What Is Respect? How Can I Be Respectful When I’m Super Angry?

Cathy: Are we going live? Alright. So, someone wrote in and said what

Reid: Who….who are you? Oh, wait no. We’ll do the question first. Go, go! From the beach.

Cathy: Someone wrote in and said “what is respect and how do I be respectful even when I’m super angry like I’m in a rage?”
This is Cathy Vartuli. I’m Cathy Vartuli from https://theintimacydojo.com/ and I’m here with Reid Mihalko from http://reidaboutsex.com/

Reid: Hello! I’m Reid and we’re at the beach. Look at the beach….look at the beach. So….so obviously we are backlit but hey it’s the beach.

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: Alright, so

Cathy: And I feel rather see the beach than ourselves

Reid: So if you’re if you’re mad at us for the backlitness try to be respectful.

Cathy: Yes.

Reid: Okay, what’s the advice?

Cathy: So you know what is respect? I think that’s treating people like humans and not seeing things that she would rather not say like that you don’t mean just because you’re angry and there’s different people have different cool down styles. Reid has an article in cool down styles it’s really useful. So if you’re super angry you might say “hey, I need to go take a walk. I need to go just get out of it” you know we don’t always have to talk to someone through the anger because that can be a really hard. It can…..we can say things and then we would regret later.

Reid: Yeah and also the understanding of what you want to say might be what you’re feeling but not actually what you mean like you mean the thing that you’re saying.

Cathy: Yes.

Reid: You son of a bitch.

Cathy: Yeah, you might feel that that person is as stupid as things and you know toast.

Reid: But do you read like when if you were calm and happy and joyous would you actually think that that person is actually stupider than toast?

Cathy: Yes.

Reid: Are they actually the son of a bitch? Like these are

Cathy: Maybe they are but

Reid: well I mean. Okay

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: You know Game of Thrones and all that.

Cathy: Yeah, so I think that if you can one treating people with respect means not saying mean things, not saying hurtful things, owning your own feelings and having good boundaries like when that happens I feel you versus you are an idiot for saying that and you know that respect is not…..not blaming other people for our own feelings or letting out dumping on them all the feelings we might have, other thoughts we have in the moment but and that may mean that we have to go take a walk can we? I need to talk to you tomorrow about this or next week.

Reid: Or you need to talk to somebody else.

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: Like ‘coz sometimes people want to be heard in their emotional state which means you…..you know you need to listen to me right now whereas if you need to really feel heard and you’re….you’re you can catch that you’re in an emotional state, do you have a friend you could offload on? A therapist or you know maybe a bartender or go get your hair styled and have your hairstylist be the one you talk to so that then when you have calmed down when you’ve cooled down you can actually have the conversation you actually need to have rather than a conversation about your feelings. Feelings are genuine but feelings of being triggered and upset or maybe that trigger is not the right word but you know activated I don’t know that that’s the conversation you need to be having.

Cathy: And again

Reid: But

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: My mileage….your mileage may vary.

Cathy: It can really helpful if you go to your friend especially in our community a lot of people want to fix things and help say “hey, listen I need to vent for a few minutes and I’ll let you know when I’m ready to troubleshoot. Just….I just want you to be there and listen and tell me that I’m right and then I’m……that that person is a horrible person for ten minutes. It doesn’t actually mean that I just need to get it off my chest and have someone support me and then okay, thank you. I got that out. I may or may not want you to troubleshoot with me.” And it’s also read Reid’s article and cool down styles because different people in relationships have different needs. So if we’ve had a fight and one of us stalks off the other one may feel abandoned. When you…..different people cool down in different ways so some people want to be together and touch, some people want to just to be off by themselves so knowing what they are for each other can help but also saying “hey, I know you’ve been to many issues, I’m really mad at you right this minute, I am not leaving you forever, I’m going to drive around the block until you cool down I will be back.” And then you’ll go kind of thing can really help.

Reid: You can also like if there’s nobody to vent to, write an angry letter

Cathy: Compile it.

Reid: Right it longhand

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: because it will be more of a pain in the ass for you to send it. If you type it out on an email

Cathy: Yes.

Reid: you will be tempted to hit send. So I…I think it’s a good idea to write it longhand and….and then that way you can burn it rather than I have to find an envelope, find a stamp. What’s the cost of stamps these days? Do I even have any forever stamps if you live in America and by then you probably cooled down.

Cathy: Yeah. So, yeah respect just means treating people nicely and as…..it doesn’t mean you always have to agree with them. It doesn’t always mean you have to do what they want but treating them like human beings and not putting them down or blaming them for your stuff and it’s really hard to do when we’re angry sometimes but

Reid: Yeah.

Cathy: taking a deep breath and realizing that even though the anger feels overwhelming right now and it feels like that person is stupider than toast, they might not seem that way in ten minutes or an hour or couple days.

Reid: Alright, leave some comments. Go make some toast. Bye!