Righteous Anger

What do I do when someone is righteously angry with me?

Here I want to talk not about contending with someone else feeling righteous, but with my sense that anger or disappointment from another person is righteous. The way I see it, they are right to be disappointed, hurt, sad, angry or frustrated with me.

If I believe they are right to be angry with me, I can feel paralyzed even if I desire to turn toward them and make amends.

Personally, I notice myself anticipating what they might say to me, acting it out in my mind, and enflaming my own fears with it.

Personally, I've noticed that when I do finally turn toward the other person for an honest accounting, they are far kinder than my image of what they might have said to me.

Having stayed present to this trend so many times, I've chosen to shorten the gaps.

Since I know I might stage their angry tirade toward me in my mind, I might as well hear whatever it is they really have to say. On some level, I am so available to hear the anger they might direct toward me that I am literally running previews of it for myself in my own mind.

Whatever they have to say, if I believe their disappointment or anger or sadness is justified, I am liable to agree with them.

They are unlikely to say anything I don't believe is fair and true.

If I believe they are right to be angry, I have nothing to justify or explain.

When I have met a loved one in an accounting where I agree with their anger and disappointment, it has strengthened any bond worth maintaining.

And on the rare occasions I have been met with something more cruel than I imagined, I know it to be a signal of misalignment, and I am grateful for it as such. If I learn that one I love cannot find patience or understanding or compassion for my failings while I account for my failings, I lovingly redistance so that there is space in their life for someone more perfect than I know I can be. If I really love them, I want them to have beautiful experiences as much as I want beautiful experiences for myself, and wanting that means acknowledging any way I am limited in being able to provide what's beautiful to them.

I can also make an accounting where I am clear what I am accounting for and that I am unavailable for any further accounting or rebuttal. I don't want to "get out of" accounting for my own standards with the idea that they will be unkind to my accounting. I can set boundaries and uphold my standard for accounting.

When I account for my behavior, I am accounting for my upholding of my own standards, NOT for the impact on the other. In part I am accounting humbly for the way that I cannot truly account for the impact my failing has had on the other.

I can witness their pain but not feel it for them or fix it. No effort from me could be enough, even as there may be willingness for any effort. A real accounting accounts for all permanent damage and all damage which lies outside my purview. It is the accounting of a powerless witness, who also witnesses their own powerlessness.

When the other person wants the impossible, I want it right alongside them. "Make my pain stop!" they say, and I say "I would love to have such power and use it that way." For some part of me, this is always true.

The larger part of me, now, recognizes the gift that lies in wait for me, within my own disappointment, anger, judgement or blame of others. This part of me knows that this person has received a gift from me, and best of all I am there alongside them while they unwrap it, if they want me to be.

This more than anything lets shame step aside, unblocking the door to this conversation.

When someone is rightfully angry with me, I remember there are many gifts to go around, and I come to the table eagerly.