I used to have a instant anger. My father did too. He would rant and rave, and we all were nervous around dad.
When he got home from work the whole house went quiet, us children stopped playing sometimes because our playing would cause an instant outburst every now and then.
My father had no care to spend time with us as children, he told me that one day. He even told us that he didn’t want a relationship with us until we drank alcohol with him, and did drugs with him.
I was the total opposite to dad in family beliefs, and in most of my character, but I sadly inherited some of his bad habits because he was my only example of a father and parent.
As a father my temper wasn’t good at times, but my love for my children was gentle. So I had this battle going on inside of me, it was causing me a huge amount of confusion, self doubt and fear that I was a terrible person.
Someone would do something wrong and I would lose my temper instantly and then I would feel terribly guilty for doing it.
I was completely at a loss about why I couldn’t be more calm. Sometimes I would lose my temper and then go to my bedroom and cry helplessly wondering why I was like this. I really hated myself for being a person that I didn’t believe that I should be.
You see, I had an idea what a good father should be, and sometimes I wasn’t it. I knew that I should be different, I wanted to be different, but I wasn’t always acting as the example I knew that I should be. It was a big struggle and very confusing.
°
Finally I understood that this was not my natural character. This was a thorn in my side that had been put in there many years earlier by my father. He didn’t intend on me being like this, I just copied him as children tend to do.
Once I knew what the problem was, then I could do something about it. And I did.
The thing is to recognize what bad habits that we have and then doing something about it. Good character habits are how we are to be naturally.
Bad character habits are what we are taught. Once we can understand what is good for family peace we can make changes.
°
I loved my children, and because of that I knew that a person who loves their own children should not explode in anger at them. So I knew that it was me that had the issue, not them. So I set about changing and I did. I put up with some very foolish people and foolish situations and don’t lose my temper. I am far more in control of myself.
It takes time to change and to remove bad habits. But it is worth it. But one must first discover that they have an undesirable habit before one is willing to do something about it.
°
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
Tuesday, 3 November 2015, 4:55:03 AM.