Awful Acting People and Sacred Enemies: We Are All Just Walking Each Other Home

God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, courage to change the one I can, and wisdom to know that one is me.  Revised Serenity Prayer (anonymous)

We had a people-packed Mother’s Day weekend. Lovely. Until it wasn't.  Someone flipped out at the end. All sorts of angry words tumbled out.

Of course, since I have just turned the wise, sage-age of seventy-five and entered the portal to what I call, “the ripening”, I calmly observed the disturbance and skillfully responded.  “You seem terribly upset. What is it that you need, my friend?”

In my dreams. No. That warm, understanding response didn’t happen. Not even close.

I responded pretty much like regular ole unenlightened, June. Tit for tat.  In kind, angry feelings reverberated all through my body.

“Well. She will not be allowed to come back to my house until she has taken anger management classes,” I thought to myself after I had processed the situation for a bit.

Then it hit me. I can’t change her, but I can change myself.  I’m the one who needs to learn how to skillfully deal with anger - figure out how to express my needs in ways that don’t blow the whole house up.

I have a strong desire to be able to walk alongside others, sit on the bench or porch with them.  I do believe that ultimately, "we are all just walking each other home" as someone beautifully put it. And it’s sometimes awfully hard to do.

I read somewhere, in a book by the relationship guru, John Gottman, that therapists do just fine working with clients when their frustrations are aimed at others.  They don’t do so well, however, when clients’ anger is aimed toward the therapists themselves. The point is lots of us lose all our skills and values when someone points fingers at us. We react in ways that are unhelpful and make the situation worse. Then feel bad about ourselves.

It’s challenging in the moment to remember that wisdom from Stephen Covey taken from the work of famous Holocaust survivor and the father of Logotherapy, psychiatrist Viktor Frankl – “Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space lies our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and freedom.  

Awful acting people and situations challenge us to take a breath, connect with our values, and be the person we want to be.

On the other side of this incident, another thought has been circling in my head. It’s that ole taunt we flung back at each other after receiving an insult on the playground.  “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.  What you say is what you are.” We used the phrase as a shield from the hurt.

However, the taunt points to a truth.  When we think others are awful acting, we are doing what psychologists call “projection.”

We often see in others what we struggle to accept in ourselves. We project our own awfulness on to others. And it’s one of the many ways we cope with difficult emotions like anger—emotions that often trace back to unmet needs we haven’t fully understood or voiced. It's hard to sort out who exactly is the awful acting person.

What can psychology and even spirituality teach us about those difficult moments when we feel angry, misjudged, ignored, or overwhelmed? How can we grow not just by managing our anger, but by listening for what lies beneath it, gently naming our needs, and walking one another home with compassion?

Anger is often misunderstood as something bad or dangerous, especially in families, workplaces, or religious settings where calmness is prized. When I was a girl, my father had angry outbursts which scared me and made me angry too.  Why couldn’t he be the father I wanted him to be? He was a minister. Ministers should never be angry.

But the more I think about it today, I am starting to believe that anger is not the enemy. According to psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, anger is a “wake-up call to unmet needs.” It flares when we feel something important—like safety, respect, connection, or fairness—is threatened or dismissed.

Anger is like the check-engine light on our car dashboard. It’s not the problem itself; it’s alerting us to something that needs our attention. And when we respond skillfully, with curiosity rather than combustion, anger can become a powerful source of insight.

Often, instead of listening to our anger, however, we point fingers. Blame. Accuse.

Why?

Because projection gives us a temporary sense of relief. If I believe you’re selfish, I don’t have to face the part of me that feels neglected or scared to ask for love. If I believe you’re controlling, I may not have to face the fact that I feel powerless.

George Vaillant, longtime director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, once said that defense mechanisms like projection are "ways the mind protects the heart." But he also noted that the happiest, most mature adults eventually move from projection to self-reflection, from blame to ownership, from fear to love.

It’s hard work. But it’s how we grow. It's how we become free.

So, if I want to grow into that ripening stage I desire, the lesson is to self-reflect.  Self-examine. Find the needs. And to remember how to express needs both honestly and kindly (without a blow-up or breakdown)

Instead of: “You never listen to me! ”We could say: “When you look at your phone while I’m talking, I feel hurt because I really need to feel heard. Would you be willing to set it aside for a few minutes?”

That shift can change everything.

Still, there are times our needs can’t be met in the way we want. That’s where the deepest growth happens—not just in expressing needs, but in grieving them, adjusting expectations, and finding new ways to nourish ourselves.

When someone cannot—or will not—meet our need, it can stir up enormous emotion: sorrow, disappointment, even rage. But this moment can also be… holy.

Wait. What?

Instead of escalating or shutting down, we can practice:

• Self-compassion: “It makes sense that I’m hurting right now.”

• Perspective-taking: “Maybe they’re overwhelmed too.”

• Turning to other supports: A friend, a therapist, a walk, a journal, or prayer.

  
  

 “We are all just walking each other home” when we open ourselves to carrying each other’s burdens and bruises even when they lash out.  Even when they withdraw.  In our best moments, we pause, breathe, and choose another way. We listen. We repair. We forgive.

For us. For them.

We walk each other home to wholeness by:

• Recognizing that every angry outburst is a masked cry for a need to be met.

• Understanding that we project our own longings and aching wounds and fears on to others.

• Seeing that even our own rough edges are worthy of understanding, compassion, and gentleness.

  
  

The next time anger rises in me or I sense it in another, it’s an opportunity to pause and listen. What is the need beneath it? Can it be named? Can the need be expressed with both honesty and kindness?

And when someone lashes out at us, consider whispering (even just in our mind), “Twinkle, twinkle little star, what you say is what you are.” Then ask ourselves, what might they need right now that they don’t know how to ask for?

In that moment, you and I become not just people in conflict, but a companion on the road—walking ourselves a little closer to home. Growing. Ripening. Becoming healed and whole from all the slings and arrows we fling at each other and the wounds we inevitably encounter as humans. In keeping with the sentiments of an old African proverb, we come to see that when there are no enemies inside of us there are no enemies outside of us. (Echoes the December 12th blog "No Enemies Within".)

Some years ago, I read a story.  I have never been able to find it again. Here's my take. The situation is that a group of strongly committed people pay a lot of money, clear their calendars for a month, travel far away, and come to a world-renowned Buddhist retreat for the purpose of enlightenment. 

But everything goes wrong.  To their dismay, one of the participants is absolutely horrible. Angry. Hateful. Mean. Awful.

At one point, the participants get together and go to the spiritual director who has designed the retreat.  They demand that the awful man be sent away so that they can get on with what they came here to do – receive enlightenment. 

The spiritual director listens. Then he says, "My friends, this man is not an obstacle to your enlightenment. He is the path to your enlightenment. He is not IN the way, he IS the way."

As it turns out, the spiritual director has actually paid the awful acting man to be there.  The man has been given instructions. Be intentionally difficult. Purposefully observe the others, find their weaknesses, and then push all their emotion buttons. Do your best to dredge up all their shadow parts which they have pushed down inside themselves. Give the participants a real chance to free themselves of ego and grow toward enlightenment.

In a Christian context, I once heard that we should view those we see as "awful acting people" differently, as our “sacred enemies.”  They push us to grow. That’s the mindset we can take to grow into our full humanity, our wholeness.

That human reciprocity is at the center of our journey together. We push each other’s buttons.  We pause, we reflect, we grow.  We stop blaming and projecting. We learn to recognize and express our needs.  And we realize that often the only one we honestly can change is ourselves. And, strangely enough, it is through our own growth that we help others on their journey.

How might we journey together to The Good Life by adopting the mindset that we are all just walking each other home?