“Healthy connection can’t happen without emotional and physical safety.” ~Lisa Merlo-Booth
There is a dangerous notion that harshness, reactivity, intense anger, intimidation, and even rage, are okay responses to upsets and conflict. These responses are not okay—in your home, on the job, or in the world.
Verbal or physical attacks are harmful, abusive, and damaging—in your home, on the job, and in the world. If someone in your life is blowing up, snapping at, or raging at you, realize that their rage is not okay. Others don’t have the right to scare, intimidate, threaten, shame, or be aggressive towards you for any reason.
Yelling, screaming, raging, name-calling, intimidation, and angry outbursts leave a ripple effect of damage long after those outbursts are over.
- Lovers walk on eggshells around angry partners.
- Children cringe in fear of volatile parents.
- Households are held hostage by the sudden tempers of “loved ones.”
The most harmful effect of emotional volatility is the toxic legacy of rage. Emotional aggression gets passed down from one generation to the next until one person dares to stop the tyranny of anger playing out in far too many homes throughout the world.
Despite the messaging in the world, the perceived poor behavior of others does not give anyone the green light for their own. Anger, rage, bullying, and emotional or physical attacks of other human beings are not okay, justified, warranted, or “normal.”
Challenge: You deserve to have emotional and physical safety in your relationship. Be the safest person in the lives of your loved ones and ensure they are the safest in yours.