Charity Begins at Home

I am learning to be calm and kind and no doubt OM pariwar and the black lotus app contributes in a big way.

However I got up this morning and lashed out on my husband for a small fault of his (only due to my expectation it was his fault 🙂 and he, a detached soul, was least affected and that made me angry and I shouted more. He didn’t react and left the room.

Luckily I am practicing mindfulness and after that one sided heated moment I immediately realised my behaviour was uncalled for and I could have conveyed my point calmly but still I chose to be angry and lost my calmness in those few minutes.

That made me think for the whole day that why we take our loved ones for granted and be extra nice to strangers.

I realized it’s easy for me to be kind, calm and compassionate to strangers, friends, coworkers and to even people on this platform, most of whom I have never met. And those we are closest to are indeed the most common target of our “everyday aggression,” such as yelling, heated confrontations, and hurtful words.

There is a saying that familiarity breeds contempt but I felt there must be something more than that why we lash out so easily and forget to be kind to our own family.

Is it because we have expectations, or it’s that our tolerance for all the things we’ve always disliked invariably diminishes over time, or we think that they can handle us at our worst without judging us, so many questions were running in my head which obviously caused a headache and dear husband got me a cup of coffee and asked me to rest.

And finally as always he came to my rescue and answered my doubts in few words-“ Our behaviour changes around different people. We are used to unconsciously release our anger and frustration toward the people we feel closest to because we believe that our relationship with them is strong enough to endure it.”

And yes it made sense to me. Strangers do not get to see us at our ugliest. Our families get the pleasure of that. Our home becomes the place where we release all our pent up frustrations which we kept under control the whole day.

That mean my co worker gets the smiling, patient and kinder version of me while my husband and daughter have to put up with the chandi roop of mine 🙂 .

I somehow have started to believe that our conditioning is the cause of so many of our day to day life problems. We, since our childhood, have been taught to be on our best behaviour ‘outside, in front of guests, teachers or relatives. And this has subconsciously stayed with us and we still practice it, of course unaware.

I have realised that whatever a family member does or says has a direct effect on us positively or negatively. We subconsciously hold them accountable for the happiness in our lives. That’s so unfair to them.

At the core to be acknowledged and appreciated are among two of the greatest and most basic human needs and we want to be appreciated in the most simple way that exists; we want respect. And we somehow feel that we will be respected by people if we are polite and kind to them.

There are social pressures that encourage us to be nice to strangers. If we treat a stranger negatively, we can easily be judged by them and we fear them forming a negative impression of us.

We treat strangers better because it takes little effort to carry on conversation. We can present ourself as a good person and not have our intellect challenged as opposed to being with our partner and family.

We typically take those we love for granted. Once we start letting our guards down, we feel like our loved ones will accept us for who we are no matter what. That’s how we tend to misbehave with them, sometimes.

We let our moods and demands take over, even if we know we shouldn’t. I think it’s because we know that the people close to us won’t leave us. There’s no fear of them judging us. Strangers judge. And in this world of today, most people don’t like being judged.

May be I need to practice more gratitude and appreciate what I have got instead of having more expectation. Then hopefully, I’ll be able to control my reactions the next time I want to lash out at my family members and appreciate their presence in my life.

I would love to know have you people also behaved in similar manner ever and how did you handle the situation later or did it create any churning of thoughts ?

Image by Pexels from Pixabay