Mind Moves Marie Murray'Inclination prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent" wrote James Joyce in Ulysses. An interesting observation, he made. A dilemma we often encounter. For it is important to know when to speak out and when to be silent.
Those who have acquired this ability have a significant skill. They have an approach to life that will not lead them into unseemly debacles, precipitous accusations or words they will later regret. They get it right. They speak out when appropriate. They stay silent when it is fitting. They use their emotional response to a situation to good effect: to alert them, to guide them and to ensure that something is done when something needs to be done.
People who have attained that balance between inclination and dignity identified by James Joyce, when it comes to speaking out or staying silent, know how to use these alternative ways of responding to situations appropriately. Moments of justifiable anger are often the catalyst for change, if one could just hold the anger, reflect on the situation, determine how that circumstance has come about, what needs to change and how this can be achieved in a manner that is more effective than anger.
People, who harness their emotions in calm ways, rather than in reactionary outbursts, turn their internal anger to good use. Negative emotions can bring positive results if we but harness them appropriately.
These silence/speak stability people know when to say what has to be said: when the so-called dignity of silence is offensive to the dignity of another person who needs someone to speak up on his or her behalf. And they know when to speak up for themselves: when it is time to say "enough", "I will not allow this, it must change", "it is offensive, abusive, exploitative, inconsiderate" or whatever the appropriate adjective identifying the ill treatment might be.
But there are some people who have a curious conflict in their management of protest. These are people who can speak out on behalf of others but who find it inordinately difficult to defend themselves. They will fight vociferously for the rights of another yet allow themselves to be trampled upon. This personal contradictory relationship with protest on one's own behalf requires examination. People who can fight everyone else's corner but their own, need to ask questions about why they put so little value on their own needs?
Where did they learn that they were not worthy of defence? Why are they afraid to guard their own position, to shield themselves against injustice? What happened in the past when they did so? Were they ignored, dismissed, silenced? By whom? How can they regain the confidence to determine when their own distress is valid, worthy, equal to others?
It is at a young age that we learn this. We learn it in relation to another balance: the demands of politeness versus imposition. While being asked to share, to give the toy to the tiny sib, to relinquish one's wish in favour of another person's want, may be important lessons in ordinary restraint, overemphasising to children that they always put other people first, can induce a lifelong behavioural pattern. If the message is that everyone's need is more important than yours, this modus operandi may continue throughout life.
So how do we teach children the balance between being polite and protecting their own justifiable rights? How do we ensure that if they are upset, distressed and angry that they know how to manage this, to name these emotions, to interpret them?
How do we teach them to recognise their own worth, while retaining respect for the rights of others?
The answer is not easy.
If it lies in anything, it lies in modelling, in teaching by example. There is a time to protest and a time to let things go. There is a time to assert one's rights and a time when the issue is so inconsequential that only the complainant ends up suffering. There is a way to assert one's rights non-aggressively but determinedly. Watching how we, as adults, do this is how children learn when to speak out and when to be silent. It is of far greater significance than the attention it receives in clinical literature. Children do not know how to name what they feel until they are taught to associate the words with the feelings. They do not know how to control what they feel until they have a way to speak about it.
Identifying emotions helps children to deal with them. The old-fashioned "feel wheel" that brightly coloured, home-made, emotional-clock on which were portrayed, in colour, in cartoon and written words happy (yellow) sad (blue) angry (red) calm (green) etc., retains its usefulness in teaching children emotional recognition. When the eruption occurs the dial can be directed to the feeling, the feeling discussed, the strategy decided upon and the situation rectified.
There are times when we could all do with one of these "feel wheels". Perhaps teaching our children may allow us to re-learn our own relationship with anger, so that we can strike the right balance when inclination prompts us to speak out and dignity tells us to be silent.
I'll say no more!
Clinical Psychologist Marie Murray is Director of The Student Counselling Services at UCD.
mmurray@irish-times.ie