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“When do I know that I have a problem with anger?” · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, is the Central Twincular Church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian Church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Today we are going to speak about when do I know that I have a problem with anger?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: All of us feel anger.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: It may come at times when we're disappointed, maybe when we don't get a job or a promotion that we wanted.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: It might come when we have a personal problem.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: It might come about as a result of somebody canceling plans on us or that we're stuck in traffic or that we miss a meeting.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone feels anger from time to time.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: But when does anger become a problem?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's the topic of our discussion today.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Today I'm joined by Chase Nealand, who is a marriage and family therapist.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: He graduated from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts in 1975 with his Master of Divinity degree in pastoral ministries and pastoral counseling.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: He has been working in the field of marriage and family therapy for over 40 years.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: He is a Pennsylvania state licensed marriage and family therapist and a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: He has a website, www.chasenealan.com.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: His practice is based in the annex of a historic building which was once the old Norrington Tavern.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: It is on Germantown Pike and Trooper Road.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the show, Chase.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Drake.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice to be here today.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: And glad to have your thoughts on anger.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure those who are listening would uh uh benefit from a definition of anger.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Can you try and define anger for us?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Anger is one of our four basic feelings that we feel.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the four basic feelings are fear, sadness, joy, and anger.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And commonly we feel anger when something blocks us from getting what we want.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I often think about anger as kind of a secondary feeling, and I'll tell you why.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Anger usually comes up in a person as a reaction to something.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: For instance, you have an interaction that uh that's an unhappy one, your response to it is that you'll you'll feel irritable, you'll feel unhappy.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: All feelings are normal.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get that straight from the get-go.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Is anger just a feeling?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very good question.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, anger is just a feeling, and let's differentiate between a feeling and an action connected to the feeling.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, feelings don't hurt anybody.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's the actions that we undertake based on the feeling that can be hurtful.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we do have to be careful with that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Having a feeling is one thing.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh engaging in the activity of demonstrating the feeling, I often call that acting out.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's when things become hurtful.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we have to watch that.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just to have the feeling and to share it, which is different, sharing the feeling is talking about it.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the same as dumping the feeling on another guy, like actively getting angry with somebody and saying hurtful, mean-spirited things to them.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's hurtful.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the same as sharing that indeed I am feeling this sort of way with this person or with this circumstance.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing wrong with having anger.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that uh I think about an awful lot is how much of the time is a person feeling angry and what's the level of the anger that they experience.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: When you think it through, uh if there has been one ounce of disappointment come your way, it would be reasonable that you should be about one ounce of disappointed or irritated or angry in response.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you find that small disappointments, small provocations wind you up feeling really a significant amount of anger, you have to ask yourself, what is making me uh so kind of hyper-reactive to this situation?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's number one.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And number two, if you're angry, I'm gonna hesitate from saying all the time, but if you're angry a lot, when you think about anger being a reactive sort of feeling, if you're angry a lot, you have to wonder what kind of grievance am I carrying around that's tipping me over into being angry so much of the time or so easily?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: There there's really no good reason right off the top of my head for someone to go around being chronically angry.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you you talked about this sounds like a very uh uh complex uh emotion.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: You talked about it being a reactive uh one.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is this more difficult to pinpoint than let's say you mentioned uh joy?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um is it is it more challenging to define?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very good question.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that it goes to it goes to you know what I would like somebody to think about when when they find themselves getting angry.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a lot of the times when we get angry, we think that the other guy did something to make me upset.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's getting close to putting the responsibility for my feeling on the other guy.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's not necessarily correct.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, some of the times it's correct, but uh not necessarily all the time.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think that what we ought to do is we ought to constantly be asking ourselves the question, what am I bringing to the situation that puts me in a position where if I experience the least little disappointment, I'm gonna get angry.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think we ought to be asking ourselves, what have been my life circumstances for a long time that have sensitized me to certain kinds of encounters, certain kinds of disappointments.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and in order to help ourselves, I think it's tremendously important, and it's a skill to be learned.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that I think comes naturally with people.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's really important that an individual develop an attitude of curiosity about himself.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm in the office with somebody and they're telling me a story and they're angry about something, I will do my very best to become intensely curious about their situation, about their life circumstances that have brought them to these moments.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: How did they grow up?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I always like people to do is to become curious about how come they react in situations the way they react.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's tremendously important not just to have a feeling and blurt out your response to whatever the feeling is, and you know, to have your reaction, uh, but to instead ask yourself, gee, I wonder why I'm having this reaction.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: To become curious about oneself.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are you bringing to the encounter that pushes you in the direction of having this particular response, especially when it comes to anger.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's a funny thing.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: In in most relationships, folks do not like to make each other angry.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Folks do not get a big charge out of deliberately making the other person angry, because then they're going to have to tolerate the intensity of the other person's anger.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that a lot of times in relationship, what happens to us is that we we stumble kind of innocently into offending the other person or making the other person upset, or we tumble into something ourselves that we've been uh an area that we're particularly sensitized about, and then we react.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: But there's no way that you're going to know that that's where you're coming from unless you have an attitude of curiosity about yourself and about the other person.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you're in an interaction with somebody and they're angry or upset, do you stop and say, I wonder how their day has been?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: What I have found over the years when I work with people, I take really good notes.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I can show people when they come in and say, I had a terrible day yesterday, I spent the whole day angry.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm usually able to point back to some of the things that they've been dealing with that of course they're super sensitized.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting to explore this as to what a person's bringing to the situation.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Do you feel society is fueling uh anger?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: There have been several studies recently that have said that we become more angry as a society over the last decade.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: What what do you think about that?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely think that's the case.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, I I think it has an awful lot to do with the the level of personal expectation that we we have for ourselves and we have for other people.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: We have become more and more, and this is not new information, we've become more and more an instant gratification society.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very high expectation to have, both of yourself and of the other person.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the higher your expectation is, the easier it is to fall into a disappointment.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Folks get angry when that happens.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: They fail to be understanding.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: I would rather that people are more patient with each other or more patient with themselves.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: See, here's a truth that I think that we all forget.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Good things take time to develop.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: We think that we can just read the Cliff Notes version and then get the message.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: That that's not the case.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: You you might be able to do that in an exam the very next day and do okay, but are you going to retain that information?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is it going to become integrated into the core of your being where it's really going to be able to do some good instantly?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Some have linked it to depression.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think you could comment on the relationship between anger and depression?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: I have been absolutely astonished over the years as a therapist, seeing how many times anger, when it's withheld and not expressed, will lead to depression.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I always ask that question when somebody comes in to see me and they're depressed.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: I start thinking, I wonder what they're irritated about, I wonder what they're angry about, that they don't feel like they can express, that they have to hold inside themselves.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And after you do that for a while, you're full up with withheld anger, and you have no energy left to live your life because you're managing all that internalized, pent-up irritation, and it takes your energy, and so you wind up presenting, feeling both to yourself and to the environment, to people around you, energy less, depressed.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: When somebody's depressed, always ask the question, I wonder what they're irritated about, and don't feel like they can express.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: Do you feel that um this time of lockdown that we're having because of the coronavirus, do you feel that that is uh causing people to be more angry or exaggerating the uh previous things in people's lives so that they are more aggravated?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: When I when Lyndon and I were married back in the in in the early 70s, we went on a we went on a vacation for a month uh over in Europe, and a colleague of mine, a therapist colleague of mine, said, Oh, that'll be a really good test for your marriage.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Why?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Because you're going to be together 24-7 for the next 30 days.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's very interesting.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've never forgotten that that colleague said that.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a pleasant vacation.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's tons of uh there's tons of worries that folks are having, economic concerns, health concerns.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Dad used to say the stock market hates uncertainty.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think us human beings hate uncertainty.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: It really upsets us and we are besieged by it.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think a very common reaction to feeling depressed, concerned like we are, is to get angry.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not that that's the correct thing to do, but it's easy to fall into.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And when we're with each other twenty-four-seven, it's it's so easy to have the littlest things bother us.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yes.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: But how do we know that uh we have a problem with anger?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it's one thing to be uh locked down together and you know that probably does increase uh anger, but when do we know that we have a a problem and that we might need to address an anger problem?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that we have to I think several things.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think we have to rely on the uh the input of our friends, on the input of our family members, and we we have to develop kind of an attitude of being willing to examine ourselves.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I would love it if people would examine themselves more on on a daily basis.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how am I doing?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I wonder how come I responded that away to this situation, etc.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go back to what I said a while ago about if you find that you're too upset for the situation, that your irritation uh is way out of proportion to the amount of provocation.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think you really have to look at that and wonder what is going on with me?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Who can provide you with that kind of input?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Your spouse can, family members can, your work colleagues, friends who love you and care about you can.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Take those people seriously.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: If we operate in a vacuum, it's it's very hard to get that that that kind of input.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you would encourage us uh to be listening to uh those that were close to, and if somebody says, like a wife or uh a child that you have an anger problem, maybe we should consider it as a you have nothing to lose when it comes to considering it.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: You have nothing to lose at all.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because once again, your marriage partner is not going to enjoy making the suggestion that you have an anger problem.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's no upside for the marriage partner to say that.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh that's a provocative, challenging sort of thing.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: It can be taken in a provocative, challenging kind of a way.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: But your marriage partner is saying that because they love you and they have an investment in you.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: And would you encourage a a marriage partner to speak up about that?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: When as couples we don't provide each other with reality feedback, let's call it that.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're cheating ourselves.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're cheating each other out of being able to benefit by our mutual wisdoms.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Let's uh turn this conversation a little bit to uh if somebody has an anger problem, uh might there be some uh initial steps that they can do to control uh their anger?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think one of the most important things is to share it with somebody.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, sharing your anger with somebody is not the same as acting it out.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Acting out your anger is letting yourself get patently angry and jumping up and down and and expressing it all over the place.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe at the person with whom you're having the problem or the situation uh that you're having a difficulty with.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm talking about is sharing the fact that you're irritated, that you're angry about this, that, or the other thing with a trusted person who you can feel safe with.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: To just let yourself go along not expressing the feeling is that that's a dangerous thing to do because the feelings are going to mount up inside of you, just get stronger and stronger.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: They're not they're not going to dissipate.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: You'll notice when somebody feels sad and then they share with you what they're sad about, and let's say they cry, let's say they weep, it's almost universal that after the weeping stops, the person will say, Wow, I really feel better.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's the magic of expressing the feeling.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: We relieve ourselves of the tension of the feeling.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: That that's one thing that we can do.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I've known uh some people who have been angry and they've gone outside, let's say, and chopped wood uh to take out uh the aggression.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh others who have uh felt angry uh now and then try and take a deep breath.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um I assume you'd support doing things like that.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Being angry is is so much a relational uh kind of phenomenon.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um most emphatic about the uh about the whole business of uh sharing it with somebody who you love and trust.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: However, what you're suggesting is a good idea.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's kind of tangential.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: It it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be uh you're you're gonna get yourself closer to understanding the deeper roots of the anger uh that you're being affected by.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: However, there's nothing wrong with in and in fact it's a good idea to let yourself work off express some of the energy associated with the anger.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as one trend in uh pastoral counseling, um might uh you suggest some ways that um a church could help with those who have um problems with anger.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, as long as the church members, let's call them that, can respond out of their loving hearts and not wind up getting judgmental or feeling critical of the person who's wrestling with uh a chronic anger sort of situation.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: See, once again, the the question always is no nobody gets a kick out of being chronically angry, okay?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: So if somebody in the congregation's chronically angry, what should the response of the other folks in the congregation be?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: To be curious.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder what the person's carrying around.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder what the person's being pilloried by.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what's the difficulty here?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Not just to react to the feeling and oh, that person's angry, I think I'll stay away from them.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's just gonna make the angry person feel worse, gonna make the angry person feel more isolated.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's not gonna be helpful.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly, God doesn't treat us that way.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: He he comes alongside of us and asks us to share our lives and the depths of our souls with Him.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: So can church members help?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I often look at the church as a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for people to get to know each other and to participate in people's li in each other's lives.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: That opens a door to the kind of sharing that I'm talking about.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: So part of your message uh would be to the church to be uh more accepting of those who are struggle with a whole variety of problems, one of those uh being angry.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: But if one's struggling with anger, can you might you say something about uh taking the first step to come to church?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh what is it what would it be like to be involved in a uh loving church environment?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I assume you would you would advocate.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: B because anger is not a pleasant feeling to be feeling, I think that the tendency is when somebody's feeling chronically kind of angry, their tendency would be to isolate themselves and to have the incorrect belief that uh they're unattractive.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So to get involved in church and church is a church is a place where where where we can bring our brokenness and our our sense of ourselves as unattractive.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's okay.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I I say our sense of ourselves is unattractive because it's it's it's easier it's easy to get into thinking that the way I feel is patently obvious to everybody.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's incorrect.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very often, at a deep level, how you're feeling is news to people.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Unless you express it, they they really don't know.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so for you to be going around thinking that you're unattractive just because you're angry and then thinking, Well, I should isolate myself, I shouldn't go to church.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's wrong.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: We should reach out.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the very important things that uh that the church can hold out for us.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: That it's it's a loving environment and and an accepting environment.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like let's give the church a chance.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: So a a place to work out uh problems like uh like anger from a perspective that uh can be helpful.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing like getting to know your ministers and sharing with them that this is what you're going through, and I wonder what the minister thinks, you know.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what do you think about this?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And for the minister to be able to say, would you like to would you like to explore this further?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And perhaps be able to direct the person to someone with whom they can have a deeper and more profound conversation about it.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: That can be a real blessing in people's lives.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well we're thankful very much for your uh work as uh licensed uh marriage and family therapist, uh as well as uh uh your time here at uh uh the Central Schwankfelder Church.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for coming in and being a part of uh this uh this broadcast today.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: You're welcome, Drake.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I was honored when you asked me.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for listening to Centrally Speaking, which is a ministry from the Central Schwankfelder Church in Worcester, Pennsylvania.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: We are in a time of lockdown and are not having uh meetings uh during the uh uh coronavirus uh quarantine.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: But when uh we do resume, our Sunday morning services will be as following.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: We host a traditional service at 9 a.m.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: with organ and various choirs.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Our praise team leads the contemporary service at 10 35.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Sunday school for youth is at 9, and then at 9 and 10 30 for adults.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: We warmly welcome you to join us.