Dealing With Anger and Personal Attacks

Darren from ProBlogger has posted an article entitled What a Buddhist Monk Taught Me About Blogging. The post is relatively brief, but contains some great pointers for dealing with personal attacks and anger from others, not just in blogging, but in your every day life.

I find time and again that the lessons we can learn in one area of our lives can so often be applied to other areas. Often we can apply words of wisdom from one field or career to another. Darren’s advice is most often directed toward bloggers since this is his field, but many people may not know that he has also been a Christian minister. Sometimes this shows through in his posts and the way he interacts with others. I’m sure many of the skills he learned as a minister have helped him to succeed in his blogging career.

With that said, dealing with anger and personal attack is something all of us have had to do in our lives. From the playground as children to the workplace as adults and even to the blog comments section, we have to deal with comments that may hurt us or offend us. This is a fact of life and is something that can’t be changed. We just have to accept it like we do inclement weather.

At the same time, it makes sense to react to a storm of anger and criticism as we would to a storm of sleet or hail: get inside and out of the force of the storm. In our interactions with others, wherever this may be, this often means we should take a step back out of the storm before firing back an angry response.

I’ve gotten some comments on my blog from time to time that seemed overly critical and at times like angry attacks. Sometimes my first response was to reply in an angry way. This is rarely the best thing to do and usually only results in a flame war that benefits no one. The best responses to this sort of thing come after some calm, sober reflection.

Perhaps the first thing that should be done during this time of reflection is to consider if there is any truth to the comment. Have we said something in an offensive way or maybe made an extravagant claim? Self-examination is a worthwhile pursuit, but shouldn’t be carried too far. If we endlessly re-examine the facts of the situation, we end up getting caught up in an over-analysis loop that gets us no closer to the truth. Still, it pays to take a few minutes to think of our own position before responding.

Another thing to consider is what the goal or purpose of the commenter is. Everyone has most likely heard of that vile creature known as a comment troll. This creature’s purpose in life is to stir up trouble and sow discontent wherever he goes. These types exist not only on forums and blog comment sections, but also in the rest of life. They are the type of people who are never happy with anything and want everyone to know it. They also tend to be jealous of other’s success and happiness and want to do whatever they can to destroy it.

If you’re dealing with some sort of troll in your life, it’s often better to not even respond. If it’s on your blog, feel free to delete a comment that adds no value to the conversation. It helps to have a comment policy so that commenters will know what to expect from you. I’m going to be putting one up soon here on FreshBlogger. Then commenters will have a better idea of what I will allow here.

If you must respond to a troll, try to respond in a way that’s level-headed and calm. If there is no merit to the troll’s comments, others will see that and think better of you for not sinking to that level. If you’ve ever heard the expression, “killing them with kindness,” you’ll know that that’s another approach that works well with trolls. By not responding in anger, but with calmness and even kindness, it takes the power and control away from them. With nothing to fuel the fire of their anger, it has to die away or go somewhere else.

There are many other ways to deal with angry personal attacks, but these are some of the most effective in my own experience. It’s so much better to let go of the anger and resentment and hurt when you’re attacked than to carry it around inside you. There is really nothing of value to be gained by nursing a grudge against the offender. If you do so, you’ve given away your power and allowed someone else to control you. The best advice then is to let it go and remember that you can’t control how anyone else feels, but you can control yourself.

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