I didn’t murder anyone last night. I do admit to having murderous fantasies, though. More realistically (given that I’m a wouldn’t-hurt-a-flea, can’t-stand-the-sight-of-blood person), I had fantasies of a devastating laser-focused attack email that would draw blood. I’ve always taken pride in my rapier skills with words.
But I didn’t do it. This is why.
I head up a group of Democratic women in a very red county who meet monthly. In my role as chair, I keep a tight rein on the membership list to avoid internet trolls, who are active and numerous. For that reason I never give out the location of our meetings ahead of time, and our Facebook group is private.
One month, one of the members—I’ll call her Harriet—decided we could benefit from an increase in membership. While I admit this is always a great idea, she also decided, without my input, to invite several new people to our next meeting and, in doing so, gave them the details of when and where we were convening. Giving out our location without vetting is risky.
The result—good and bad—was a doubling of the planned attendance. Good, because it was great to have so many like-minded women coming together. Bad, because we weren’t prepared for such an increase in attendance and the new members hadn’t been screened.
The situation left me fit to be tied. My initial impulse was to unleash a scathing email to Harriet, but I stopped myself.
Maybe sending an email while I’m so angry is unwise, I told myself. I heard Jean Latting’s voice in my head: What results will you get if you send her that email? What results do you want to get?
Well, my outbursts in the past have often caused grief, I admitted to the Jean in my head, which usually accelerates the conflict. I think I’ve finally realized how catering to my emotions without considering other perspectives is a fast track to further conflict. Since this is a completely volunteer organization and the cause is so important, I’d like to avoid that if I can.
What might you do instead? my imaginary Jean asked.
In my work as content editor for Leading Consciously, I’ve seen you repeatedly describe the skills of clearing emotions and testing assumptions in the blogs and other materials, I replied. I understand the skills intellectually but have always been skeptical of my ability to actually use them.
Maybe I’ll try some of them to do some emotional clearing . . . even though it seems daunting.
And it was daunting. I felt entirely justified in my outrage and wanted to sound off. It was easy to believe in the virtue of my anger. In truth, I was attached to my emotions and my sense of righteousness. I also knew from my social work training that trying to simply replace strong negative emotions with calm ones often leaves an emotional hole.
Clearing my anger was more difficult than I expected, however . . . like being told not to scratch a mosquito bite. I wanted to respond right now! I wanted my resentment to dissipate immediately.
Instead, I remembered what I had read and been told: I waited. Something would come to me if I held off. I decided to concentrate not on Harriet’s personality—which grated on me—but instead on what she was trying to do.
I was quite sure that she didn’t say to herself, Oh, I think I’ll be annoying and violate Carole’s norms. More likely she was thinking, What can I do to boost membership?
Engaging in a little introspection, I asked myself, Why are my rules inviolable? Have I ever shared them? If we are big ‘D’ Democrats in a small ‘d’ democracy, where do I get the authority to demand total obedience?
This led me to think about what I wanted to achieve personally and through the group, rather than continuing to center attention on my grievance. I recognized that I needed to shift from “What do I want to do in the heat of the moment?” to “What is it I wish to accomplish?” It took a while, but contemplating that last question yielded several answers:
In looking at this list, it became clear that I needed to accept the situation gracefully and let go of my outrage before responding to Harriet. And accepting the situation, thinking about it from a different perspective, did help me clear my anger. I knew that remaining furious would not serve me well.
With this new understanding, I wrote Harriet a calm and reasonable email:
I appreciate your enthusiasm for increasing our membership and attendance at the next meeting. I do wish you would have consulted with me before issuing the invitations, however. My major concern is the need to keep a tight leash on membership, attendance, and information about our meetings. So far, we have avoided protests or other public displays in reaction to our political beliefs in a county where the majority doesn’t share our views. I’d like that to continue. A secondary concern is the stress caused by the ballooning size of the guest list and having to scramble to accommodate additional people at the last minute.
Harriet responded to my second concern, What can I do to help handle the larger attendance?
I appreciate your offer of assistance, I wrote back, but I think the hostess and I now have it under control. We’ll be sure to let you know if we need anything.
I also made a mental note to myself to start an online discussion with the membership about what might be a good process and a good set of rules for inviting new members going forward.
In retrospect, I realized I had unknowingly followed the ABCDE model developed by Martin Seligman:1
My understanding of what Seligman is advising (I’m not an expert here) is that we falsely think consequences flow from the facts of a situation, when often the outcomes are a result of our beliefs about a situation—which may or may not be accurate. Rather than arguing about the situation, thinking it through from alternate perspectives might allow us to discover the core of the problem and to consider other points of view. This, in turn, allows us to redirect our thoughts in a more positive direction. As a result, we are energized and centered.
I certainly found this to be the case: when my anger dissipated, the world felt a little emptier, a little less exciting, but very self-affirming. I can still learn new skills. I can still handle situations properly. I can find another way. I slept well that night.
Carole Marmell received her BA from Tufts University and MSW from the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Houston. She worked as a social worker in various medical settings until finding her passion in hospice care. After retirement, she returned to her previous career as a proofreader and copy editor for her most inspiring social work professor, Jean Latting. In her leisure time, she corrects typos on the internet.
