Dealing with hatred and irritation in a healthy way

What do you do with feelings of hatred and irritation towards others? What can you do when you’re angry at someone? How do you handle feelings of envy or jealousy when someone has it better than you and, in your view, doesn’t even deserve it?

Where hatred and irritation come from

These feelings arise from judging others. Through our thoughts, we make others guilty or responsible for what we feel. Because it’s not fair or because others don’t play by the rules, we blame them for the disadvantage we experience.

Do you recognise these kinds of feelings? They point, in a somewhat disguised way, to something you’re missing. They are secondary feelings that arise from judgmental thoughts about others. Others are held responsible for something you’re lacking, for a need that’s going unmet. And through the judgment and the secondary feelings of anger towards the other person, you no longer feel the frustration or the pain, and you lose focus on the underlying needs.

Is there something wrong with this? Not at all! It just takes a lot of energy, without anything getting resolved.

What can you do with it?

From an NVC perspective, we say you have a choice here. You can choose to focus your attention on the judgment and give the other person responsibility for what you’re missing. You can feel angry at them and blame them for what you lack. Or you can choose to direct your attention to what you’re missing and how it feels to miss it. From there, you can take care of the unmet need by first acknowledging it, and then possibly taking initiative to fulfil it, perhaps with someone else’s help.

Judgmental thinking usually leads to a difficult relationship with the person you’re blaming. You create, as it were, an enemy image of the other. Everything the other person says or does gets a negative spin. You don’t have the willingness or the courage to listen to them empathically. Your judgmental thoughts often take on a life of their own. You frequently create a self-fulfilling prophecy this way: through the way you think about the other person and interact with them, they often start behaving exactly as you’d already imagined.

What’s the alternative?

From an NVC perspective, you can focus your attention on what you feel and what you need. Consciously experiencing your feelings and recognising your (underlying) needs gives energy, strength and calm to take care of yourself. As a result, the enemy image dissolves and contact with the other person becomes much smoother.

Example exercise

1. You’re jealous of your colleague who’s advancing faster in their career and drives a bigger car. You feel the jealousy, the envy, the resentment.
2. Explore your feelings by consciously paying attention to them. Breathe deeply in and out and notice where in your body the feelings make themselves known. You feel the jealousy, the anger, the irritation. Relax into having these feelings. They’re there because you long for something valuable.
3. Explore the judgments behind the feelings: He doesn’t deserve to advance so fast. It’s not fair that he has a big car to show off how important he is.
4. Turn the judgments around and try to get a view of your needs: How I long to be valued like that too! I have a strong need for recognition. How I long to matter and to have meaning for the people around me! Express your needs as if they were fulfilled: I have a need for recognition and appreciation, and I love doing meaningful work.
5. How does it feel to become aware of these needs? Breathe, focus, consciously feel what it’s like. You’ll probably now feel more of the primary feelings of pain, sadness, insecurity, fear. Let the feelings be there. They mainly want to be felt. Take the time to feel. Express the feelings in your own creative way.
6. Notice what the effect is of being focused on your own feelings and needs. Do you still feel the jealousy and irritation? Start again at step 1 and relax into each phase of the exercise.
7. Once you’ve been through the process again and found peace with the situation, you can look at what initiatives you can take to care for your needs. Can you give yourself enough recognition and appreciation for what you do? Do you want to schedule a conversation with your manager to explore what possibilities there are for advancement? Are you ready for a new challenge? What steps can you take?