Forget winning an Oscar knowing how to deal with anger when the pressure is on and the stakes are high will win the Oscar of life every time. Offensive comments? Whatever - Spin in! Anger as a ‘stand alone’ is a disruptive and destructive energy that ruins everything it touches and can rapidly spread becoming a brawl for others to easily entangle in. Anger needs not just to be managed but be understood, however, these ultimately are expensive lessons indeed as I believe you only really learn them – on the job.
So I’m guessing everyone has seen Will Smith reacting to Chris Rock at the Oscars 2022 and has an opinion? Here are some of my thoughts. As an adopted person dealing with my own anger especially as a young person and then other people’s anger is a day to day experience and one that I'm learning to decide to ‘spin’ into almost become ‘enjoyable experience! For in todays world – anger is everywhere from road rage to online trolls, todays world is an angry fiery place.
I have learned and am certainly still learning that it helps to decide that you are not going to give into anger from the Get-Go. A really good friend of mine who is an Admiral said to me when I was struggling with being angry ‘you will always have the haters but how you deal with them is what counts’. I thought here is a man who knows about verbal bombs always firing around him but somehow he told me stories of how he remained calm and at peace. I wanted to learn and hear more.
Here is my humble opinion of the ‘Smith – Rock debacle’.
When we refuse to light the match of anger it allows us to react above the low frequency level of ‘fight or flight’ and enter into the higher echelons of the brain so we can connect with other brain neurons and see the situation from a higher creative level and have more choices available as to how we react.
Incidentally reacting to a ‘joke’ can be even more tricky I like to see it like catching a cricket ball. See the offence, catch it, address it, reframe the words, realign to reimagine the outcome – and SPEAK! Thus we throw back peace and power! It’s exciting! The brain can do this manoeuvre in seconds I practise daily when driving along the motorway plenty of opportunities for those ‘idiot drivers’ to offend me as they ‘wind me up’ I choose the opportunity to practise shouting a blessing at them in my car! It works, I speak good things over their life and wish them safe travels as opposed to shouting anger and other words back. HAHAHA! It can be fun. Much better than my old ways of shouting abuse and doing various 'hand signals' if you know what I mean...
And then I think to my myself, if I can do it in my car then it gets easier to do it in everyday life as I’ve framed up a positive narrative and better outcome.
Back to the Oscars
I believe you have to deal with the offence. Will was correct I believe at being offended by the joke aimed at his wife and defended her but it's so easy and tempting to get up and fight back, plus the swearing not always great as it keeps you hooked down to an emotional disruptive negative power – again in my opinion I can see some people even getting angry to reading this.
Maybe Will Smith could have said – yes THANK YOU Chris Rock (slipping in a positive word helps to destroy the pain of anger again) for highlighting my beautiful wife’s terrible hair issues that so many women around the world suffer.
KEEP SPINNING positives out from negatives
‘Alopecia is horrible but I know my wife will overcome it (another positive). And as for the role of G.I Jane – brilliant! I would love to see my wife in that role she would be amazing as she is a fighter! And I would love to all the women fighters in Ukraine who are shaving their heads to defend their families. Thank you good night. Maybe even address the issues of the 'joke' and it's impact? But again all this can only be done from a higher stand point.
The Oscars is the biggest media circus in the world - this is really hard to do for anyone with the world spotlight is on. Will Smith did his best - at least he fought for his wife, so many husbands say nothing to defend a woman's honour, it's maybe just how it was done that wasn't great. All press is good press? Sometimes it isn't good for you.
I believe there is nothing wrong with reacting to mocking comments or a situation it’s just how do you do it? What is your intention and then being determined to change it into a ‘beautiful thing’?
Even if you react wrongly we can still be determined to apologise and SPIN the negative into something good. The positive that the whole world is discussing these very challenging issues and that can only be good.
There is something about anger that destroys ‘your moment’ too. In Will Smith’s case on the world stage that night was HIS! It was now overshadowed totally and the moment he dreampt of stolen, you could argue that is what 'mockers' of success want - to bring you down and ruin your time to shine, so being on the PEACE offensive is important sometimes.
Anger is NOT a friend. It steals friendships and beauty and burns it to ashes in seconds. The whole night now will be forever remembered negatively and for me as a black woman I love seeing people of colour winning awards his reaction stole that experience for thousands.
Do we need to see more images of ‘angry black men?’ especially to young men and what does it say to them about anger?
There are so many people saying this and that, but I thought I would highlight how we can win our own Oscar by reacting in wisdom and that is the true reward that we didn’t under react – shut down and become a victim – and not over react in violence or visceral speech.
To win takes wisdom and power and determination for nothing to take the shine away from who you are and who you are becoming. Meditation and prayer also help prepare us for these days as if you walk in peace and love you are grounded and battle ready for any bombs suddenly going off around you.
Go on the peace offensive