Last week, as a country, India saw a massive in cases– blood spattered, heads shattered, trust broken, rage filled in us.
Oh no, not covid! —the violence against doctors!
As Indians we are always people full of extremes, while some are stuck in extreme poverty on at the traffic lights, begging for food or the richest man in our continent lives in a building which houses 200 cars. We have extremes of responses to everything, from a wedding on a chartered aircraft in the middle of a pandemic with 190 guests on board to splurge wealth to the starving farmers hanging themselves to death when there was no rainfall , hence no crops and income.
We as doctors are used to heightened emotions at the hospitals — from ” self proclaimed VIP” humans who refuse to let us do our jobs to those who stand meekly and say “you are God. Save our patient”.. the outcome unfortunately for a health professional can be as extreme as death and the response is of extreme crying and howling or blaming the treating doctor for a condition which could not be managed. While as a resident, we grew thicker skins to such verbal abuse and subtle signs of unhappiness from patients and their relatives, I personally never experienced physical abuse.
However one doctor doing his job in a tiny health care facility in north eastern state of my country was beaten black and blue by slippers, plates ( thalis) by almost 24 men and a woman and kicked out of his own hospital. While this did spark a rage among my doctor community for the hurt and abuse, it has not been the first time, incidents of hitting doctors, threatening them with guns, swords or setting the hospital on fire or thrashing property has become a way of venting anger against the situation and the apparent cause.
Today as I read the Gospel as Jesus says , But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, I am brought back to the root cause of most of our reactions to situations. “ANGER ” As someone who battles with this same emotion on a regular basis, and received backlash for it at work or home , it took me a lot of self reflection, confession and even major self control to get into a calmer place I am now but that does not guarantee I do not harbor anger against someone ever.
As I try to pray and focus on the word of God and lead a cheerful outlook to my everyday life, situations , people (oh so annoying!!), things not going my way can always bring me back to square one — THE HULK!! My reaction to turn green with anger and rage and do or say what ever comes to my mind without thinking about the consequences or the other persons point of view.
Jesus even talks to us about a solution to the handle the situation.
recall that your brother
has anything agains0t you,
leave your gift there at the altar,
go first and be reconciled with your brother,
and then come and offer your gift.
Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him.
And it is hard!! Especially in the moment of hurt and misunderstanding, we stand and spew that hatred, while I consider myself an extremely short tempered human – who can transform to my graceful self in minutes of losing my cool and forget about the event that occurred or words exchanged. Some instances or humans leave a mark– they leave a grudge! And like the faithful little Christian girl I am , I would pray very hard for them (names and all ) during mass every Sunday! I prayed and prayed over these years… I personally never reconciled with them in person but yes I did do my penance and stop my emotional reaction to them.
Today, I am no one to comment on the methods or ideas of forgiving the humans or situations which upset and angered you in the past, I have many on my list, and need advise myself! But I do realise that as we deal with such situations and humans on a daily basis we need to find our selves better equipped to our own response and reaction and so the next time some one cuts you off in traffic or a line ( my pet peeve) or says something hurtful — STOP — PAUSE– and then just DO NOT REACT! diffuse the situation at its root and for all the old grudges we harbor about, just push them out in a part of your mind never to rethink about…
As a human it is extremely hard to forgive and apologise and make peace when all your body instincts are FIGHT or FLIGHT! I suggest we pick the flight path till we figure a way to sort our own emotional triggers through self reflection, journaling a therapist, anger management or even regular prayer.
PRAYER:
Lord today I pray ( insert name of person you agitated with ) and offer them up to you for forgiveness in my heart. Help me visualise the reason for their response to me or the situation and not enable them anymore. Help me overcome my emotions of anger and dislike and entrust this situation at your feet . Bless me lord with patience and compassion.
AMEN!
