Amrita was upset that Amit didn't come home early as he has promised. When he came back, instead of the usual dinner, he was welcomed with silence at home. All throughout the dinner, Amrita used only two words to respond to Amit - hmm...and no. Amit was left worrying about what went wrong.
Shoeb is a good performer at work. But lately, his boss has started burdening him with a lot of work. He feels helpless and therefore does not deliver his work on time.
Have there been times, when you are caught up in situations like Amit?
Have there been times, when you had behaved like Amrita or Shoeb?
If so, perhaps you would like to read further.
Research suggests that anger is seldom the primary emotion of a person. It is mostly a way of expressing one's feelings of hurt, helplessness, dejection, irritation, feeling taken for granted, neglect and sometimes confusion. Since anger is a way one tends to manifest their primary emotions, people do have various ways they express it. One such way is passive aggression.
Passive aggression is when a person resorts to bottling up their feelings, gives angry looks, makes obvious changes in behaviour, dwells in self pity, sulks or gives another individual the ‘silent treatment', rather than directly expressing their feelings.
Just like Amrita or Shoeb, many believe that passive aggression is a constructive way of dealing with the situation. After all, they are not being overtly angry with anyone, nor are they harming anyone or calling them names. How could that even qualify as aggression?
But contrary to the popular belief that anger is manifested through shouts, fights, verbal or physical threatening, research confirms that passive aggression is found to have the same impact on the person on the receiving end. The repeated use of passive aggression in any relationship could be detrimental to communication in the relationship...so much so that it could lead to a cycle of emotional abuse. In such cycle, the aggressor could be angry and might behave passively. The receiver might be confused about the aggressor's emotion. This ignorance might lead to more aggression in the aggressor.
The question is "how is someone supposed to handle such situations?" The answer lies in assertiveness. The art of assertiveness equips a person to talk about their feelings without getting into the cycle of emotional abuse, whether in personal relationships or at work.
The following are some tips to practice assertiveness:
Use feeling words
Instead of silent treatments, talk about your feelings. This might save the other person from the confusion as well as might resolve the conflict much sooner.
Use I-statements
Instead of bottling up your grievances against the other person's behaviour, talk about how you felt in a non-blaming way. This means not accusing or using criticism, but simply sharing your feelings about their behaviour/actions. E.g. I felt hurt when you did not call me back. (As opposed to, "What happened? You were too busy to bother about me?")
Set boundaries/expectations with clarity
You can take smaller steps to learn to be assertive. Putting boundaries for yourself to know how much somebody could ask you to do for them without hurting you could be a small start. In relationships, a small assertive step could be to put down your expectations with more clarity.
For example, Amrita could have said "I am feeling hurt as I thought we would have dinner together tonight."
Try to let go of the guilt
For many people, the guilt of saying no could be immense. Let go of the guilt. Think over the situation again. For example, someone has asked me to drop them somewhere but I really don't have the time. I feel guilty saying no but if I say yes, my own deadline will suffer.
Doing a pros and cons analysis of the situation could lead you out of the guilt trap.
Practise
Assertiveness is a strategy that can be learned and strengthened through practice. So practise as much as you can.
If you would like to discuss this further or need some help or support in this or any other area, our counsellors would be happy to help.
If you would like to discuss this further or need some help or support in this or any other area, our counsellors would be happy to help.
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