112 - What to do with Anger
===
[00:00:00] Stephanie - Overdub: Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of Radiant You. Have you all seen the new Inside Out 2? I love it. I think that there are so many things they did right with understanding emotion and the chaos and craziness that comes with the teenage years. And there were moments where I didn't love every single piece of it, but overall, I feel really pleased with how they did it.
[00:00:25] And I can't help but think of how much I loved the first one when Inside Out 1 came out, especially the way that they depict anger. For some reason, it just makes me so happy to watch that blazing hot red guy grab the controls and just push it forward and scream as his head starts on fire. And it just makes me laugh because laughter is one of the things that helps diffuse anger. And it also helps me laugh when I see my kids acting out in anger. Sometimes I'll picture that little red guy and it helps defuse me.
[00:01:00] But other times when I'm around anger, whether it's other people's anger, my children's anger, my own anger, I have less of a sense of humor or less compassion.
[00:01:09] And those are the moments that I want to help you with today. When you feel like maybe there's some residual anger or some shame about your anger, or you just feel stuck in anger in a relationship with someone else.
[00:01:22] Because the unfortunate truth is that we all have anger. We all experience that emotion, and it's not one that we can just delete from the human existence. The other piece is that we often feel justified when we express our anger or lash out in anger. But it really doesn't make us feel any better.
[00:01:40] So today I want to help you learn how to neutralize your anger and gain some tools to give you a feeling of empowerment instead of frustration.
[00:01:50] We're going to learn where anger comes from, how it escalates, and what to do with it when we do have anger.
[00:01:57] *So first off, where anger comes from.* I want you to think of a situation where you have felt angry recently. And anger can look different for everybody, right? So you know what your angry looks like. But think about a situation where you have felt angry.
[00:02:11] Was that anger coming as a response to someone else's actions?
[00:02:16] Maybe you had some physical pain or unmet expectations or unwelcome outcomes. Or maybe there was some news that you got that just really riled up your soul. Whatever it was, find it in your body. hold on to that emotion for just a moment. Feel it. Now, think about what other feelings were there with the anger. What came with anger? Because it's helpful to understand that anger by itself is not an isolated emotion.
[00:02:49] *Anger is a secondary emotion that comes because we had something else that we felt first and it escalated into anger. It does not happen alone.*
[00:03:01] It often comes when we're feeling resentful, disappointed, ashamed, hopeless, guilty, overwhelmed, embarrassed, frustrated, afraid, anxious, threatened, rejected, entitled, hurt, offended, victimized, lonely, tired... so many other emotions that often bring anger along with it.
[00:03:30] So that's the first piece, knowing where anger comes from. It comes from another emotion that brings it as a friend.
[00:03:37] *So how does it escalate and turned into anger?*
[00:03:40] Well, first off, that feeling that sparks the anger usually sparks because we don't give space for that feeling.
[00:03:47] Instead of allowing our feeling, we allow ourselves to dwell on those feelings in negative or resistant ways. And then it builds into angry thoughts about revenge or judgment or blame or resistance or frustration. And then as you push those away or let those build, that emotional intensity actually creates a physical response in your body. And these physical reactions increase your emotional temperature, intensifying and heating up your anger. And when that happens, we often start talking in negative ways and accusing other people, arguing, yelling, feeling out of control and our body starts responding to the situation.
[00:04:31] Have you ever experienced this? One of those moments where you feel like you're just watching yourself and you're reacting and you think, "Well, that's really not a helpful way to act!" but you're doing it anyway? Your body's just lashing out in anger.
[00:04:45] *What does that typically look like for you?*
[00:04:48] Is it a physical experience where you get that certain look on your face and you point your finger and say what somebody's doing wrong? You have an escalated voice. You use certain words.
[00:04:58] Maybe it's a mental response where you sit and you brood about different thoughts like, " How do they even dare do that?" or, "That's not okay!" You think about what happened over and over and over again and brood on it angrily.
[00:05:10] Or maybe you have an emotional response with your heart, where you pull away and submarine down, not letting anybody follow you, pushing them away, putting up a brick wall and having passive aggressive comments about why you're angry.
[00:05:25] Whatever it looks like for you, I want you to take a moment and just embrace what is. What is your typical anger response?
[00:05:34] *Because remember the first thing you have to do to make any progress to move forward is to become more self-aware.*
[00:05:41] And that's one of the main goals of this podcast.
[00:05:43] *So let's uncover not with judgment, but with curiosity, what your typical anger response is.*
[00:05:51] What does it look like for you? That experience that you thought about where you recently got angry, how did you react? What was it like? What is your typical response when that emotional intensity of anger starts boiling up in you? We all have a favorite heating up tendency. What's yours?
[00:06:13] In all honesty, one of mine is getting nitpicky. When I'm angry, I'll start pointing out every little tiny thing that's wrong. Whether I say it out loud or whether I'm saying it in my head, my filter is, "That was wrong. That was wrong. That was wrong. You're doing it wrong. I'm doing it wrong. Everything's going wrong!" the "It's wrong!" is one of my biggest triggers for heating up my anger.
[00:06:39] And I can take that self-awareness and beat myself up about it. I can say, "Oh, I'm such a bad person that I'm negative, or I talk down to my kids when I'm angry or talk down to myself!" and I can add more negative about my negative. But that's not going to help. It's just going to make my anger heat back up, right?
[00:06:58] So this moment of self-awareness, I invite you to also add self-love. Because that anger it came from a hard emotion in the first place. You were feeling something... something that was hard for you to feel. Whether it was out of control or exhaustion or frustration or hurt there were some deep emotions that came igniting that anger. And it's okay that you were struggling with those feelings.
[00:07:27] *Instead of adding negativity or letting the anger build up and erupt like a volcano, you can use the self-awareness to interrupt the anger cycle.*
[00:07:40] So first we learn what it is that heats us up to anger. Then we explore what can help us cool down instead.
[00:07:50] Here are some simple ideas to help you explore what might be useful for your cool down:
[00:07:55] Identifying and allowing the underlying emotions. Figuring out where it came from in the first place.
[00:08:03] Simply counting to ten can re engage your brain so you're not in such a reactive place.
[00:08:08] Doing some sort of exercise that's non-competitive exercise, but moving your body because motion changes emotion.
[00:08:17] Taking a break to meditate, pray, or simply relax away from the situation.
[00:08:23] Going outside to reset your senses and reground into nature.
[00:08:28] Practicing other empowering thoughts that can replace those negative thoughts. One of my favorites is to shift from, "Everything is going wrong!" to "All that matters is my next choice."
[00:08:41] And always a powerful option, simply taking some deep breaths.
[00:08:46] Now I want you to take a moment and just pick one, just one, whether it's something that I said or something that popped in your head that helps you cool down your anger. Think about what helps you reset, relax, and just unwind when you feel that boiling starting to happen.
[00:09:05] What helps you cool down? Pick one thing, and I want you to put that in your pocket and have that ready for when you start feeling the boil. Because if you have that practice and you say, "Hey, what was that thing that I was going to do to help me not heat up my anger?" You pull it out and you practice and then you pull it out again the next time and you pull it out again the next time. And if it doesn't work, you find a different one and you pull that one out and you allow yourself to interrupt your anger cycle.
[00:09:38] It might seem simple, but it truly does work. I've seen it help with my kids, my clients, myself, with so many others, and I know that it can help you too.
[00:09:50] Don't let your anger control your life. You are not a bad person for feeling angry. But as you understand where anger comes from, how it escalates and what to do with it, you can feel more empowered to choose how to respond instead of just react to that anger.
[00:10:08] *You are not your anger. You are a beautiful human being that has lots of different emotions that you can navigate.*
[00:10:17] If you need some help, reach out and let me know. I'd love to help you navigate your God given emotions because they are just as beautiful as you. Keep shining my friend. Have a blessed day.
[00:10:29] You are radiant and God wants you to remember that truth. But sometimes you forget. Don't worry, I've got you. I've created some free resources that will help you live lighter and shine brighter. Check out my show notes for the links.
[00:10:50] However, God guides your next steps, know that you are not alone on this journey I can't wait to see how you discover a more radiant you.
