Todzilla,

What a wonderful opportunity to see how pointless and self sabotaging anger is. All this commotion from such an odd thing, some attachment that stings her, bustles her all up. My guess is she feels ashamed for her practice, and is defending against your “attack” on her credibility. Rather than just “oops, yeah, thanks, much better now”. How very normal of her, how very natural. Reminds me of Toddzilla a little. 🙂 Different faces, of course.

The solution, perhaps, is to help her see how you’re trying to help her fix one of the oars on her boat, not challenging her captain skills. Doing your job to tighten the ship, but not judging her own skillful understanding in her areas of expertise. Remember, her feelings aren’t about the laptop itself, anymore than your feelings of anger at your wife when she walks away from you has to do with the shape of her backside. Its symbolic of something, or it would just be a butt. Or a laptop. See?

And its a win win, because even if you can’t get through to her, seeing past the anger will be good for you. Learning to be kind to a friend caught in a frenzy does a lot to help us see how we can give the same friendliness to ourselves when we frenzy. Ie, forgive our own anger and be free of it. 🙂

With warmth,
Matt