Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 10: Anger Isn't What You Think It Is

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EP 10: Anger Isn't What You Think It Is · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the Hard Way. My name is Kiri Gaines.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We talk about purpose, we talk about pressure, and we
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: talk about what it actually takes become a full comprehensive man.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Learn the Hard Way.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: My name is ker Gaines. I am your host. I'm
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a licensed therapist. I am a father, I am a
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: oh man. Whatever. I I like doing these, man, I'm
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: a shape guy for breakfast. I'm a protein shaped guy.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I'm a brand new fan of anime. I'm new to
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the game. I am an author, and I'm a huge, huge,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: huge fan of sports and political podcast and I welcome
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: you to this podcast right here. If this is your
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: first time, welcome, Welcome, Welcome. If this is not your
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: first time, welcome back. Learn the Hard Way is my
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: favorite thing to do right now, just coming on here
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and talking about issues that we just can't get off
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: in short form content and right now. I don't know
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: when you're listening to this message, but at this moment
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: in time, there are a lot of therapists who are
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: man a getting burned at the stake out there in
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the court of public opinion because it's sometimes it's very
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: difficult to unpack complicated and nuanced topics into short form content.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: So that's why I love this platform because we can
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: actually talk about it and we can get all our issues off.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: So thank you for being here. Appreciate you. But you're
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: not doing me a favor. You're doing yourself a favor
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: because every time we're here to get better, we're here
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to be better. So today I want to talk about anger.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: If you read the topic of today's podcast, you know
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that anger is what we're talking about. And I feel
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: like it's such a relevant topic because we are in
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a world that is becoming increasingly more angry. The economy
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: is looking funny, people's money is looking fun coming off
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the pandemic, I feel like we never really got back
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: to the same relational strength. It's still kind of weird
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: being around people. Sometimes. Outside don't feel like outside used
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to feel before we were locked in for a couple
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: of years, and people are angry, and you may feel
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: some anger too. So I want to talk about what
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: it is, what it does. And I kind of have
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: an unpopular opinion that I want to share with you
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: and kind of get your thoughts, and I did I
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: want to see what you think. I got a theory
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I've been playing around with and I want to bring
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: it out here on the pod and see what it do.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: So you've heard a million times that anger is a
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: secondary emotion. I've heard it in grad school from my professors,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: you hear from my homies, I hear it everywhere. You
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: see it on social media. I disagree. I see it differently,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: And I'll jump into my theory in a little bit.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: But let's let's talk about anger being the secondary emotion
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and why we say that. Now. Anybody who's been in
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: therapy or done any deeper personal work, you know that
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: anger is a cover of motion. It's usually on top
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: of something that's much deeper, like fear or shame or guilt.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: That's true, that's absolutely true. But if you've ever been angry,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: if you've ever been furious and pissed off, you know
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: that shame or guilt or fear may not be the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: first feeling that you actually feel. I measure it not
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: by what's going on in your mind. I measure it
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: by what you feel, what you feel most saliently, or
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: what's at the very top of your feelings, what's the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: most easily accessible, and sometimes the thing that I feel
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: most immediately, most urgently, that fire in a pit in
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: my stomach is anger. It's accessible, it's recognizable, it's reflexive.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I know that it's there, like there's no denying what
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: that is. You know anger when you feel anger. My
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: daughter is four years old, and I remember her being
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: seven months old and I was trying to feed her
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: the bottle and I was kind of playing with her,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: and she she got upset. She smacked that joint and screamed.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: That girl was angry, maybe frustrated, but it came across
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: as anger. So we know that that's something that even
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: small children can express. I think it's very instinctual to
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: human nature to be angry. Now, anger is not the
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: most complex emotion. I think quite the opposite. It can
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: come across as really simple. But I think that's more
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: of an argument why it's not a secondary it's a
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: primary emotion. You don't have to process anger very much
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: in order to feel it. And sometimes your anger is
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: so it's so red hot, and it's so big, and
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: it's so obvious that it needs a place to go.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So today we're going to talk about anger. We're going
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to talk about what it is, what it's not. Why
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: it is healthy, and most of all, we're going to
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: talk about what to do with it when you feel it.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get into it. So, so care what
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: do you mean when you say anger is a primary emotion?
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked, So glad you asked. Let's
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: break it down. I think of three things to me.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: In order to be a primary emotion, you have to
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: beat three categories. It has to be instinctive, it has
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: to be reflexive, and it has to be foundational, like
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: it has to be the bedrock of anything else that
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: you're gonna feel. Let's let you know what, Let's take
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: it away from anger and let's use a happier emotion
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: just to talk about how emotions go from really simple
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: to more complex, or how they go from really general
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to really specific the more you process them. So let's
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: say I'm I study for an exam. I did the
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: exam and I got a hundred on that joint. What's
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the first thing I'm gonna feel? I'm gonna feel happy?
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: You know what. I'm gonna break this out a few times.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I got an emotional will right here. If you are
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: a video listener, you see it. It's a will that
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: has hundreds of emotions on them. So the first thing
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that I'm gonna feel as happy. And once I sit
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: with that feeling, I look at at that test and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I have a moment to process. Once all the adrenaline
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: calms down and I think about the way that I feel,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I give it some room to just breathe and be.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I realize that I feel happy because I feel optimistic.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: In my mind, happy is the primary emotion. It's the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: thing that I feel most silently, most obviously, most instinctually,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: most foundationally, and most reflexively. But once I think about it,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I'm happy because I feel optimistic. Damn, I got a
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: hundred on this test. Man, I feel like my possibilities
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: are endless. Now I wonder if I can get What
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: if I get a hundred on more tests? What if
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I can get a hundred in other situations. I'm starting
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to feel myself a little bit. What if I get
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a hundred in other subjects? And once I process that
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: secondary emotion, which is optimistic, I realize that I feel inspired,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: which is the tertiary emotion. I struggle with the word
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: tertiary if y'all have never heard it, It's the thing
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: that comes after secondary primary secondary tertiary. Tertiary just means
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going to use that a lot today her sheet
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: every man. I struggle with that word so bad, but
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: that's what we're using today. So happy primary optimistic, secondary
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: inspired tertiary. Oh it's gonna be a long episode if
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I can't get that one. But I say all that
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: to say, the more you sit with your feelings, which
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: is something that we don't really do as often. Nobody
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: really teaches us how to sit with feelings, especially if
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: they're uncomfortable, and just think about them, a lot of
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: them will be allowed them to swift through your thoughts,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: interrogate them, ask them questions, pick them apart, in dissect them.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: When you do that, you realize that, oh there's more
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: here than I thought. And once you it's like oh you,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: oil comes in crude, and the more that you refine it,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: it turns into something else that serves an entirely different
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: purpose and has an entirely different profile. Kerosene and gasoline
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: are not the same thing. You see what I'm saying,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: are you are you following? Are you smelling with the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: rockets cooking right now? So if that works for happy emotions.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: It can also work for emotions that aren'test happy. If
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: it works for positive, it can work for emotions that
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: aren't at positive. Maybe they're more negative, Maybe they're more disruptive,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: maybe they're more prohibitive. Now, in my mind, the primary
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: emotion is the one that the more specific or nuanced
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: emotion emerges from. It comes out of that thing. The
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: way I think about it is have y'all ever seen
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: those Russian dolls before, where it's like a wooden doll
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: and you open it up and it's another smaller doll
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: inside of it. I talk about this in my book
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: a lot. And you pull that doll out and you
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: open it up, and there's another doll inside of that.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: That's how emotions work to me. So if I'm feeling anger,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I pop it open and let's see what's inside of
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: that anger. Well, I'm angry because I feel I feel hurt.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Me a while to sit with that anger to me,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Sure I felt hurt? Okay, now I know I feel hurt.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I pop that open. Why do I feel hurt? I
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: feel hurt because I feel insecure? Insecure. It may not
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: be the first thing I felt in the moment. Anger
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: was the first thing I felt, so I like in
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the way I process those emotions through those Russian dolls.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Once you actually crack it open and see what's inside,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: you realize that there's another version of that thing that
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't look quite the same. It's different, but it's similar
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: in shape. But you can't just notice it if you
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: look at it from the outside. You actually need to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: hold it, you need to examine it, you need to
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: crack it open. I'm gonna use this. I'm gonna use this.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: This will a lot soThe just sticking on the side
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: right here, because the feelings will is my jam. Some
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: people come into therapy they can only identify two or
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: three feelings, and by the time we're done, they can
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: identify like twenty five or thirty, and that's always a
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: good indicator that somebody is healing and growing. When you
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: can recognize different shades, you're not just coming in saying, oh, nah,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: that's blue. You might when you when you first come
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: to therapy, because that's what your environment has taught you.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: That's blue, that's red. But after a while my clients
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, yeah, that's that's sky blue right there, Yeah,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: that's periwinkle. Oh, what's that right there. That's navy blue.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: That's like blue, that's baby blue, that's Jordan blue. You
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: see what I'm saying. After a while, that's electric blue.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: You're better able to categorize them with more specificity. And
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the more specificity you can categorize your feelings into when
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: you have words full the way that you feel, the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: better you're able to control your feelings. The better you're
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: able to process your feelings, the better you're able to
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: regulate your feelings. And that just changes the way that
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: you interact with the world. It's going to change the
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: quality of your relationships, it's going to change the quality
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: of your self talk, and ultimately it's going to change
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the quality of your self awareness and self esteem. You
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: just you need more nuance, but you can't get it
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: if you don't practice it, and you can't practice it
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: if you're not aware of it. So trying to make
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: us over aware of it today so that we can
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: get to where we need to be. Now, I wonder
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I want to Can we get some storytime music? Can
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: we get some storytime music popping real quick? Nah? Make
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: it make it like a little like sad a little bit. Yeah, yeah, there,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: go all right? So I remember being young. I had
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: to catch the bus when I was younger. If you're
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: from DC, you know about a few notorious bus lines.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: One is the X two and the other one is
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the seventy bus. And I'm on the back of the
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: X two and there's this dude in the back. I
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: don't know what y'all call it. Where you're from, where
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: people talk about other people. Some people, the kids call
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: it roasting. Now I'm now, so you know the kids
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: like to say the kids like to say roasting. But
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: back in my day, we used to say joning. That
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: was what we called it the DC. Some people call
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: it playing the dozens. Whatever, we call it joningh and
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: joning is essentially when you take something like a quality
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: of somebody and you talk so bad about it that
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you make them feel terrible about themselves when they feel
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: like they're worse. No, you don't stop, you keep going.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: You compound it. You just go joke for joke for
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: joke for joke for joke. And I'm on the seventy
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: bus and this dude is in the back. I mean
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: he is cooking some kid. It's bad. We all kind
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: of know each other because we're from neighboring neighborhoods. But
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: he cooking. This kid, he talking about his mom, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: he talking about the way his bottom lip look. He
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: talking about dirty his socks are. I mean, he's going
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: in And it was funny, man, and I laughed too hard.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I laughed a little too hard. And he went scanning
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the bus and he saw me. And when you laugh
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: too hard, when somebody getting joned on you the next victim.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: And he looked at me, said ha ha, it's funny, huh,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: And he just started scanning me for what he could find.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I had on my school uniform. It wasn't much to
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: talk about. And then he poked his head out. He
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: looked at my shoes. Y'all, take a sip of this coffee.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I talk about this man, This is my villain ordin story.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: My shoes was talking. I had some British nights, which
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: weren't popular at the time. But I don't want to
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: talk about that. My shoes were talking. They were yapping,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Like the sole at the
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: toe was disconnected from the rest of the shoes, so
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: when I stepped up, it would make a talking sound,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: and it would make a talking motion. It was bad,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: like my feet look like Ventriloq was dolls. And his
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: eyes got so big and he said, boy, what is
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: going on with your shoes? And my man proceeded to
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: give me fire for like ten straight minutes, and then
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: he started talking about my mama. Now, this is before
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I knew how the jone. This is before I became
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the shock in the water. I was in my early stages,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and I got mad. I was so mad. I was
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: so mad. I was so in my feelings. Man. Now,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: if I was looking at my emotional will, my primary feeling,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: it was anger. Anger is I felt most Immediately. I
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: wanted to fight them, like I wanted to just start
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: tossing hands. Bro You're not gonna talk about my mama
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: being fat and talking about my shoes being that's crazy.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: And I got really aggressive with them because I was very,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: very angry. But I calmed down because you can't be
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: fighting on the back of the bus. My mom wasn't
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: going for that. And I realized that I felt angry
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: because I felt hurt. I was hurt, man. I was
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: hurt because I was already insecure about being broke. I
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: was already insecure about my shoes. I knew they was talking.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I can help flapping in the wind when I'm walking.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And then I sat and I thought, and when I
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: processed that hurt, I realized that I felt hurt because
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I felt hopeless, because I ain't think I was ever
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: going to have any nice shoes. I didn't think that
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: my shoes would just be talking in the third fourth grade.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I felt like my shoes were going to be talking forever.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't see a way for my future to look
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: any different. But it took me weeks to realize that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: It took me conversations with my mom to realize that.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: It took me walking home from the bus stop and
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: playing the scenario in my head to realize that the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: thing I felt most immediately was exactly anger. Now, my anger,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: there's a good argument that my anger was shielding in
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: my hopelessness. You know, anger became protective for me because
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: if I just haul off and slap on, then that
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: would district me from my hopeless I felt about my
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: financial situation, But to my earlier point, anger was the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: most obvious and easy to decipher emotion that I felt
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: right then and there. And if you're very fortunate, you
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: mature into a place where you realize where that anger
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: is not helpful. But a lot of times we don't.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: And I want to talk about that later in the episode.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: When anger works for you, it works for you, But
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: when it doesn't, it devastates you and it destroys everything
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: around you. Something to think about. Now. I want to
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: take a moment and talk about Western clinical framework, because
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: therapy wasn't It wasn't normed on Black people. It wasn't
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: normed on the way. It wasn't normal on our cultural rituals,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: it wasn't normed on our lived experience. It wasn't normed
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: around the ways that we are reared and some of
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: our specific cultural nuances. None of that. And believe me,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I can write you a doctoral dissertation on how as
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: a Black therapist I have to constantly decode and decolonize
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the work that I do as a therapist. It is
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: very annoying but very necessary work. But I think it's
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: worth naming here because it frames almost everything that has
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: to do with a way that we see emotions, and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: most importantly, I think it informs the way that a
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: lot of therapists teach people to process their emotions. What
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: you say to somebody in session may be derived from
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: a place that didn't have their cultural nuance in mind.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: You know, when I remember when I was becoming a therapist,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: one thing that they told us is when you in session,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: you don't you don't self disclose, don't tell them anything
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: about you. You when you introduce anything about yourself, you
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: ruin what's called the therapeutic alliance. Now, younger therapists, like
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: my generational therapist, that's bullshit. That's not true, And it's
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: also not true with a lot of minority populations, especially
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: black people, especially black and brown people. You're gonna sit
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: them in a room and they give you all of
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: their business and you share nothing about yourself, yount, you
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: ain't gonna get very far. So it's always funny when
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I talk about like the colonialization of therapy and all
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the Western nonsense and what they taught us, and how
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: we're realizing year by year, break by brick that that
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: don't work. So I'm self disclosed in my therapy sessions
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: as long as it's hopeful. And sometimes one of the
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: things that I disclose is what men are allowed to feel,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: and I want to say black men, but it's not
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: just black men, it's all men. I think black men
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: have very very unique challenges when it comes to expressing emotions.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I have solutely, but I want all men to get
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: something from this because I think it's important that we
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: hold this joint close enough to really look at it
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and we see ourselves in this. So let's break this
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: down real quick in terms of what we are allowed
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to feel, a lot of us, especially in poorer communities,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: are handed Nah, I ain't gonna do that, because there's
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: plenty of wealthy people that have the same issue in
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: a different font. A lot of us are handed an
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: emotional role map in terms of how to feel, what
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: to feel, where to feel, when to feel. We handed
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: this role map with what I call a fixed menu.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Do you know what fixed menu is? Have you ever
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: been to a restaurant on Valentine's Day? Terrible experience most
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: of the time, But when you go to a Valentine's
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Day restaurant situation, they don't have the same menu that
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: they always have. No. Now, you can't get the surf
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and turf, you can get the sirloin and that's it.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: They have what they have a fixed menu. It is
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: a set list of items that the kitchen will be
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: cooking at night. It's not expansive. It's a one pager.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Usually sometimes it's fixed with like an appetizer, a set
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of a set of entrees and a set of desserts
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: that you could pick from two or three each. That's it.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: It's not expansive, it's not diverse. It doesn't give you
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: things to pick from, doesn't give you a lot of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of choices. And I feel like the way
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: that men are culturalized, rather boys are culturalized, specifically here
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: in the United States of America, it doesn't allow for
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a diverse set of feelings to be accepted, validated, and expressed.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: I always say, man like, one of the experiences of
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: being a boy is to be constantly separated from your emotions.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: When you are little and you lose a toy, man,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: what you're crying over a toy? Stop crying so much.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: You get a little bit older and you fall off
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: your bike. Nah, don't cry, Just get up and keep
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: riding the bike. You become a teenager, you experience heartbreak. Man,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: what you're tripping off? You young man? There's plenty efficiency,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: it's just you become an older man and you get
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: into a verbal disagreement with your significant other and they say,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: oh what what you and your feelings now? But you mad?
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: What you mad? Now? Yeah? I can't be you said
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: something rude, inflammatory and hurtful. I can't be angry because
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I'm a man. I can't be hurt or sad or
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: disgusted because I'm a man. Every single part of your
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: lived male experience is specifically, specifically designed to detach you
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: from your emotions and to be unabashed by detaching you
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: from your emotions. And when the moment is right and
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you're really good at detaching from your emotions, in order
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: to survive, you're going to have to re engage with
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: those emotions in order to be a productive part of
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: your family system or your community. It is, man, it's
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: a crazy switch to flip. And if you've seen the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: news lately, not making excuses for it, because there's no
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: excuse for it. There's no excuse for it. But there
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: are reasons and their explanations, and if you've been looking
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: at the news or reading the statistic, they support the
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: fact that there's a hard switch to flip and a
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: lot of men aren't doing a good job at that. Ooh,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: we feel boys so bad man. Just as a society
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: we really feel boys so on that prefixed men. You
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: typically you get angry and you get happy. That's what
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: you're allowed to feel. That's it. You can feel mad
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: or you can feel happy. Anything else. I ain't trying
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to hear all that, I ain't trying to see all that.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Keep that to yourself or it happens where everything in
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: between is too soft or too sensitive or depending on
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the way some people talk too feminine, which shout out
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: to the homie trip Fontee. He had a really good
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: take on that. He said, one of the worst things
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: about masculinity is we assume that men can because women can.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: It's like we just cook with that one. But sometimes
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: when you express yourself, even as a young boy, they
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: teach you man, you being a girl, you're being soft,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you being sensitive. There's nowhere that supports and holds that, like, oh,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: you feel a way and it might be for some reason.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about it. Immediately, slap your hand. You're not
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: allowed to do that, don't do that, or you're something
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: that's the opposite of the way that you see yourself.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: How does that work? How does that work for the
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: emotional maturation of a person years and years and years
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: and years and years and years and years of that.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: So what happens is because your emotions on this prefixed menu,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: you realize that anger is effective, because anger is an
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: attention grabber. If you don't feel seen, if you don't
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: feel heard, if you don't feel noticed or acknowledged or
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: loved or respected, oh, y'all not gonna see or love
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: or hear me. Y'all gonna feel me anger, one thing
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: is gonna do. Oh you're gonna feel me, whether you
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: like it not. And then you have no choice but
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge me. And sometimes we can confuse acknowledgment with love,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: or we can confuse acknowledgement with reverence, or we can
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: confuse fear with respect. We conflate those things all the time.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: But when you're desperate for something, sometimes you don't question
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: what's on your plate. You see what I'm saying, This
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: food that I absolutely won't eat, But let me be starving.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: That joint's going down like a boneless rabbi. Do you
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: understand me. I've worked with students that had really profound
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: anger challenges, and sometimes nobody hears them until they start
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: breaking stuff. Oh, you're not gonna hear me. I'm a
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: punch of wall Oh, now you hear me. Then you
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: recognize me, You see me? Now, okay? And what do
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I learn over time that anger is the way for
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: me to captivate your awareness. That's how I get your
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: awareness is through not just anger, but through the physical
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: manifestation of anger. Now you got your eyes on me, huh.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I want to reiterate right now that that is not
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a healthy way to process that. That is not a
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: good or healthy way to process that emotion. It is destructive,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: it is maladaptive, and it is not indicative of being
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: a mature or whole person. And that's not to make
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: you feel bad about it. It's just to put it
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: on your map that if you are behaving that way,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: it's not okay. Ain't no room for that, and we
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: absolutely have to do different so that we could do better.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I want to take a moment and talk about a
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: perspective of anger that I've noticed in clinical sentence and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: out here in a while, but I don't hear discussed
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: as much. And that's when anger becomes protective. Anger can
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: keep you from becoming a victim sometimes, and it takes
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: me back to boyhood because I was just having this
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: conversation with one of my therapists homies, one of my
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: other therapist homies, and talked about how much aggression is
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: such a part of our boyhood maturation because the older
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: boys will victimize you so crazy. I remember being on
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the basketball court with my friends and we shoot hoops,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: were like eleven, twelve, thirteen, and the older boys fifteen sixteen,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: seventeen decided they want to run fo a court. So
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: they come and take your ball, mush you in the face. Man,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: get off the court. Man, it's our time now, Oh slim,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: why you gonna do that? And if you just you know,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: if you just drag your feet and shrug your shoulders,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: guess what they're gonna do that the next day and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the next day and the day after that. But it's
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: very different when they reach for the ball and you say, nah,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: y'all can't have this, and then when they grab you
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and then you take your fist and you punch one
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of them in the mouth. That hopefully you can squabble
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit, cause that might not go in your favor.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: But I tell you what, I bet you and your
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: friends don't get interrupted to play basketball the same way anymore.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And when you learn that very unhealthy pattern of behaving,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: it becomes that was kind of like a culture or
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: ritual for you, and then you positively associate anger with
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: having with not having to feel fear or intimidation as much.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: I remember back in the day, they'd be like, hey,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: let me ride your bike, dog, And if you give
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: one of them older boys your bike, he gone. He
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: gone for an hour or two. He done went to
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the store. He don't went to go see his little girlfriend.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: He done went to the rec center. And you just
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: sitting there with your lip poked out because your mama
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: told me not to let anybody ride your bike, and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: you sitting there, you look like a sucker because he
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: completely took advantage of you. And sometimes you learn that
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: anger stops that from happening. I don't think that we
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: talk enough as men in great detail about the overwhelming
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: violence against women. I think I think we have to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: dedicate a pod episode or that at some point in
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the near future. But one stat that's really alarming to
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: me that doesn't overshadow that it's just another stat in
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: a different vertical, is how often men victimize men. I
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: don't know the percentage. Hopefully we can pull it up,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: but an overwhelming number of homicides assaults on men are
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: from other men. Like men know that other men are threat.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: That's why the whole face to face thing, like how
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: men communicate side to side and women communicate face to face. Uh,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: it's it's. I think a part of that is there's
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: just an inherent threat when you're around other men, the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: threat of physical violence. And I talked about that on
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the podcast with Ryan Clark. The threat of physical violence
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: is always there, even with your homies. How many times
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: have you been in a group chattel you've been with
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: your homies and y'all joke about who could be who's ass?
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: I think we've all done that. Like, man, you think
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: you can see me with the hands, absolutely I can,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and then y'all just kind of joking band about if
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: y'all boxer will come out on top. There's always this
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: threat of physical violence that undergirds male relationships, and I
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: think it is because we're very well aware of how
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: men move around other men, and we spend our boyhoods
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: knowing that at any moment you can get victimized, and
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: anger provides you with access to quick dominance. It's fast.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: You don't get dominated as fast when you're angry. They
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: know not to mess with you because you're unpredictable. You
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: can hurt somebody they don't know. So when anger becomes
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: a tool, a useful tool for you, my question is,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: how do you know and it's not helpful anymore? How
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: do you know when it's not helping you anymore and
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: it's hurting you. When you can get that quick, with
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: real quick attention, that awareness, you can steal it in
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: a moment, how do you know you're not making the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: people around you fearful of you to the point where
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: it may feel like love, But love that is coded
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: and anger is not pure love or love that is
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: coded in fear. Rather, that's not pure love. That's not
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the love that you want. But anger induces fear. And
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: when you get really good, you get really good at
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: what the things that you practice, and when you practice
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: being angry to protect yourself, at a point, it's not
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: a shield anymore. It becomes a sword. And a shield
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: is protective, but a sword is destructive. So my question
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: is are you being protective or are you being destructive?
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And sometimes sometimes when you've been living in a certain
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: mind state for a while, or you have a certain
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: environment that you've been bathed in, or family culture. You
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: don't know the difference. Something to think about. Now, let's
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: take a moment to talk about what happens when you
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: hop on the other side of that anger with just
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: the complete other side and all the different ways that
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: they can look or it can be misinterpreted all huh
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: uh huh, because sometimes what looks like anger may not be.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I'm about to roll this clip from It's a Joe
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Budden clip on Everyday Struggle. It's one of my favorite clips.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: He's talking to Loyati. Take a listen. Let's talk about
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: it after tell me what you want from hip hop?
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, you don't think that's a question you should
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: answer at some point? What do I want from hip hop?
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Or are you leaving all of this to QC to
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: figure out? Noah, I mean, I'm just I'm making music, bro,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I'm just having fun. What I'm saying, my fans love
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: it with just having fun. In five problem, you sound
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: like you're very aware, But what's going on? And you
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: wanted the hottest on earth? What do you want me
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: to say? You wants you to be aware off your business.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I want you to know whether you're in a three
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: sixteen or not. I want you to appreciate the coaching
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: that changed your life. It took it from college doing room,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: even all of the noodles. I want you who's well
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: spoken and articulates himself. Well. I love this dynamic because
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: YACHTI I don't know if I love it, but that's
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: not the right word choice. But now you know what
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: I do like this dynamic because I think it's easy
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: to just judge it. You probably had a knee jerk
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: reaction when you saw it. And Liu yachtis excited about
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: the album cover. He talking about that, and Joel they're
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: not in the same place. They sitting beside each other,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: but they are not having the same conversation. If you
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: look at it, they're not having the same conversation. I
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: remember reading the comments and everybody like, man, Joe mad,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Joe's so mad, Joe's angry, He's angry, man so mad.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't I ain't see anger right there. You know
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: what I saw. I saw a little bit of sadness
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and I saw concern because in my mind, it didn't
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: feel like Joel was talking to Yati. It felt like
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Joe was talking to Joe, and Joe was telling a
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: cautionary tale to a younger Joe, something that clearly, man,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he got all the way over.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not head of psychoanalyze. Joe Budden bro is incredibly
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: complex and nuance, but in that moment, it just felt
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: like his mind was somewhere else, and it's like he
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: was trying to tell a younger version of himself, almost
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: like hey, don't do this. How many the man listen.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I'm forty dog. And when we get around younger dudes
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: all the time, I find that we have this propensity
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: to warn them about scary shit. We could be like
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: building them up, you know, all of that, and we're like, hey, man,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: don't do this, don't do this, don't have kids to hear,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: don't get married to the don't, don't, don't, don't don't.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: It's always a cautionary talement because you feel like you're
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: really preparing this young man for something that you wish
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: somebody would have told you. And I think that's very true.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I think that's very true. But I also think what
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: it's true is that you're kind of processing your own
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: emotion in real time, and what can seem like anger
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: could be a number of holding up the emotional will
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: a number of different emotions, and you ain't the only
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: primary one that's discussed. The sadness, this happiness, they're surprised
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: from that. You can get feeling threatened, feeling disapproved, feeling abandoned,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: feeling despair, feeling remorseful, feeling confused, feeling anxious, feeling rejected,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: feeling humiliated. You see what I'm saying, there's so much
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: nuance when it comes to feelings that in order to
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: just relegate it to how you immediately categorize it what
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: you think it is from the outside looking in, I
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: think it does a disservice how deep that story can go.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: So what's my takeaway here? My takeaway is unprocessed feelings
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: or underprocessed feelings don't always look like what they are.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: It could look like anger, but it could be a
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: very deep feeling of despair. It can look like happiness,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: but it can just be very well dressed anxiousness. It
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: won't make sense to anyone who's watching it, but it's
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: up to the person who's expressing it to really dial
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: in on what that thing is. We can't define it.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: We can only kind of guess. Only they know what's
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: going on in their heads and the reason, and I
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: think if I had to take a guess, I think
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the reason or one of the reasons just became a
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: meme or so popular is because when we saw this,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: much like Joe Budden, I think a lot of us
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: were looking in a mirror. But that got deep in't it?
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Moving along? Man, moving along? Now this is going to
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: be an I don't know if it's unpopular, but it's
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: It's a dangerous thing to say without giving very illicit context,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: So I'm glad we go long form. This will probably
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: get me canceled on a platform where I'm limited to
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty characters. But hear me out, hear
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: me out. Anger is actually healthy. Anger is a healthy
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: emotion to feel. I tell people all the time, You're
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: allowed to feel all of your emotions, not just the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: ones that the world told you were popular. Anger can
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: be a healthy emotion to feel. Let me explain why
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: we wouldn't have the capacity to feel anger if it
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: didn't serve us in some way. So I look at
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: angers more of a feeling. I look at anger rather,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: it's more than a feeling. I look at anger as
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: a signal. Anger is a signal. It is a warning sign,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: and it's trying to communicate something to me. It's telling
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: me that something matters, or it's telling me I have
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: a fear of losing something. Sometimes is telling me that
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I care about something very deeply or she. And sometimes
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: anger is telling me that a line just got crossed.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: I might not notice it consciously, but unconsciously, I feel
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: very angry. That's because someone has stepped over a line
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: that I've drawn in the sand, and they have stepped
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: over it aggressively. Sometimes not, but sometimes yeah, boldly and aggressively,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: and I feel angry. And I I don't want to
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: get so caught up in how destructive anger can be
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: that we stop recognizing when we feel it. I don't
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: think that's helpful for anybody. I know it's I know
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: it can be really easy to label anger as a
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: character flaw. But I want us all to just take
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: a beat and remember that this is how our minds
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: are designed. You have that feeling for a reason, So
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: before we throw it in the trash, can, let's really
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: take a moment to interpret what it's here to do.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: What are you here to teach us? Anger? What are
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: you trying to show me? It's like you ever seen
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: them shows where somebody walking through the woods and a
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: dog come out the woods and be barking. What's wrong, girl,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: what's wrong? What's going on? It's Timmy stuck in the well.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: That dog is trying to signal you that something is wrong,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: and in this scenario, that dog is anger. What is
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: stuck in my well? Instead of guessing or ignoring it,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go and investigate and find out. There's a
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: rescue mission that needs to be done, and I'm the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: only one that can do it. So let's get that underway.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: It is not popular for a licensed therapist to talk
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: about anger that they feel, especially if that anger involves
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: any violence. I think that that's a bad look. People
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: could easily look at you and say you're not fit
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: or qualified to help people because you because you got angry.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: To me, that makes absolutely no sense. I think the
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: most qualified person is the person that not ignores an
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: emotion that obviously is there, but a person that accepts
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: the fact that they feel a range of emotions and
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: is able to process them in a respectable and healthy way.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: And I think one of the one of the one
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: of the best things that I've learned, or one of
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the most how do I say this, one of the
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: most healthy tools that I've learned, just just in my
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: time here on earth, is how to accept my anger
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: but redirect my anger. And if you're a parent, God
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: bless you, because boy, do you get a lot of
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: practice because your kids, man, they would they would push
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: you off to the highest level of pstivity. Anger is
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: just a part of parenthood sometimes and you have to
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: accept it without acting on it in a way that
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: it is destructive and corrosive to your family. But let's
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: talk about it. Let's take a mimute and talk about
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: how to read direct anger. Because I had a moment
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: not too long ago where I was my wife was
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: putting my kids in the car in the garage, and
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: she was, you know, you can't put a car seat
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: in without bending over. And the trash truck pulled up,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the garbage truck they doing, they're doing the garbage in
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: our city for the week, And the dude hops off
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: the truck in our song and I see his head
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: cocked to her side, and I can't see my wife
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: in the garage, but by the look of it, I
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: can tell that she was bent over and putting the
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: baby in the car seat. Now that type of stuff,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I know some men go crazy about that. I know
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: what I see every day. I can't be like, if
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: somebody steals a look, I'm not gonna fight you for looking.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: That's that's ridiculous. I see her every day, and I
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: still look when she walks past. But he took it
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: a step further, and I saw him say something out
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: of his mouth, and then he acts like he was
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: about to walk up toward her so he could be
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: heard more clearly. Now I know my wife, she probably
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: saw him. She probably hit him with the hunt with
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: the with the big frownly face, like what are you
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: talking about? So I popped out the door, and I
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: won't share what I said to him, but I let
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: him know that it's probably he's doing too much in
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: his best if he just hops back on the truck
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: and finishes doing his job. And instead of being like,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: you know what broke my bag, that's that's disrespectful, you right,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: he got bucked back at me and he said, uh, man,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: it was a while ago. I can't remember exactly what
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: he said, but he said something to the tune of like,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: mind your business. And then that's when anger kicked in,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and uh, what's the podcast friendly version of saying this?
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I just reminded him, and I didn't realize I was
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: walking toward him when I was saying it, because I
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: was angry, and I reminded him that, you know, for
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: talking crazy and saying things like that, that there can
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: be consequences. Sometimes he was very close to one of
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the consequences, and I wanted him to repeat himself, so
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I made sure that I heard him correctly, and that
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: freaked my wife out, and I realized I was walking
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: toward him. And I don't know what would have happened
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: if I got face to face with him. He was
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: a smaller man than I was. I'm I'm a huge
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: fan of boxing. I've been training boxing for a very
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: long time. I don't know what was going to happen.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: But anger got the better of me in that situation,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: and I came to and I was able to redirect myself.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I was able to redirect myself before my anger began
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: creating a situation that my more conscious self would have
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: been upset with once. I'm not angry anymore because emotions
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: rise and fall, and I was at the apex of
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: that emotion. When I'm at the apex of any emotion,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: even happiness, that's the worst time for me to make
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: a decision, because my decision isn't driven by a careful
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: thought or a sober mind. It's driven by the thing
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: that dictates almost all human behavior, an emotion, a strong
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: one that I can't see beyond in that very time.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: So man shout out to not did not tossing hands
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: with the trash truck driver because he got a little
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: mouthy with my wife. Man disrespecting my wife or threatening
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: my children, you can say whatever you want to me.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: I don't care. People say crazy stuff to me on
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: the internet all the time. I don't care they be
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: racist stuff either. I don't care. That says more about
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: you than it says about me. But if you threaten
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: my children or disrespect my wife, it takes me to
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: tend every time. But I'm able to redirect it. And
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: this is how I've realized in my how is kind
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: of what I teach my clients. But my redirection isn't
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: ignoring it or boom or deflect the anger. You know,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: I don't Floyd Mayweather shoulder roll that joint. I accept it,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I embrace it, I understand it. I put a name
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: to it, I call it out. That's you. Ain't go
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I know that's you right there. I'm not going to
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: fool myself and try to rebrand it into something that
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: it isn't. This is anger. It is a very strong feeling. Okay, man,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling it, so I'm gonna name it before I
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: do anything else. That's step number one. So if you're
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: at home and you're wondering, like, how do I redirect
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: my anger? These are just some really quick tips, and
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: number one is you name it before you do anything else.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Name it. Don't let it hide under your careful washing
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: of what it is. Nah Man, call it what it is.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Call that spade a spade, so you could be self
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: honest and you can move in a direction that's fruitful
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: and helpful, not corrosive and destructive. When you feel the heat,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: I want you to stop, and I want you to
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: say it out loud. I feel angry right now. Now.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: There's a difference between saying I feel angry and I
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: am angry. I'm not my emotions. I feel my emotions.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: But when you say it out loud, I've said it
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: in the pot before. When you say it out loud,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: your ears hear it, and your brain process is in
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: a different way. Give your anger a place to live
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: outside of your body. Say it with your words. I
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: feel angry right now. It's okay saying You could say
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: that You're allowed to be angry. Naming it gives you
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: just enough space to be able to pause and really
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: think about what's going to come next, because it's a
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: consequence for anger. Is that a tax you want to pay?
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: We all done had an impulse by before, and then
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: you look at it like, damn, what's it really worth
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: all that money I spent? Don't let don't have an
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: emotional impulse by. Is your anger going to be worth
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: the tax that you pay later? And in the moment
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: the answer is typically because you're just furious. But get
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: some distance, pause, pause for a minute and think about that. Right.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Number two, We do this with anxiety and anxious feelings
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: all the time. You got to move your body. You
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: got to move sometimes move your anger through your body.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: You got to move move their feet, move them arms,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: get your body in motion. Anger is very physical. It's cortisol,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: it's adrenaline. There's a lot running through your body all
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: at one time. And you need some type of place
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: to dissipate it. You know, you need some type of
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: way rather to dissipate it. It has to get out
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: now if you don't get the energy somewhere to go.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: What I find is that it just rises faster if
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: you just sit with it and you stew, you become
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: more angry. Think about a time with somebody, I mean,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: somebody really made you upset, You were very pissed off,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: and you just sat and you stewed. What do you
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: do when you stew? You played a story in your
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: head a million times. Man, you're gonna say that to me.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: I can't believe you said that, And then you want
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: to do this. If you love me, you wouldn't even
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: do this. And then you know how I feel about that,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: and you still. I mean, the more you sit and
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: think about it and you steal and you sit and
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: you just get more angry. It compounds like interest on
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: a student loan, and that's not what we want. That's
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: not what we want. My advice, hit the gym, go
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: for a walk, do some heavy breathing, temporarily distract yourself.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I play spades on my phone. I'm pissed off. I
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: just need a minute, and it just gives my mind
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: something else to do, just to allow the anger or
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: the very strong emotion to subside before I decide what's next. Now,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: that's not exactly moving your body. But sometimes I walk
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: and play spades, so I could do two at one.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I just grab my bike. Hey, when I get
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: really upset in my house, like babe, I'm about to
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: take a walk, and I'll take a walk, and I'll
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: walk all the way to construction site and I'll just
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: start throwing rocks in the trash can like I did
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: when I was a kid. Boom boom, while I throw
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: rocks in the lake. Or I'll just sit in the
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: grass and just start picking grass and start picking flowers
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: like we little pedal by pedal. Something with your body,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: do something with your hands. Number three, I want you
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: to write it out. That's right. I want you to
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: write it out here. Here, go kill games with the bullshit.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: He always come and talking about something. You need to
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: do something with you, that's right. That's I'm giving you
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: this because I know what to be effective. I want
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: you to take a pen and a sheet of paper,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: and I want you to write. I like to do
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: brain dumps when I'm very angry and just write behind
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: the camera. Right here, I actually have some sticky notes
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: and a pin. I wasn't angry, I had another strong emotion.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: I was feeling very anxious, and I just had a
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: lot on my mind and it needed somewhere to go,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: and I just started writing. Was it spelled correctly? No? No,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: I misspelled things when I'm trying to Did it make sense? No,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: It's just a stream of consciousness. I'm just flowing. I'm
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: getting things out of my mind. But when you're physically
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: writing and you're putting pencil or pin to paper, it
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: slows down the process of that building anger enough for
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: you to be able to look at it, for you
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to be able to see it holistically, not just for
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: the way that it makes you feel, for the impression
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: that is leaving on your heart and on your mind,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: but for what it actually is and what the contributing
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: reasons as to why are. That's really important. So I'm
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: talking all caps in complete sentences. It's it doesn't matter.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Just get it out of your head. And if you
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: don't have a pen and a piece of paper, take
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: your phone and open your notes, type it, type it
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: in your notes. And if you can't type it in
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: your notes, you know, I'm always gonna give you all alternatives.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Take your phone and use your voice messaging, use your
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: voice message, invent into your voice messaging, and give your
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: for a while, because it needs somewhere to go and
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: you don't always have a safe person to vent to.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: But it's not always about being heard. Sometimes it's about
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: getting it out, having it just be released from the
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: prison of your mind. So those give you some options
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: on what to do. And the last one, and I
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: can't emphasize this enough, I want you to take time
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: before you respond. You know, in action has a very
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: negative connotation against men because as men we are and
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of women struggle with this too. It's not
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: just men, but we're talking about us right now. A
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: lot of men struggle with not taking action because if
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: you're passive, that is just it's not a desired characteristic
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: of masculinity to be passive. So you feel like you
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: have to immediately take action. But sometimes it's like driving
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: and you ain't put in no GPS coordinates where you're going, Bro,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: you don't know what the destination is, but in action
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: can be a really useful tool. What you want to
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: do is remember that there is a difference between taking
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: space and being avoidant. You're not necessarily avoiding your emotion.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: You're giving that thing some room to breathe. And sometimes
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: what that does it gives you the ability to choose
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: and you could choose to respond instead of choosing to react.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Am I making sense to you? You don't have to explode,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: but you need some space and distance. And I'm going
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: to say this again because I really want to emphasize
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: how important that is. It's not just a thing that
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: you do. It's a skill that you build over time.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: You have to continuously practice in action. You know what
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: that makes me mad? I'm gonna do nothing right now,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: and you can say this out loud, feel free to still.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: It is because if I do something, I'm going to
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: do something that I regret. So I am going to
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: do nothing and I am going to just sit and
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to allow myself to be period. But
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: here tell me how I'm supposed to process anger when
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: my environment encourages me to be angry. Man, I am
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: so glad you asked, because that happens all the time,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: and it's hard to know what to do. And I
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: find it to come from two main places. Number one,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: it could come from inside your family sometimes family systems.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Anger is actually a language and a culture. When people
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: are angry, that's just that's how they are, that's how
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: you know them to be, and you grow to love
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: them around their anger. So it's not that you love
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: their anger, but you just have to accept it, and
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: you accept it when it's everywhere you know. And the
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: other is in your community, which could be different because
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: in your house people cannot be angry, but when you
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: step up outside your door, you're constantly dealing with and
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: managing angry people. So what do you do? Well? The
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: first thing I need you to understand is, let's use
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: this fishalogy. If I take a perfectly healthy goldfish from
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: the store by my daughter, a goldfish, and I put
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: it in polluted water, and it's a healthy goldfish, Well,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: a healthy fish in a polluted environment isn't going to
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: be a healthy fish for long. You're not any different.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: A healthy mindset, a healthy emotional regulatory capability in a
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: polluted environment, it won't stay healthy for long. So what
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: does that mean? Or sometimes it means that you need
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: to leave that environment, And that is a very privileged statement.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Not everybody is in a place where they can just
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: leave their family system. But let me tell you what
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I mean by that. If growing up you were taught
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: to explode and fight instead of talk things out in reason,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a lot to ask or you're
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: going to have to see something different, be treated differently,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: and just have the cultural experience of a completely different
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: dynamic in order for you to begin to sow the
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: seeds of wanting to do something different. Not all the time,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: but a lot of times. So Number one, if possible,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: remove yourself from that environment, which leads me to number two.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: If you can't remove yourself from that environment permanently, I
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: want you to try to remove yourself from that environment temporarily.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: I want you to get some space between the thing
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: that environment teaches you, things like anger, get some space
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: between that and your actual actions. If you need to
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: leave the house, do it. If you need to find
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: other activities and other friend groups and other cultural systems
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: to be And by culture, I don't mean you know
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: you're from another country or something like that. Culture just
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: means the customs practices that are within that systems. Families
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: have different cultures, and culture isn't always what you wear
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: or how you dress or how you speak. What kind
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: of culture is kind of like the the water temperature
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: of your family, what you all do, how your position
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: or what the temperaments are in your family, how you
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: show love, how you show grace, or how you don't
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: show any of those things. How close does love mirror
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: respect in your family? How close does love mirror of violence?
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Back in my neighborhood, people be like, man, I know
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: my cousin love me because if y'all mess with me here,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: come out here, beat your ass like it's it's the
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: love is associated with a level of violence that that
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: person will enact in somebody. Or they'll say, you know,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I know my family love me because they go to
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: jail for me. It's like, yeah, but God, there's so
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: many other ways to show love. But if that is
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: your family culture, it may not dawn on you. So
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: I want you to get some distance between the thing
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: that's flammable and the flame. Does that make sense? There's
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: some distance between the thing that's flammable in the flame.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: And number three, y'all know what I want to say.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: You have to go and see a mental health professional.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: This is not just something that's episodical, situational. This is
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: something that is going to be the background music to
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: your entire life. If you struggle with anger in one
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: part of your life, there is a chance that you
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: would struggle with it in different parts of your life. Now,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: if you come from an abusive family, that doesn't mean
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: that you're necessarily want to be that way toward your child.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: That it doesn't always work that way. A lot of
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: times cycles of abuse do work that way when they
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: trickle down, but it's not necessarily guaranteed. And anger doesn't
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: always mean abuse. I don't want to make that direct correlation,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: even though that does happen. But you know, one of
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: my favorite therapists is doctor MARYO Bouquet, and she says
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: that when things happen in our families, either we run
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: towards it and we become those things, or we run
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: away from it, and you're not always cognizant of which
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: one you're doing. So when seeing a mental health professional,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: they can not just teach you to identify and put
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: language to your anger. Because that's a great step, but
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: it's a great first step. There's still so much more
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: work to do. You also have to notice when the
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: anger is bubbling up inside of you, and we'll talk
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: about that more in a second. But more importantly, you
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: have to figure out healthy, healthy and effective coping mechanisms
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: and processing mechanisms that work for you, because therapy ain't
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: one size fits all, and what works for you now
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: may not work for you once you decide to get
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: married and have kids. It may not work for you
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: once your health is not in tip top shape anymore.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: It has to teamously be adjusted. So that's why I
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: say see a mental health professional because they can help
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: you along that journey and they can just help you
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: mold and custom fit and custom tailor solutions that fit
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: the way that your brain works and fit the way
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: that your life looks. GON book you a session with
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: a licensed therapist. Man, it is a life changing effort.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: I guarantee you when you find the right therapist. Ain't
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: nothing like it. Ain't nothing like it all right, y'all.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: We finish land this plane soon. And I want to
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: get to the root of this and I wrote down
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: some notes just so I can stay on track, just
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: some things that I noticed, because the answer can be
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: really simple, but I want to put it on your mind,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: all right, So get to the root of it. We'll talk.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: Sometimes anger is the primary emotion, and it just needs
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: to be held or processed or workshopped a little bit,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: and then you can practice releasing it. So instead of
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: batting it away like a volleyball, you hold it, you
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: process it. You practice holding it, processing it, examining it,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: interrogating it, and releasing it. And I would say arguably
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: the hardest thing about dealing with anger is releasing it.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: You need a lot of practice doing it, and it
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: takes time, so you have to be patient with yourself.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: And sometimes you got to realize that there's more to it.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you got to slow down enough, and you might
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: find things like shame or fear or grief that you've
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: been carrying for a long time, and perhaps you just
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: stop noticing it as much. I truly believe that that's
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: where all of the deepest work lives, when you continue
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: to examine the thing, when you continue to examine the
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: things that have been living with you for a long time.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: I think getting out of the mind frame of thinking
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: that anger in and of itself is wrong. It can
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: force you to do things that are wrong. But anger
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: itself is not wrong. It's just an emotion. It's not
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: good or it's not bad in and of itself, just
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: the experience and anger. And if you let anger in
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: and you listen to it, it may introduce you to
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: something that you've been waiting a really long time to meet,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: or something within yourself that desperately needs to be confronted,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: which is hard to do, but it is entirely, entirely
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: possible and very much so worth it. So I remember,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: I remember being in Spanish class in high school and
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: I almost spoke fluent Spanish. I was so good at it.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: I think I took three years of Spanish in high school.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: And my teacher told me before summer break, she says, care,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: I need you to go and find people who only
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: speak Spanish or speak fluent Spanish. You need to be
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: in an environment where you speak Spanish fluently all the
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: time or you're going to lose it. Boy with sheep right,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: nobody around me spoke Spanish, and eventually I lost it.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: I can't I know about I know my colors, my months,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: and my days of the week. Everything else is gone
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: because I wasn't in an environment that supported that language.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: And emotional language is a language, So if you're not
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: in an environment that supports a broad range of emotional language,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: there is a good chance that you might lose it.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: So there's a starter pack. If we get lucky, we
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: get happy, we get sad, we get angry, we get scared,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: we get disgusted, we get surprised. That's those are all
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: very primary emotions. But remember the Russian doll analogy. When
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: you pop that doll open and it's something underneath. Emotional
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: vocabulary and skill allow us to keep popping open those
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: dolls and seeing what's on the inside. So eventually you'll
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: get to I'm angry and I feel angry, which that
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: gets you started. I feel angry because I feel unseen
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: by somebody I love. Anger not being seen. Okay, Now,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: to me, that draws you a map, and a map
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: just tells you where it is that you need to go. Well,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: I don't feel seen by a person that I love
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: and I trust, So what does that tell me? That
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: tells me that I need to work on building community
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: with people that I love, and I trust I need
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: to diversify the number of people that I get that
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: feeling from so that I am not leaning on this
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: single person too much to fulfill this need that I have.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Got to diversify your friend portfolio, man. And if we're
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: not building anything here, one thing that I strive to
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: build is a community so that people can actually have
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: something like that, or at least come and hear the
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: instruction so that they know it is something that they need.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: How are you building your role map? How are you
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: allowing your emotions to inform you of what it is
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: that you need? You feel them because the need is
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: not being fulfilled. Well, what need is it? And how
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: can you meet it without relying on the singular source.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: What they say, don't put all your eggs in one basket.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you do not have a choice, all right. If
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: you have parents, your parents are supposed to take on
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: a certain responsibility of fulfilling needs, and all of our
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: parents cannot meet that. But it's still incumbent on us
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: as adults who are dealing with the ramifications of that
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: to figure out how we still get those needs met
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: in other places. Now, listen, if this episode hit you
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: in any way you think about it. I want to
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: hear it. As I told y'all time and time before
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: we building this, were building this community break by bricksn
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: So I want to hear from you. Check us out
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: on IG. I want you to dm at Learn the
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: hard Waypod and give us your thoughts. We're going to
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: do an episode like a mailbag song where I read
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: all of your thoughts, all of y'all questions, some of
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: your stories, and I just respond to them right here,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: right here. You might hear yours. Go ahead and dm
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: me tell me anything, what you think, if you got
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: a question, if you had a hard moment, if you
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: disagree with something, talk about it. Put it on there,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: let's discuss and you can go to Learnthhardwaypod dot com.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: That's my website. You can go there and you can
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: just dump a voicemail out of place. You can just
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: put the phone up to your mouth. You can go
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: ahead and say what you need to say and I
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: will get that message and I may respond to that.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: So get at us Learn thehardwaypod dot com. The link
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: is in bio on Instagram and on TikTok, or you
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: can send me a dm at Learn the Hardway pod
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: on Instagram. We Learned the Hard Way. I am your
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: host here games and thank y'all for listening. Thank you
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: for your attention to your awareness. Till next time, y'all
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: be good. Jobo done, he's out. Learn the Hardway is
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your Host kre Gains.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: We're produced by Courtney Deans and Cason Alexander. Ashley. J.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Hobbs is our senior producer. Our executive producers are Will Packer,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Doctor Joey hard and Bradford, Alex Balden, and Carla Willmarris