becomes to choose a different response.

A choice I think could improve most people's lives is choosing compassion over anger.

Anger is a powerful emotion.  When angry, most of us experience a surge of adrenaline, which incites our prehistoric flight or fight response.   For those who choose flight, this can lead to the end of relationships.  For those who choose fight, it can cause everlasting damage or destruction of relationships, and also physical harm.

What positive outcome is produced by anger?  Anger can fuel determination.  And if you need to make a change in your life that will take great courage and determination, anger may be the fuel you need.

But most of the time, anger is just destructive.

It fuels more anger.

And anger often fuels violence.

I'm trying to train myself to step back when my innate response is anger, and ask myself what objective am I trying to achieve.  I have used the appearance of anger to startle people, to make them think, to shake them from complacency.

So, if my objective is to shake things up, I can act in an angry fashion, but if I allow myself to do that when I really am angry, I'll be emotional instead of rational, and will likely not achieve my objective.

That is where compassion comes in.   Compassion requires that I try to see the other person's perspective, and to understand where they come from.  If I really can't understand their perspective, getting angry with them wasn't going to create common ground anyway.

But if there is common ground, and I listen with compassion, and try to understand their perspective, maybe I can find that common ground and on that common ground build a platform for dialogue and compromise.

And all without the adrenaline rush that will leave me feeling like I need to run away or fight with someone.

The option to recognize that someone is a good person with gifts to offer that you just happen to disagree with on a subject is always available.

And I will say compassion can be an isolating choice.  When someone you love disagrees with you on an emotional issue, it feels isolating and lonely.  But without the anger, there is less destruction.

It is easy to allow the pathways to anger to be strengthened.   Turn on any television or radio station, and you will find anger there.   Anger feeds more anger, angry people stir up more angry people.

You can make the decision to not choose anger.  You can make the choice to reinforce the pathways in your brain towards compassion.  It will not be easy.  It will take discipline and hard work.  You will backslide.

But if you want to live in a loving compassionate relationship, you have to be loving and compassionate.   And that is where it all starts.   Each loving and compassionate relationship adds to the love and compassion in the world.  One by one, day by day, we can make the world a better place.

But first, we have to start choosing compassion over anger.