Things You Learn in Therapy
Things You Learn in Therapy
Ep52: Unlocking the Secret Strengths of Anger and Finding Happiness
What if anger could be a messenger, guiding us toward deeper understanding and self-awareness? Listen in today as I share some of the ins and outs of anger, how to manage it more effectively and find meaning in this common but often misunderstood emotion. It's time to take control of your anger and transform it into a powerful ally.
But life isn't just about managing anger, it's also about finding joy in everyday moments and relationships. This episode explores how to cultivate happiness in the small things and use our connections with others to bring more joy into our lives. Don't miss out on these essential insights for embracing both the challenges and the beauty in our emotional journeys.
This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast
Feel free to share your thoughts at www.makewordsmatterforgood.com or email me at Beth@makewordsmatterforgood.com
If you are a therapist or psychologist and want to be a guest on the show, please complete this form to apply: https://forms.gle/ooy8QirpgL2JSLhP6
www.bethtrammell.com
Hello listener, welcome to our conversation today on anger. I'm your host, dr Beth Tramell, and I'm a licensed psychologist and an associate professor of psychology at Indiana University East, where I'm also the director of the master's in mental health counseling program, and I love talking about all things mental wellness, emotion, interpersonal relationships, communication And so I really love this topic of anger And it's kind of an interesting topic in my household because last summer, actually, i led an anger management group in the community with four through six graders And it was something where my kids actually kind of came and helped me out with handing things out and they participated in the group And now, anytime anyone's angry at our house, they're always like you need anger management, you should go to anger management with mom. So, anyway, i talk about anger a lot because anger is a really common emotion, right, and anger is also a really common label that we probably mislabel how we're actually feeling, and so it's why we're going to talk about it here. For those of you who maybe didn't tune in to the other podcast that I have called Kids See, states Need Us to Make Words Matter for Good. I talked about three things that you probably don't want to know but really need to know about anger and children, and so I would invite you to listen to that episode that was released this past Monday.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:But today I want to talk through the adult lens, right? So we as grownups, we as adults, what do we learn about anger in the therapy room? And so the first thing that I want to talk about is that anger is okay. Anger is okay, and this may be new information for you, or it may be information that you kind of know logically, but maybe your experiences in life for example, growing up in your family, anger was not okay. Or maybe growing up as a child, anger was kind of not okay in your family, maybe you kind of grew up in a fairly abusive household where anger was really bad. Anger was really bad, and so what I want to help us kind of think about today is that there is space for anger in our everyday lives. It's just what we do with anger that may become a problem, and so anger is okay as long as we are also searching for a deeper meaning, right? So if we're experiencing anger, i want to first encourage us to think about what is below the anger. You know, what is it that this anger is telling me about what this situation is, what this relationship is. To me, this anger should be a sign. It should be a signal to us to search for deeper meaning. And so, as we are maybe experiencing anger today or yesterday or tomorrow, i want you to pause and say what is my anger trying to tell me? Because as we're searching for deeper meaning, we might be able to see that it's not really as much about anger as it is other emotions And I talked about this on the other podcast too that often we need sort of a list of choices.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Right, because most of us don't use a super complex emotional vocabulary. Most of us aren't raised that way. We haven't had a whole lot of experience. It's certainly not common practice in our culture to be talking about all of our complex emotions, and yet talking about, or at least reflecting on, more complex emotions really tells us more about what's happening in our everyday lives and our relationships. So if we're experiencing anger, that's okay. Anger is okay, and I want for us to search for the deeper meaning.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Anger is also okay, but rage and hatefulness are not right. We don't have to be hateful, hurtful or rageful when we're angry. I think, when I think about this and maybe some of my experiences with folks who have talked to me about their anger. It's like we don't know what to do. You know And I think that's what happens that because we don't know what to do, we just kind of fly off the handle. Right. We go from I'm feeling this thing to I am on 10 and now I'm, you know, rage monster.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:We have to be able to hold space and say I feel angry, and maybe your heart is racing and maybe your palms are sweaty and maybe your body is responding in a way where it is elevating. Right, we can tolerate. We can tolerate our body doing that, but we can't tolerate it if we're not prepared to have a different response, right? So most of us, when our body is starting to rev up, we want to do something with that right. That makes sense, that is evolutionary, that is what our bodies are trained to do, right?
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:But what we need to learn to do is tolerate that a little bit more and say, okay, i can breathe through this, i can experience anger. I don't have to scream and yell, i don't have to be rageful, i don't have to start fighting or running away. I can stay here for just a little bit, because the truth is, anger is meant to be temporary. All of our emotions are meant to be temporary. Our body really isn't suited for long term high emotional states, right, our body isn't created for that. Our body is created to have an emotion for a little bit of time and then our body comes back to homeostasis. It comes back to kind of baseline, right. So our bodies might spike a little bit when we're feeling anxious or happy or, you know, even sadness. It might be a spike in the emotion even though we were kind of low, right, it's still this like increase in emotional energy. So, to realize that anger is meant to be temporary, we can feel empowered to say I can hold this anger for a little bit without having to fly off the handle, without having to say anything.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I think sometimes because we are driven to do something or because we think, well, i have to yell, because they have to understand that I'm angry. Okay, friend, just are you ready? Here we go. They can know that you're angry by you just saying I am angry, that's all. Just saying I am angry. That is as clear as we can be. Now it is going to feel like there is no way you're going to be able to do that. I'm here to tell you that you can. You can breathe through, regulate your body and then say I'm really angry when you disrespect me. I feel really angry when I ask you something and you totally ignore me.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:In fact, now that I think about it, it's not actually anger. This is real vulnerable here, friend. This is real vulnerable. It's not actually that I'm angry, it's that I'm hurt That your phone is more important than the conversation I want to have with you. That's the message I'm receiving. I know that's probably not the message you want to send to me, but that's the message I'm receiving. What would your relationship be like if you did that, instead of screaming at them to get off their phone that they don't give you know ooh, i almost said a curse word there that they don't care about you, right? You're screaming and yelling at them. They need to know I'm angry.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Yes, it's okay to let other people know you're angry, without being rageful, hurtful. You could be clear with your emotions, with your communication. Maybe you're not in a relationship where it's safe to be that vulnerable yet. Maybe, if you don't feel like, over and over again, you don't feel like you can be vulnerable. Maybe it's time to have other boundaries. Maybe it's time to find another relationship. If you don't feel like you can do this right, if you're saying that I can never do that There's no way I'd ever be able to say that Then maybe this relationship isn't great for you. Or maybe it's time to have your own time in therapy to learn why anger is so tricky, why anger is always your default and you're afraid to share about other emotions that you're experiencing. Right, maybe it's time to do that work and step in and say, hey, i want to do something besides be hateful or hurtful or rageful when I'm angry.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:And so what can we do when we're angry? right, here's just a few things. One breathe. I know that this is probably the most common thing. It's like the most therapisty thing we could say, right, that our top strategy when we're feeling emotional, and basically anyway, is to breathe. But it really is true, and here's why your breath is always with you. Your breath is the best thing. You have to regulate your body. Then we can start to control Well, control is not really the right word We can start to regulate our body in a more effective way, right, when you're angry.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Like I said earlier, our job is to, after we've kind of taken some breaths, we've regulated our body, our job is to reflect, to think about right, what is the deeper emotion that I might be able to label? What is it that I can learn from this? What is the pattern of how I continue to feel angry at this particular thing in my life, or this particular person or this situation, whatever it might be? Okay, here we go When we're feeling angry, we get to choose forgiveness. We get to choose forgiveness And we will have a whole episode on forgiveness because there is so much that we get screwed up in our minds and our relationships about forgiveness. But forgiveness is always a choice, it's always available, and that doesn't mean we're gonna let people continue to hurt us. It doesn't mean that we are okay with what happened. It just means that I am setting a boundary to protect my own peace. That's what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is protecting my peace, so that I don't have to carry anger, i don't have to be kind of physiologically all wound up with these emotions. I'm gonna choose forgiveness and choose to protect my own peace.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Last thing I wanna say here about what we can do when we're angry is to remember that not everything has to matter. Not everything has to matter. You know, i think we're kind of in a place in our culture where social media has created this platform for everything to matter And anybody that says anything that I disagree with or I don't like or I think is ridiculous. Social media has created a platform where we can share that, and often when we engage in that sort of making things matter doesn't necessarily make us feel better, right, And so if you're finding that it's really hard for you to get out of this pattern of being angry on the daily, maybe it's time to just say not everything has to matter. Make it your home screen on your phone, write a little post-it note, put it on the bathroom mirror, put it on top of your laptop, your computer, put it on your refrigerator. Not everything has to matter.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:At the end of the day, if we are really focused on kind of managing anger better, our best way to do that is to protect our peace. Right, and then figuring out what can I do to protect that peace? I'll sometimes tell folks don't watch the news anymore. I'll say, don't even be on social media. What would be different in your life if you didn't watch the news every single night? If you didn't look on social media before you went to bed, if checking your email wasn't the first thing that you did in the morning, right? Maybe you can't not do those things? right, i have to check my email in the morning? Great, then let's protect your peace for the first half hour. So let's just say, don't check your email until 30 minutes after you wake up and you can have your cup of coffee or your tea and you can have your conversations that you know, with your family or partner or whatever that might look like. In what ways can we guard particular times of day And I usually say first thing in the morning, for sure, lunchtime as a break in the middle of the day and right before bedtime. Those are your three key times to sort of protect your peace and whatever that looks like.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:So, as you are thinking about how can I be better with anger And that might mean maybe you're not even an angry person, maybe you don't have a whole lot of anger on the daily, but you're like man, when I get angry it's not so good, right? Maybe this is your moment, right? What are those things I need to intentionally do? I am so thankful for you for listening today. I really, really am. You know, i started doing this podcast and I just find so much joy in being able to share this information with you and would love to hear from you if this is impacting you in any sort of positive way. I love hearing stories from folks, so please reach out to me, bathatmakerosmatterforgoodcom, and I'd just love to hear from you.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Next week on the podcast, we are going to talk about finding joy in everyday moments and friends. I want to tell you this is perfect for us here in the summer, but it's just perfect to come after this conversation on anger, because you can't just live your life just like not being angry I mean, i guess you could right, just like not being angry, but really what we want is to increase our moments of joy and fun and play and Ugh, alright. So we're going to talk about how we can do that. If you have thoughts or ideas, reach out. We'd love to hear from you. And if not, that was another episode of Things You Learned Therapy and I will be back next week, so looking forward to sharing more with you then. Stay safe and stay well, friends, ciao.
