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Recently a video has been going around YouTube and Facebook of a very angry dad responding to a very angry daughter by using a gun against one of her possessions and eliciting some very angry responses from everyone.

I wasn’t going to reply to this at all for a few reasons, 1) I don’t want to perpetuate anger (which is why I’m not linking to any external sources) and 2) it didn’t feel right.

But I’ve been asked enough times – and prodded a few times to react – that I’m going to do my best to respond.

Here’s What I See

I only watched for a couple minutes – partially because my internet was just too slow and partially because it brought about so much sadness that I saw no purpose in continuing.

I can only reflect on what I see and what it triggers within me and what this circumstance is allowing me to learn.

So that’s what this is – my perspective and what I’m learning.

The very first thing I saw was the anger in that young girls words. It broke my heart to see the bitterness and resentment that came bubbling through her actions and words. Anger and bitterness like that takes time to develop and I could sense the pain that’s been festering and my heart ached for her.

I don’t see her as arrogant or bratty or selfish or out-of-line or disrespectful.

I see her as a human being with some deeply painful wounds and some painfully unmet needs and without the tools to move forward into resolution.

Anger is what happens when all other means of thriving have been shut down. Anger becomes the only viable means of survival. It doesn’t “just happen” and it’s not what happens when healthy alternatives have been nurtured and it’s not what grows when love flourishes. Anger is a place filler…it takes up space where something else is void.

The next thing I saw was pain, fear and desperation in the father. Parents don’t act out of anger because of love. They act out of love because of love. Anger comes from fear – fear of losing the last shred of hope you had, fear of what others will think of what his daughter said, fear of doing it wrong or not coming down hard and what conventional wisdom tells us that will mean.

And fear like that perpetuates the very thing we’re afraid of. From fear we make desperate and tragic attempts to turn things back using the same means that got us to that place.

But that doesn’t make me angry at him.

I know his anger perpetuates her anger.

I know anger shuts down communication and growth.

I know his love, patience, open heart, ability to listen deeper than his daughter’s actions to the source of her outbursts and willingness to meet her where she is is what will heal their relationship.

So why would I respond to him with the very thing I am disturbed to see in his responses – anger?

Why would I respond to the adult in a way that I would not respond to the teen?

Why would I perpetuate their sadness in my own life?

I see two hurting people without tools to touch that place within them that is aching, without tools to convey that pain to one another, without tools to find each other outside of the outbursts, the words, the triggers they are experiencing and the things they might need to unlearn together.

I see two aching hearts in need of deep love and connection, in need of validation, in need of autonomy and trust, in need of laughter and fun.

I’ve responded out of anger in the past.

I reacted to a father in a parking lot who threatened his daughter with abandonment and the wild woman in me was triggered bad and I said my piece without a shred of peace.

I saw the shock in his eyes. I saw the wonder in his daughter’s eyes. And for a moment I sat in my righteousness.

But that was my fear and ego speaking through me and not my love.

My heart began whispering within minutes what I needed to hear – compassion. First for myself and the fear and anger that had been triggered in me, compassion for the outburst that I was not proud of.

Then compassion for that father and all the things I wish I had said instead.

It’s hard to know when and how to respond. It’s hard not to simply “react”.

But again and again, Life is teaching me compassion…patience…empathy.

I cannot judge a person when I can first touch them with compassion, when I see them as human and capable of love and deserving of love and in a place so in need of love. When I recognize we all do the best we can with the tools we have. When I recognize anger and righteousness is a pretty limited tool.

I CAN disagree with someone with compassion in my heart. I can offer alternatives without judgment – although it’s hard. But I can rarely help anyone when anger takes over.

This is what this situation is allowing me to learn – Who I Am and how I can take one step closer to what I want that to look like.