-Maya Angelou
Managing and mediating destructive anger is a challenge in pastoral ministry. Internalizing, reciprocating, or avoiding the destructive tendencies of others can be a common and comfortable response. The below four tools, preparation, practice, play, and perseverance, can help ministers and congregational care teams respond to destructive anger with compassion:
1. Prepare your heart and mind before interacting with a destructively angry person.
- Research suggests preparing one’s mind by thinking about, visualizing, or memorizing positive words or phrases increases patience, empathy, and compassion.
2. Practice the art of compassion for those around you.
- Use your imagination and extend positive thoughts or benevolent images toward those around you. I imagine giving the people in the room a hug, sending them well wishes, or holding them in love.
- Write a note, send a text, or make a phone call. Research has shown people who encourage and edify others are themselves encouraged and edified.
3. Play and pretend to help understand and overcome real-life obstacles.
- Clinical research suggests that imagination, creativity, and play engage sophisticated problem solving mechanisms in the mind. Thus, creating a game around real-life obstacles can be a unique approach to problem solving in pastoral and congregational care.
- For example:
- Create and name a game. E.g. Trauma Team Special Forces, Pastoral Punch, Pursuit of {com}Passion), etc.
- Create specific characters in your game.
- Create rules for your game.
- Have ways to level up, unlock special achievements, or win new characters.
- This could be as silly as unlocking characters like Samuel L. Jackson. Make it fun, creative, and interesting!
- It may help to imagine characters that are working against you as celebrities. This can alleviate the tension and anxiety of the real scenario. For example, you could imagine an angry congregant as Betty White having a bad day. The game could be to make her laugh.
- Love is costly, be courageous and do not give up!
- Write down your core values. This can serve as a centering practice to renew and rejuvenate your reservoir of compassion.