Passive Aggressive
One style of expressing anger is to do whatever you can to hurt and undermine your enemy without outwardly doing anything aggressive.
This is known as a 'passive aggressive' style.
The modus operandi is to wage warfare but in a way that you can't be accused or nailed down for your aggressive behavior.
Passive aggressive is often so subtle that we don't even know we're doing it; we don't acknowledge to ourselves that we are being aggressive.
We may have a self righteous feeling of "I'm not doing anything wrong here.
This is normal and I'm just going about my own business.
" For example we may be fighting with our spouse or be embroiled with them in a power struggle.
We do simple things to irritate them like leave the toilet seat up, neglect to do our dishes, or forget to call them to let them know we'll be late.
None of these are outwardly aggressive, but we know it will piss them off, which is exactly what we want.
Yet we may not even be aware of our intentions ourselves.
Passive aggressive is particularly insidious because of this quiet and potentially blind quality.
It's harder to see in ourselves, and harder to point out to someone else because it's easy to deny any bad intention in our actions.
The way we look at people as we walk down the street, the way we don't look at them, or how we carry our shoulder bag and accidentally bump it into a stranger because we don't like them: these are all ways we express this form of subtle aggression.
Another way this commonly manifests is through our speech.
We say things we know will put the other person off and upset them.
We know we're going to get a negative response and yet we say it anyway because our subtle and perhaps unconscious goal is to cause harm.
This isn't some 'big baddie' behavior.
We all do this.
So, how can we deal with passive aggressive behavior in ourselves or others? That's a longer story, but a good first step is to recognize that under the aggressive behavior is vulnerability and fear.
From there you can discover a clarity of mind about how to respond to the situation.
This is known as a 'passive aggressive' style.
The modus operandi is to wage warfare but in a way that you can't be accused or nailed down for your aggressive behavior.
Passive aggressive is often so subtle that we don't even know we're doing it; we don't acknowledge to ourselves that we are being aggressive.
We may have a self righteous feeling of "I'm not doing anything wrong here.
This is normal and I'm just going about my own business.
" For example we may be fighting with our spouse or be embroiled with them in a power struggle.
We do simple things to irritate them like leave the toilet seat up, neglect to do our dishes, or forget to call them to let them know we'll be late.
None of these are outwardly aggressive, but we know it will piss them off, which is exactly what we want.
Yet we may not even be aware of our intentions ourselves.
Passive aggressive is particularly insidious because of this quiet and potentially blind quality.
It's harder to see in ourselves, and harder to point out to someone else because it's easy to deny any bad intention in our actions.
The way we look at people as we walk down the street, the way we don't look at them, or how we carry our shoulder bag and accidentally bump it into a stranger because we don't like them: these are all ways we express this form of subtle aggression.
Another way this commonly manifests is through our speech.
We say things we know will put the other person off and upset them.
We know we're going to get a negative response and yet we say it anyway because our subtle and perhaps unconscious goal is to cause harm.
This isn't some 'big baddie' behavior.
We all do this.
So, how can we deal with passive aggressive behavior in ourselves or others? That's a longer story, but a good first step is to recognize that under the aggressive behavior is vulnerability and fear.
From there you can discover a clarity of mind about how to respond to the situation.
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