Dear Ravi:

Then for her sake, for the sake of your love for her, you are willing to take the difficult path. You are willing to fight, to confront obstacles… Well, you have your path available to you right where you are: to learn a new way of being: asserting yourself with your grandmother and with your parents. This would be very difficult and scary for you. This is the almost “impossible odds and never giving up” that you are willing to do, for your love for her. Isn’t it?

Nothing more difficult than standing up to the people you submitted to all your life, since childhood. Nothing more difficult. As you assert yourself with them, respectfully but forcefully; verbally and not physically, your anger will get aimed where it belongs and as you get into the habit of asserting yourself with them, it will diminish in intensity and no longer boil under the surface, ready to explode when triggered.

The message in your explosive anger is that you are not supposed to be submissive to anyone, not to your grandmother, not to your parents, not to the (ex) bully at school, not to the neighbor. So assert yourself in every way available to you, at any time. Nothing too small to be worthy of your assertion. The more you practice, the better you get at it. The more you practice, the less scary and more of a habit it becomes… and the more mentally healthy you will be!

And mentally healthy and assertive will make you non explosive with jerry. It is the only way that will make it so that you will not fear exploding.

Can you do that, starting small, taking every opportunity to assert yourself appropriately (not abusively) with the people you live with now?

anita