Getting Heated
June 30, 2022
Let's take a moment to consider the many overlooked nuances of anger. It is not meant to be an action. It is meant to be a signal in my opinion. Yeah. So what is your anger signaling to you today in the past? When do you feel angry and why does it mean something to you and what you want to do with that? I think it could be something wonderful and I'm here for it.
Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander.
Hello, hi, welcome and come on in. I hope that you are feeling today, I hope that you are feeling, not that I hope you're feeling badly, but I hope you've got some feelings that we can tap into in a seriously yourself kind of way. You know, we've talked about lots of different feelings, I think in the last several episodes and today, because it is summer and we've had a few stints of some heat. I know some of you in the country have had massive amounts of a really, really hot weather and when I think of hot weather, one thing I do consider is hot emotions, emotions that heat up, right? I find myself more in touch with those, I think when it is warm outside and you certainly can see that people's tempers, we talk about their tempers kind of boiling over, right, and really less patience with one another possibly, and stronger feelings, a little more yang, the yang of things rather than the yin, the, the sort of fiery energy.
So today we're considering that most common maybe, that most prevalent feeling of anger, right, anger. And I think that anger is often kind of a disrespected overlooked emotion, you know, there are people that come in and they'll sit on the couch across from me and they'll be like, you know, I don't really get angry and I think, well it's kinda everyone's birthright to have anger, you're allowed to get angry. In fact, it's probably pretty essential, but what happens is a lot of us grow is that anger is not an okay feeling, right? If I say, what do you think about anger? Just notice the kinds of words that come up for you, you know, and see what you get because they probably often come from your upbringing. So you might hear yourself say things like, oh anger that is weak, or anger is powerful, you might hear yourself say anger is for the stupid, the foolish, the immature, you might hear yourself say anger is an out of control, kind of a thing you might hear anger is bad, anger makes me feel numb. There are so many different nuances about anger that we don't even consider. So let's take a minute today and consider them because you know what anger is a real thing, it really does happen and it is not this most basic of things that we consider it to be.
I don't know, I think people often characterize anger as sort of juvenile, right? Kids get happy, sad and mad. I used to work with a lot of Children and I'd say, well what are your feelings happy, sad and mad, happy, sad and mad. Okay. Yeah, yeah, those are some of your feelings, but there's nothing particularly basic about anger at all. In fact, I think anger is complex, it is nuanced and it's energetic. If I'm talking to someone and they're expressing anger and they've been really depressed in the past or there is a risk that they could become depressed. I'm sort of happy to see anger. It's got energy, it's got fire, it's got verve, there's some life to it. It is not this horrible thing.
Now, if it comes up and you've been raised to believe that it's terrible or you have witnessed people being terrible out of their anger behaving in ways that are really hurtful, then, you know that energy might be significantly dampened or feared right? Or create extreme anxiety and that makes a whole lot of sense too Yeah, of course she would feel that way. So, some ideas, what do you do when you're angry? What can you do? One of the things I think we should always do if we get that twinge of anger. And again, if you don't like to call it anger within yourself, you could look for things like twinges of frustration, annoyance, feeling disgusted, resentful, perturbed, upset, Right? These are other ways that people describe these variations on the theme of anger, right? Disrespected, I hear that a lot. I felt so disrespected. Yes. And what did that bring up inside you? Maybe anger. What anger is generally doing, and again, it can lead us down many different paths, but it is telling us something is wrong, something's not right, right? Something has rubbed me the wrong way, just like you when you take the fur on a cat's back and you go the opposite direction and the snarl and kind of hiss and go away, right? That's anger I'm rezzed up. So when you feel angry rather than going into all kinds of moral stance about it, like, oh, this is bad, I'm feeling this way or rather than acting from it right, flipping someone off, or yelling at them, or being harmful. Take some time and listen to the part of you that feels angry, right? And if it's hard to do alone, you could find someone you really trust and just say I would love for you to without worrying about fixing it or getting afraid of it. I'm not going to act from it. I just want this part of me to be able to speak, right. And so anger will start going, you know, and again with its that special energy that only anger has it could really want to say a lot. This makes me furious. I am so mad about this. I cannot stand that, you hear it, yeah. And then listen, what's so upsetting? What's so upsetting? Something is wrong.
Oftentimes the things that make us the most angry are the most helpful at telling us exactly what is happening inside us that we don't like about ourselves or that we are doing to ourselves. So if I am really angry at someone for ignoring me, that's probably true in the outside. But on the inside of me, I might really want to start searching around for parts of me that I'm ignoring or parts of my life that feel ignored, right? So this can be a really wonderful trailhead. If I'm angry that someone is being foolish or being fooled, I have to look for parts of me that I worry are being foolish, fooled, or that I'm fooling. If I am mad at someone for being hypocritical. You know, it's a good time to look in and find what parts of me feel hypocritical to myself? And it doesn't hurt to do that, it's okay. That doesn't mean you're a bad person or you have to be throwing yourself on the floor or something. It just means you're human. And it's always a good thing to find.
And if you're expressing this anger out towards a friend and they're they're just doing this lovely job of, you know, taking notes or something all of a sudden you might notice. Wow, I feel a lot calmer. Yeah. Anger likes to be heard. It likes to know this that it's not there for nothing. Now, on the other hand, if they fight back with you, the anger goes, see, I'm not there for nothing and then it starts reacting and that's not what you wanna do. You just want to listen. So it knows, yeah, I hear you anger. The other thing about anger that you might notice is it is often very, very protective. You know, anger will come up in response to parts of us that feel hurt or feel like we're lesser, right? Anger will come up and you know, it's a signal to us who something underneath got trampled, right? If I, if I get scolded at the grocery store for, I don't know, stepping in front of somebody or bumping into someone, I'm going to get angry. I might have a sense of anger first and it's because I'm embarrassed, right? The anger will come up to sort of protect little parts of me that are feeling embarrassed and you might have similar, right? So that's another great thing to look for. If the anger wasn't there, what might I feel instead? And again, this is very internal family systems model, right? So if the anger didn't do this job for me, what does it believe would be the worser thing I'd have to feel and that might be embarrassment, hurt, shame, pain, rejection, etcetera.
Brenee brown, one of her quotes is that "anger is a powerful catalyst, but a life sucking companion". Yeah, and it's true if we sit around with anger too long, it really can feel exhausting and embittering and really sort of turns in on ourselves, right, that we lose our humor about us. We don't want to sit with it and be have it be us very long. It is kind of life sucking. On the other hand, this catalyst thing is kind of a big deal. I remember hearing Ken Hardy, who's a therapist speak and he, he talked about people do things, big things out of being dissed, pissed or blissed. So this is the pissed part of it, right? Like I'm so angry that if I listen to the anger and I recognize yes, it really is showing me that something is very, very wrong. What can I do? Not, what can the anger do? What can I do, to respect what that anger has noticed is wrong, to give it what it deserves, to use that energy, to use that energetic, passionate anger. People have run for office because something angered them. People have changed communities, right? Set of things that people needed, helped people, fed people, clothed people, educated them, right, loved them big because they were first angry because something was wrong. So hey, it's summer, it might be heating up where you live or not if you're in Australia might be cooling down, but pay attention to the heat within you. That anger notice its beautiful nuances. Notice the subtleties of it. Ask the parts of you that might feel shame or embarrassment about it as a base or instinct to step back. It's not a small thing. This anger and the more you can listen from it, the more honor it takes on because you are not just flying off the handle from anger. It is not meant to be an action. It is meant to be a signal in my opinion. Yeah. So what is your anger signaling to you today in the past? When do you feel angry and why does it mean something to you and what you want to do with that? I think it could be something wonderful and I'm here for it. Thanks for joining me today. As always, it is my joy and pleasure to be with you. And I would again just ask that you share, share, share the podcast with people that you love and care about. Feel free to drop me a line to send a review or to ask a question. I am happy to hear from you anytime. Take good care. See you soon. Bye.
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives.
Hello, hi, welcome and come on in. I hope that you are feeling today, I hope that you are feeling, not that I hope you're feeling badly, but I hope you've got some feelings that we can tap into in a seriously yourself kind of way. You know, we've talked about lots of different feelings, I think in the last several episodes and today, because it is summer and we've had a few stints of some heat. I know some of you in the country have had massive amounts of a really, really hot weather and when I think of hot weather, one thing I do consider is hot emotions, emotions that heat up, right? I find myself more in touch with those, I think when it is warm outside and you certainly can see that people's tempers, we talk about their tempers kind of boiling over, right, and really less patience with one another possibly, and stronger feelings, a little more yang, the yang of things rather than the yin, the, the sort of fiery energy.
So today we're considering that most common maybe, that most prevalent feeling of anger, right, anger. And I think that anger is often kind of a disrespected overlooked emotion, you know, there are people that come in and they'll sit on the couch across from me and they'll be like, you know, I don't really get angry and I think, well it's kinda everyone's birthright to have anger, you're allowed to get angry. In fact, it's probably pretty essential, but what happens is a lot of us grow is that anger is not an okay feeling, right? If I say, what do you think about anger? Just notice the kinds of words that come up for you, you know, and see what you get because they probably often come from your upbringing. So you might hear yourself say things like, oh anger that is weak, or anger is powerful, you might hear yourself say anger is for the stupid, the foolish, the immature, you might hear yourself say anger is an out of control, kind of a thing you might hear anger is bad, anger makes me feel numb. There are so many different nuances about anger that we don't even consider. So let's take a minute today and consider them because you know what anger is a real thing, it really does happen and it is not this most basic of things that we consider it to be.
I don't know, I think people often characterize anger as sort of juvenile, right? Kids get happy, sad and mad. I used to work with a lot of Children and I'd say, well what are your feelings happy, sad and mad, happy, sad and mad. Okay. Yeah, yeah, those are some of your feelings, but there's nothing particularly basic about anger at all. In fact, I think anger is complex, it is nuanced and it's energetic. If I'm talking to someone and they're expressing anger and they've been really depressed in the past or there is a risk that they could become depressed. I'm sort of happy to see anger. It's got energy, it's got fire, it's got verve, there's some life to it. It is not this horrible thing.
Now, if it comes up and you've been raised to believe that it's terrible or you have witnessed people being terrible out of their anger behaving in ways that are really hurtful, then, you know that energy might be significantly dampened or feared right? Or create extreme anxiety and that makes a whole lot of sense too Yeah, of course she would feel that way. So, some ideas, what do you do when you're angry? What can you do? One of the things I think we should always do if we get that twinge of anger. And again, if you don't like to call it anger within yourself, you could look for things like twinges of frustration, annoyance, feeling disgusted, resentful, perturbed, upset, Right? These are other ways that people describe these variations on the theme of anger, right? Disrespected, I hear that a lot. I felt so disrespected. Yes. And what did that bring up inside you? Maybe anger. What anger is generally doing, and again, it can lead us down many different paths, but it is telling us something is wrong, something's not right, right? Something has rubbed me the wrong way, just like you when you take the fur on a cat's back and you go the opposite direction and the snarl and kind of hiss and go away, right? That's anger I'm rezzed up. So when you feel angry rather than going into all kinds of moral stance about it, like, oh, this is bad, I'm feeling this way or rather than acting from it right, flipping someone off, or yelling at them, or being harmful. Take some time and listen to the part of you that feels angry, right? And if it's hard to do alone, you could find someone you really trust and just say I would love for you to without worrying about fixing it or getting afraid of it. I'm not going to act from it. I just want this part of me to be able to speak, right. And so anger will start going, you know, and again with its that special energy that only anger has it could really want to say a lot. This makes me furious. I am so mad about this. I cannot stand that, you hear it, yeah. And then listen, what's so upsetting? What's so upsetting? Something is wrong.
Oftentimes the things that make us the most angry are the most helpful at telling us exactly what is happening inside us that we don't like about ourselves or that we are doing to ourselves. So if I am really angry at someone for ignoring me, that's probably true in the outside. But on the inside of me, I might really want to start searching around for parts of me that I'm ignoring or parts of my life that feel ignored, right? So this can be a really wonderful trailhead. If I'm angry that someone is being foolish or being fooled, I have to look for parts of me that I worry are being foolish, fooled, or that I'm fooling. If I am mad at someone for being hypocritical. You know, it's a good time to look in and find what parts of me feel hypocritical to myself? And it doesn't hurt to do that, it's okay. That doesn't mean you're a bad person or you have to be throwing yourself on the floor or something. It just means you're human. And it's always a good thing to find.
And if you're expressing this anger out towards a friend and they're they're just doing this lovely job of, you know, taking notes or something all of a sudden you might notice. Wow, I feel a lot calmer. Yeah. Anger likes to be heard. It likes to know this that it's not there for nothing. Now, on the other hand, if they fight back with you, the anger goes, see, I'm not there for nothing and then it starts reacting and that's not what you wanna do. You just want to listen. So it knows, yeah, I hear you anger. The other thing about anger that you might notice is it is often very, very protective. You know, anger will come up in response to parts of us that feel hurt or feel like we're lesser, right? Anger will come up and you know, it's a signal to us who something underneath got trampled, right? If I, if I get scolded at the grocery store for, I don't know, stepping in front of somebody or bumping into someone, I'm going to get angry. I might have a sense of anger first and it's because I'm embarrassed, right? The anger will come up to sort of protect little parts of me that are feeling embarrassed and you might have similar, right? So that's another great thing to look for. If the anger wasn't there, what might I feel instead? And again, this is very internal family systems model, right? So if the anger didn't do this job for me, what does it believe would be the worser thing I'd have to feel and that might be embarrassment, hurt, shame, pain, rejection, etcetera.
Brenee brown, one of her quotes is that "anger is a powerful catalyst, but a life sucking companion". Yeah, and it's true if we sit around with anger too long, it really can feel exhausting and embittering and really sort of turns in on ourselves, right, that we lose our humor about us. We don't want to sit with it and be have it be us very long. It is kind of life sucking. On the other hand, this catalyst thing is kind of a big deal. I remember hearing Ken Hardy, who's a therapist speak and he, he talked about people do things, big things out of being dissed, pissed or blissed. So this is the pissed part of it, right? Like I'm so angry that if I listen to the anger and I recognize yes, it really is showing me that something is very, very wrong. What can I do? Not, what can the anger do? What can I do, to respect what that anger has noticed is wrong, to give it what it deserves, to use that energy, to use that energetic, passionate anger. People have run for office because something angered them. People have changed communities, right? Set of things that people needed, helped people, fed people, clothed people, educated them, right, loved them big because they were first angry because something was wrong. So hey, it's summer, it might be heating up where you live or not if you're in Australia might be cooling down, but pay attention to the heat within you. That anger notice its beautiful nuances. Notice the subtleties of it. Ask the parts of you that might feel shame or embarrassment about it as a base or instinct to step back. It's not a small thing. This anger and the more you can listen from it, the more honor it takes on because you are not just flying off the handle from anger. It is not meant to be an action. It is meant to be a signal in my opinion. Yeah. So what is your anger signaling to you today in the past? When do you feel angry and why does it mean something to you and what you want to do with that? I think it could be something wonderful and I'm here for it. Thanks for joining me today. As always, it is my joy and pleasure to be with you. And I would again just ask that you share, share, share the podcast with people that you love and care about. Feel free to drop me a line to send a review or to ask a question. I am happy to hear from you anytime. Take good care. See you soon. Bye.
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives.
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/.
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time.