Passive aggressive people used to make me nuts. I used to get so frustrated and ticked off at others for pretending to be nice. I thought to myself, who are you kidding? You are phony. Nobody buys the act you are trying to sell of being kind when you are just really mean!
I recall one time after winning a class; another handler congratulated me with an extremely passive aggressive comment. That day the judge just couldn’t make up her mind. There were only two bitches in the class, and because of the judge’s indecision, it felt like we were engaged in a personal duel. When I won the class, the other handler said, “Congratulations Kelly. I’m glad you won that class because I’ve won so many other classes that it will be a challenge to get all my class winners into the winner class.” Her comment irritated me! Hours later I was still carrying that annoyance with me, while I’m sure she felt fine!
During the last 20 years of showing dogs, I have certainly had my fair share of exposure to passive aggressive people. When someone acted this way, I wanted to confront him or her. I wanted to tell that person to stop pretending to be nice and have the guts to be angry.
It turns out that I wanted them to change because I didn’t like how it made me feel. It had a profound effect on my own inner peace. When they acted this way, all the anger that they didn’t want to take on passed right along to me and I just scooped it right up and carried it around with me. I soon realized it triggered me because I had allowed their issue to become my issue. I was also taking their behavior personally.
In time I began to see their behavior in a different light. Sometimes a person truly does want to be nice, but that is not how they are feeling. Perhaps they wish they could be a better sport in that moment, but that is not what they are experiencing at that time. Perhaps they wanted a different outcome, and just felt powerless at the time. Whatever the reason for the angry emotion, instead of allowing themselves to feel angry, they try to force themselves to be nice. Therefore there is this inner conflict within them that doesn’t allow them to own their own anger. Some part of them is telling them that it is wrong to be angry. So perhaps what is really going on is that they are in fact trying to fool themselves! When we don’t acknowledge our authentic emotions, they tend to bubble up and spew on those around us.
Once I became aware of this inner conflict, I could be more understanding of passive aggressive tendencies and I stopped taking it so personally. I simply had compassion for their inner struggle. I could also recognize that I too at times experienced this same inner conflict. I can’t change another person’s behavior but I can change mine and I can change my reaction to their behavior.
Published in Dog News Magazine, July 13, 2018, page 18