Where Did the Anger Go?

Mouse wrote an interesting piece about being angry with her Master.  I think her story is one that almost any of us might be able to tell -- a series of small irritations that built up to a sense of being seriously angry; and the tipping point at which any one of us might explode and say and do things that we'd later regret. 

She didn't do that.  She made Him a martini and took it and served it to Him -- and life went on and all was well. 

And.

All I can do is wonder where her anger went.  As someone who has, more than once, blown my top and made a total mess of my life and my relationships, I just wonder how, exactly, she managed to sidestep the point where everything might have burst into flames.  Assuming that the anger was real, and I have no reason to believe it wasn't every bit as real as the emotion that sometimes washes over me, or you, or any one of us -- Dominant or submissive. 

Scientists, who study the human brain, have learned that when we are awash in angry feelings there are real physiological events occuring.  Different regions of the brain "light up" depending on what is going on with us, and anger sends us into the lower and older regions of our brains where we tend to respond almost instinctively with "fight, flight, or freeze" just as our reptilian forebears might have done.

I'll match up my capacity for submission and service with just about anyone, and I absolutely know for a fact that when I am seriously angry, I might continue to serve and submit -- but the murderous murmering isn't quieted in the serving of a glass of Jack Daniels and water on the rocks.  No way. 

I have learned, from years of experience, that I don't have to lash out in my anger.  I've learned to (sometimes) stay quiet and not explode.  I've figured out ways to move to de-escalate the situation rather than escalate.  Still, I will need, in each of those moves, to find ways to deal with my anger -- releasing it, choosing to let it go, sticking it in some safe place within my psyche, channeling it into something productive, finding it a quiet place to let it sit and simmer down...

Submissives do get angry.  Dominants do get angry.  In relationship with one another, we have to learn to manage the strong emotions.  Sometimes the patterns and routines that we establish can aid us in that endeavor.  I think that is the short version of this episode between mouse and her Master.  Patterns are a great thing sometimes.  Knowing that conflict is a natural part of intimate relating, perhaps we, doing this thing we do, have learned some tricks for navigating the rough waters.  If that were true, we might have things to teach our vanilla brothers and sisters.

swan