Transforming Aggression into Compassion

Transforming Aggression into Compassion –  Vinegar into Honey

These days, our senses are bombarded with aggression. We are constantly confronted with global images of unending, escalating war and violence. In our personal lives, we encounter angry people cursing into cell phones, watch TV talk shows where guests and audiences intimidate each other verbally and sometimes physically, or attend public meetings that disintegrate into shouting matches. Parents scream from the sidelines of their children's sports events: "Get aggressive!"Employees are rewarded for aggressive timelines and plans. Dictionaries define aggressive action as hostile, but also positively as assertive, bold, and enterprising. Aggression destroys relationships. People believe that in order to survive, they must combat the opposition. Fear and anger destroy hope for healthy communities, work groups, families, and organizations. Relationships fracture, distrust increases, people retreat into self-defense and isolation, as a result paranoia becomes commonplace.

For eons, humans have struggled to find non destructive ways of living together. Today, if we are to resolve the serious problems that afflict and impede us, we must find the means to work and live together with less aggression. To step aside from aggressive responses to problem solving requires a little-used skill: humility.

Humility is a brave act--we have to admit that we don't have the answer. We need more information, more insight.
One wise educator put it this way: "Humility is admitting that I don't know the whole story.

Compassion is recognizing that you don't know it either."Hopefully, humility leads us out of our bunkers to open ground, where we step away from the rigidity of our positions and become a bit curious. We need to be open to the possibility that even strangers have information and perspectives that may be of value to us.

And in the following social awareness programme we will try to throw some light on how exactly can we put in some effort to transform our own aggression into compassion for starters:

1. Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and understanding their point of view and their reason behind such reaction. Eg: They must be in pain or hurt when they are behaving nasty.

2. Putting a cooling time between anger and reaction. Eg: Counting 1-10 helps a lot of people. This helps people realize the consequences of their actions and not get angry.

3. Thinking of some happy memories that will distract you which will again help in controlling or cooling down your anger.