Using Your Emotions as a Tool with Ed Daube

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back. 818-572-2910. Hello, hello, hello everybody, and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio. And yes, indeed, I am Bernadette Boas. It is so great to have you here.. And we have an awesome, awesome conversation around emotions and how we deal with them and how we can actually use them as a really powerful tool. All right, let's get into this conversation with our guest. It's all around the fact that we need to use our emotions as tools. And so he's going to share with us how we can use those emotions as a tool and he provides a guide to women to do that. So Ed empowers women vis-à-vis their emotions such as anger by introducing the Emotions as Tools model, discussing what emotions are and why have them, and offering suggestions about how women can validate all their emotions and strategically deploy them to make their lives better. I found it interesting in his bio that his take on this is that emotions in our society are problematic. And most women do recognize that our society does not teach us whether we're men or women, what emotions are, how to strategically deploy them as adaptive tools. And there are different display rules. I love that display rules for men and women. All of these issues deprive women of being able to display and adaptably deploy a full range of emotions, including anger. He goes on to say, I'm not an expert on women. I do, I do know about emotions. Several years ago, I went into a women's forum on LinkedIn, identified myself as a male, and asked if the members of the forum experienced any challenges when they appropriately expressed anger. Well, as I could have even predicted, the gist of over 2,000 responses was that women were demeaned, devalued, marginalized, and/or negatively labeled when they expressed anger, which brought him to doing the work that he does. Now, what I want you to be listening for in regards to our conversation as we get into it is what emotions are and what they are designed to do. Also listen to figure out what the emotion myths are. So you can kind of tap into baloney. How one can strategically deploy their emotions to improve their life and how one can use this information to improve their relationship with others. I am so excited to invite to the show Ed Dobby. So Ed, welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio. I'm so happy to meet you. Now, as he's coming on, I'll formally introduce Ed and, uh, simply let you know that Ed Daube, the Emotions Doctor, is the author of two books, both of which deal with emotions and are Amazon bestsellers. As a senior psychologist, he has— he developed the Emotions as Tools model so he could both communicate with his young incarcerated female clients and train jaded correctional staff. As a senior adjunct professor of psychology, he has introduced the model to his students. Since retiring, he has been a featured guest on numerous podcasts and has published articles on LinkedIn and other websites. His specialty is making complex subjects understandable, and his books and blog are for anyone who feels controlled by their emotions or has to deal with another person Whose Emotions Control Them. Fascinating. How are you, Ed?

I'm doing great.

How you—

how are you, Bernadette?

I'm doing good. There you are. I am doing fabulous, thank you. Um, so tell us, and as you do, I'm also going to make sure I have my cord is tightly in. I'm getting a message in front of me. But so tell us, you kind of shared in, in your bio how you came into this work. But was it that experience on LinkedIn that, that kind of triggered that?

No, no, it happened much before that.

Okay, so share, share, share.

Okay. Well, what happened was when I was a graduate student in— well, first of all, I should say, in my family, emotions weren't dealt with very well at all. And I got into graduate school.. And I noticed that even as a graduate student, they weren't dealing with the, the whole issue of emotions. And I had an opportunity to, because I was in California, and I had an opportunity to talk to a neighbor of my parents who ran an alcoholic treatment program called the Henry Olaf House. And I wanted to learn about dealing with folks who had issues with drugs. I did not, they did. So I went to this guy and I said, um, can I sit in on your groups? And I thought he was going to say yes, but he didn't. He said no. And I said, well, why not? He said, well, I'll tell you what, what you can do is you can sit in as a participant observer. And I thought, fantastic, it'll be easy for me. I'm a graduate student. I don't have an issue with drugs. What happened, Bernadette, it took these folks 6 months of me being in the group to tell me that I had an issue with emotions, particularly anger. What they told me was that I was a non-drinking alcoholic. They got— they dealt with their emotions by going into the bottle or whatever, and I eliminated my emotions as best I could through my books. So that was my first introduction that I had an issue with feelings.

Wow.

So then I take my first job, my only job by the way, and I'm working with young women in the California Youth Authorities. And these young women all had issues with abuse. They had issues, emotional and physical abuse. They committed serious crimes in California, including, by the way, infanticide. I had 5 young women on my caseload, all of whom had killed their children. And I had no experience with this at all. None. And I also had to deal with the, the correctional staff. So now I have a situation where I have to deal with young women who, who don't understand their emotions and want to avoid them. Emotions like guilt and shame and regret. I have to deal with staff who don't want to deal with emotions because they see them, see emotions as messy. And my job is to be able to communicate with all of these folks. So the way I did that was to develop the Emotions as Tools model, which enabled my young women to kind of take a step back from their emotions and view them in a different way. It enabled the staff to say, okay, I have to deal with tools like my baton and whatever, and handcuffs, so I can now look at emotions that way. The issue of Yeah, the issue of anger in women happened once I retired. And I mean, I wrote my first book on Emotions as Tools to explain the whole concept of the emotion cycle and that emotions were— and the metaphor of emotions as tools. And then when I retired, I thought, well, let's take a look at anger because in our society, we don't deal well with anger. Men say, well, I get angry and I beat my wife because the anger made me do it. No, women don't get— don't express anger because when they do, they get put down. And so I did research for my second book by going on to LinkedIn. That's where that came about.

Nice.

And I was actually surprised when most of these women said, no, I as a woman cannot express anger because when I do, I get demeaned, I get called names, I get marginalized. And so that's when I became aware of that whole issue. And that, and that, by the way, is why I reached out to you when I saw your podcast entitled Shedding the Bitch, because the bitch is emotions.

Absolutely. That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

And, and, and what that is, is, Bernadette, that perpetuates the myth that emotions are somehow bad, and that we need to eliminate them.

Right?

Well, Go ahead.

Well, yes. And yes, I absolutely agree with you. So no, continue, continue.

Okay. But to say that emotions are bad and to eliminate them is the same thing as saying, you know, I don't like it when my smoke detector goes off when I burn my toast. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn off the smoke detectors. Well, people do that and the house burns down.

Right, right.

You see, the whole idea with emotions is They're simply detectors. What I need to do is I need to explain briefly how the emotion cycle works. Is that okay?

Sure, sure. Okay, sure.

Okay, what happens is all of us now automatically are constantly scanning our environments for threat. We've been doing that since we lived in caves. When that happens now, the amygdala sets off an emotional reaction. We experience anger, we experience whatever it happens to be. At the same time, a slower track message goes to the cerebral cortex, which is the thinking part of our brain, which now enables us to look at what's going on and make an assessment and determine how we want to respond rather than react. So your emotions are basically all the primary emotions of mad, sad, glad, fear, disgust, and surprise. They're basically threat detectors. And we're constantly scanning our environment for threats.

Yeah.

So if you understand that, now then you don't have to be overwhelmed by your emotions because the emotional reaction happens very fast, which is why we think that it controls us rather than we dealing with it.

Right, right.

And so, so what I'm saying is no, accept all emotions, because if you don't, you as a woman, me as a man, if you don't accept an emotion, you basically deny yourself the opportunity to use that emotion to give you information about what's happening to you and to take the opportunity to decide what you want to do about it.

Yes. Yes. I'm glad you got there because that exactly is exactly what I do with Shedding the Bitch is I do want them to kind of pause and recognize what are those emotions, what are those fears, insecurities, negativities, and doubts that they have that causes them to act out in a certain way. And then the other element of it is that so they can shift, you know, to riches, as I call it. So I'm fascinated by the idea that you were surprised when the women on that LinkedIn forum you know, were so kind of animate about the fact that they are marginalized, that they're devalued, they're minimized. Um, because that's a kind of a common understanding amongst women, is that anytime, you know, we, we could be in the same room and a guy can get angry and he's okay, he's just venting. And a woman can get angry and, oh my God, she's emotional. And you know, all of a sudden all those things that you said, yeah, you know, um, are brought up. Um, you know, one I'd love to ask, and I might be jumping, but I'd love to ask, what is that dynamic? What is— because women really want to understand, what is that dynamic that makes it, you know, appropriate for, for men, but yet, like you said, it, you know, women are, um, marginalized and devalued and minimized as a result of their anger?

Yes, I believe there are several things that are going on. The first thing is, and the reason why I was surprised is because I'm a man and not a woman, and I knew this stuff was out there, but I didn't realize how extensive it was, which is why I asked the question.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that in our society, men tend to see themselves as assertive and and is going out there and getting things done. And women, we tend to socialize women as being, they're networkers, they kind of take a back seat. And so we as men, when we see an angry woman, we don't know how to deal with our own anger. And then when we see a woman being angry, we know even less how to deal with her. So instead of accepting her and her anger, which is what we should do, we tend to put it down because we see her anger as a threat to us. That's my understanding. That's how I see it. I mean, I don't see it that way, but generally that's why men are going to put down women. Because if you as a woman get angry at me as a man and I don't know how to deal with your anger, I've got two choices. I either learn how to deal with it, which is the best way to do it, or I put you down so I don't have to deal with it.

Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, I can definitely You're triggering, you're causing some triggers. And, uh, because I could go back to several, you know, instances where it was very, very, you know, dramatic as far as, you know, how someone, especially a male, had responded. Um, you know, yet at the same time I watched, you know, them kind of, um, lash out and yet had a whole different response to it. So Emotions, what a, what a deep subject, but yet a vital, vital, vital subject.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So can you then go, uh, you, you wrote in your book that's entitled Emotions as Tools: A Self-Help Guide to Controlling Your Life, Not Your Feelings. Um, help us understand kind of how we— not only how we can use emotions as tools, but how are emotions tools beyond what you already explained as far as, you know, they can be used, you know, to benefit us. In what ways and in what scenarios, uh, can we consider— being that we are, you know, a community of women listeners here, we have men, but a community of listener, uh, women listeners— what can we really be looking at in a positive way around our emotions?

Okay, well, first I need to say that I don't see myself as a spokesperson for women. I'm not, but I think— okay, but I believe that the concepts that I'm presenting can be helpful, and here's how.

Sure.

If you as a woman, Bernadette, see all of your emotions as tools— now what I mean by tools is this: you, you learn how to use a cell phone. It's a tool. Now, when I use a cell phone, I sometimes have to call my kids over to say, how do I do this and that? Okay. So, but it's a tool. Okay. If you understand that your emotions, all of them give you information about how you perceive your environment, you now can use that information in order to improve not only your own life, but how you interact with others. That information, if you, again, let me say, if you understand that emotions are tools, I'm suggesting that empowers you to accept all of your emotions regardless of how other people tell you what you should feel or not.

Yeah.

Okay. So with anger, the message of anger is that you perceive a threat that you believe you can overpower if you throw enough force at it. This is true for men and women. And by the way, emotions in women are the same as emotions in men. The difference is that for you as a woman, you have different display rules. The rules in society say you can express sympathy and you can express warmth and you can express love, but darn it, you may— you can't express anger.

Yeah.

Okay, because that's not feminine.

Right.

Well, the fact of the matter is you are as entitled to your anger as I am to mine. So now if you understand that, when you get angry, you are now empowered to say, okay, I am angry, I perceive a threat. Now, when you do that with any emotion, by the way, whether it's anger or, or shame or guilt, all the— each emotion has a message. The message of shame is there's something wrong with me. Which is why, by the way, parents should not shame their kids because the message that they get is, "I'm— there's something wrong with me. I'm a bad person." Guilt, by the way, is I've done something wrong. So if you understand the message of the emotion, now you can use it. So let's go back to anger. You as a woman get angry. Your first— what you first want to do is you want to take a step back from the situation in any emotion, you want to create safety. You want to create physical safety and you want to create emotional safety. The physical safety is created by taking a step back from the situation. The emotional safety is taken by taking a deep breath. And what that does is it lowers your level of arousal. So now you're in a position to say, okay, wait a minute, what's going on? These are the questions you need to ask. What is the threat that I perceive? How valid and real is the threat? Because you might get angry because you misperceive what's going on. You get angry at a man who says something to you and you look at it and you say, wait a minute, does he even know what he said? Right. He may not. So if there's no threat, now you can say, okay, there's no need for anger. But if there is a threat, now you need to decide how you're going to approach it and what you're going to do about it. If you can approach it directly and have a direct conversation with that man, that's great. That's preferable. But you may not be able to do that. And one of the things I suggested to these women on LinkedIn is you may have to take an indirect approach or a project management approach to it. Project management. If you're a manager of a project, what do you do? You assess what you need to do, what your goal is. You assess what your skills are. You assess what your needs are and what resources you have available to you.

Yep, true.

So if you take a project management approach, you're not denying your anger. You're still angry, but you're using that anger as fuel in order to resolve the issue. You're not expressing your anger directly because if you do, you may get fired, you may get put down, you may not be able to. But you don't deny the anger. That anger is valid and you're entitled to it.

You're just, you're just looking to go from emotional state to a logical state so then you can approach it appropriately. Would that be fair?

Yes, but let me, let me correct it just a little bit. Okay, you're keeping your emotional state. Okay, you're just not expressing it directly.

Right, right, right, right. You're putting it in order or into a, into a framework that would help you express it without all the drama, I'll call it.

Yes, you're using the energy of that anger to deal with the situation. But you're not saying I'm angry with you. And you're, you're not coming out in that way because the boss, if you're dealing with a boss, can't handle that. Yeah, but now you can say, what are my options? Is there some way I can go around this situation? And let me add something else to it too, in terms of, I believe there's a basic relationship rule that I'm, as I write about in my blog, I want everybody to be aware of because it helps you understand people that you're dealing with. And the basic relationship rule is everybody in every situation does the best they can given A, their model of the world, and B, their skill sets. So if you understand that, now you have a way to approach that boss. What is— how is he seeing the situation? Do I need to change that in some way?

Right.

Because I don't like how he's interacting with me. Or is it his skill sets? Does he just not know how to interact with me? So this then gives you a pathway to deal with that man in you who's angry with— who won't accept your anger and bring about corrections in either the situation and how he sees it or how he deals with it.

Okay, so question: does this work tie into like the, the assessments many companies will use to, um, so for instance, like the DiSC assessment, it, you know, it, it models, you know, 4 different characteristics or traits of individuals— how they like to be, how they communicate, how they manage, how they, you know, direct people. And therefore, you know, you use that model to identify for instance, Ed, you're, you know, I'm picking up these vibes that you might be a D, DC, and therefore I'm going to adjust my communication and my, my expression of my emotions to you based on that profile. Is that fair to say?

Um, I'm not familiar with that specifically, but generally yes. The challenge that you need to be aware of with all those assessments, by the way, is this: Years ago, a company was hired by a major company out here in California, and they were hired to do an assessment, to create an assessment like that because they wanted to get away from having their employees deal with each other based on stereotypes. So they said, okay, if you're a red, you're this. If you're a blue, you're this. If you're a green, you're this. If they had asked me, I would have told them it wouldn't work, and here's why. Because what happened was people then said, Instead of saying you're a bad man, they said you're a blue, and because you're a blue, I can't deal with you because I'm a red. So you have to be aware of not creating categories, but looking at characteristics.

Right, right.

If you're looking at characteristics, those assessments are very good.

Yeah.

Because now it's the characteristics that you're expressing that I need to deal with in order to be able to communicate with you. Not that you're a blue, so I have to do such and such.

Right.

The characteristics of a blue are that you don't deal well directly with emotions. I need to deal with you, to talk to you in visual terms because you're a visual processor versus an auditory processor. I don't know if you're familiar with those terms.

I am very much so because I'm visual.

Well, there you go. And so am I. I did a seminar for law enforcement a while back, and I had one of the people in my class raise his hand and say to me, "You know, Dr. Dobby, I can't deal with my boss because he doesn't trust me." I said, "Well, what do you mean?" He said, "He asked me to write down everything that I say, and for me, if you tell me, I get it. You don't have to write it down." So I said, "Well, is that the only issue that you have with him?" Well, yeah, he just doesn't trust me. I said, well, the fact is he has you write things down because he's a visual processor.

Yeah.

And you're an auditory processor.

Right.

So if I know you're an auditory processor, I will communicate with you through words. If I know you're a visual processor, I will either write things down or I will create a visual analogy for you that you then can understand what it is I'm trying to say to you.

Right, right. Yeah, that's very much— I'm glad to hear this because it's very much what the DISC, how the DISC operates. Um, so that's good to know. Well, and the one thing I wanted to ask, because you mentioned the girls that you, you, you know, that you use your work with, and of course they have challenge, you know, they are there because they have challenges of their own, right, dealing with their emotions. And I can only, you know, I can only imagine when you're in the throes especially anger, if you're— when you're in the throes of it, how, how did you work with them? Or how do you work with individuals to then be able to pause and to be able to kind of get out of their, you know, heart at that point and kind of look at it in, you know, not in a logical, unemotional way, but in a more thoughtful way, intentional way? How, you know, what's that work look like to— in order to do that?

What I had to do is I had to help them see that what they were doing wasn't working. When they got angry with staff, it wasn't helping them get what they needed, which was staff to recognize them and hear them.

Right.

Once I helped them understand that what they were doing wasn't working, then I could say to them, okay, would you like another way in order for you to be able to express your anger but be heard at the same time. And what I needed to teach them was when they get angry, they need to do what I was suggesting, to take a deep breath and say, what is it that I want to accomplish here? What do I need from staff and what is the best way to get it? And they say, well, but Dr. Dobby, it's not fair. They They won't take me out of my room or they won't give me a phone call or they won't— I understand that. And yes, it's not fair, but if you want to get that done, you have to understand where staff is coming from and how to deal with staff. Otherwise, you're not going to get what you want. So in order for you to get what you want, you have to be able to deal with these staff and give them what they want in terms of how they perceive you.

Yep.

Now in terms of the shame and the guilt, I had to help them understand that while what they did was bad, they were not bad.

Yeah, yeah.

And once I helped them do that, then they could grow forward past that. Because again, I mean, if you're involved in serious crimes like infanticide, you're going to have remorse and regret, you're going to have shame and guilt and all of that. So when I explained to them that all of those emotions were valid, But they needed to understand the information, the message of those emotions, and then they needed to assess what those emotions were telling them and look at the message and see to what extent it fit or it didn't fit. And then they were able to move past it. It was not an easy process, Bernadette. Sometimes it took years.

I bet. I bet. Well, I'm just thinking through my own. I had a short fuse. Mm-hmm. Um, and it wasn't— it was verbal, it wasn't physical, but it was verbal. Uh, that's where kind of the whole shedding the bitch came from. Um, and so I'm just— yeah, I'm— I— that's what I was processing, is it's not something that happens overnight. It's not even something that happens, you know, in a workshop or through a series of workshops, because it's, you know, it's a lot of internal work. Um, it's a lot of internal work. That's fascinating, absolutely fascinating. So your newest book is entitled Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool. What do you mean when you refer to anger as strategic tool? Being that we understand now how to kind of get ourselves, you know, in a place, breathe, slow down, so forth and so on. But what do you mean, especially when it comes to beyond anger management? How do those things two things aligned to each other?

Excellent question. The reason why I said Beyond Anger Management is because as I was looking into it, anger management classes and groups tend not to work. And the reason why they don't work is because what they'll do in anger management is they'll tell you, you need to control your anger. And what I'm saying is no, I don't want you to control your anger. I want you to control what you do with your anger. But I don't want you to control your anger because you can't. If you try to control your anger and you try and push it down, it'll eventually come back.

It'll explode.

It'll explode. Exactly. So I don't want you to control your anger. I want— so that's beyond anger management. I want you to master your anger. And what I mean by a strategic tool is this. My thought was about military strategies. Military will go in and they'll say, okay, what I need to do here is I need to take out that target. That's my strategic, pointed, focused target.

Right.

So it's a strategic move. I want you to use your anger as a strategic tool, meaning I want you to use it to focus your attention where you— what you need to look at and what you need to change. So then if I am in a situation where I get angry because I want to— I'm trying to do something, I'm trying to focus on something, and my wife comes in and interrupts me. And my immediate response is I get angry. Why? Because I'm focused on a goal and she's interrupting me. So then I need to step back and say, wait a minute, what's going on here? What's the threat? Well, there is no threat. Okay, so if that's the case, I don't need to exert a whole lot of emotional angry energy. There's no need for it. But if I'm in a situation where I'm at work and you've stolen my work and presented it as your own, now I'm really pissed off.

Yeah.

Okay. So if I'm going to strategically apply my anger, I'm going to say, what do I need to do to correct this situation? And how much angry energy do I need to apply in this situation in order to bring about the result that I want? That's what I mean by strategically deploying your anger. Yeah, you decide what the stress, what the threat is, what you need to do to correct it, and how much energy do I need to expend in order to get that done. Yeah, does that make sense?

It does, it does. And it's kind of also making me, um, ask the question, because any emotion— but since we're talking anger, um, any emotion— it's, it's not the It's not the cause or the, um, uh, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? It's not the, uh, not provocation. It's not the, um, fault, fault, fault of the other person. It's actually how we're, we're, you know, how we're creating that and or dealing with that emotion, correct? So when it comes to anger, it, you know, yes, somebody might have done something, but that doesn't necessarily mean We have to be angry about it. We are responsible for the fact that we are creating that anger, and then we're going to be even more responsible for, you know, how we respond to that anger. Is that fair to say?

That's absolutely correct, Bernadette. What you're saying here is that each of us causes our own emotions, including anger.

Yes, yes.

What the next step of that is, it doesn't mean that just because I cause it, that I'm necessarily in error by getting angry.

Right. Yes.

And so, but if you understand that, then you can say, okay, that's where I recognize the emotional reaction, which by the way, you have no control over. That happens automatically. And that's, by the way, what gives anger its bad name. Because anger seems to happen to me so fast, it's controlling me. No, that's the emotional reaction.

Yeah.

So you need to accept that, and that then tells you, okay, I need to move to the next step, which is to evaluate or assess the nature of the threat. So I take responsibility for my anger, and I also take responsibility for me to correct what's going on. Now I may be very validly angry at you because of what you've done. You represent a threat to me. That's on you. Yeah, but what I do with it is on me. And that's where the power comes in anger. And that's where I was saying when I originally saw your byline, my thought was, okay, I wasn't sure what you meant. I do now. And yes, once you understand what the emotion is, you can choose to shed it, you can choose to use it, you can choose to do whatever you want with it, right? But you're not giving the emotion a bad name by saying there's something wrong with the emotion.

I love that. I didn't even consider that angle, angle on, on it. But it's, it's embedded. You know, it is embedded in just kind of take it for granted, I guess. But it's a beautiful point to be making as I go forward. Because, yeah, because I never talk about, you know, kind of shedding, like eliminating your emotion, any emotion. But at the same time, you have to be intentional about it. And you need to be thoughtful of it. And you need to, you know, really think of how you're going to respond to it. I've been talking all day. Excuse me. Excuse my—

no worries.

Um, okay, so you touched on it a bit, but I wonder if there's any more, uh, because we'd love to always understand the differences between men and women, Venus and Mars and all that kind of good stuff. But what is the difference between men anger and women anger beyond what we already shared? Is there anything additional that we need to be considering?

No, I don't think there is any difference. The only difference is the display rules. The society says it's okay for men to express anger directly because when we do it, we're seen as assertive, we're seen as powerful, we're seen as taking control. When women do it, it's seen as, boy, that's not very feminine, you shouldn't be doing that.

Emotional.

We're emotional. Yeah, you're, you're an emotional wreck, or you're, it's time, it's your time of the month, or what, what it whatever men do to denigrate or demean. What has to happen is women need to understand regardless how men choose to put them in a box and demean them, they are entitled to their anger. It's a legitimate tool and they are entitled to express it.

Right.

The difference is I as a man don't have to worry so much about display rules. Although now, now what's happening is when men are getting angry, even at work, They're saying, hey, you know, you need to tone it down a bit. Okay, well, that's a display rule, right? If women understand that it's just the display rules that are, that are holding them back, now they can be empowered to use their anger, and they can either choose to use it directly if they can, or indirectly if they need to, right?

Well, and I'll share with you that, especially myself over the years, it's no longer an issue for me. You know, in my own understanding. But what I'd love to do is figure out how to change the impression, uh, you know, uh, you know, of men toward, you know, women's emotions. Because I, I have no issue with the fact that if I get angry, I don't— you know, they can, you know, try to de— uh, demarginalize me, but they're not going to, right? But I just want that, you know, I'm just like What women are frustrated as is how do we stop that? How do we change it? Not how do we necessarily respond to it because we've learned to pretty much have a thick skin. But how do we, you know, kind of change that, especially as, you know, we have young boys as children and so forth and so on. And I know that's not for this conversation, but that's where women get very, very kind of frustrated and stuck.

Okay, but I do have an answer for you.

Oh, bring it, bring it!

Okay, remember the basic relationship rule in terms of dealing with other people, and this is what you want to teach your kids as well, that everybody in every situation does the best they can, not the best possible, the best they can given their model of the world and their skill sets. So if I'm dealing, if you're dealing with as a woman with a man, you may not necessarily be able to change his skill sets right away, but you can certainly change his model. And the way you do that is by saying, you know, John, what you just did is upsetting to me. I'm angry about it because, and here are the reasons. We had an agreement that you were going to do such and such and you didn't do it. So did I miss something here? Did I miss something that you didn't do it because or whatever? So you understand by asking them, what their model of the world is, how they perceive what's going on. So you— okay, so then once they tell you that, you may decide, well, you know, that really isn't good enough because we had— and you, and so forth. So now you're changing their model. You've used your anger, not directly getting angry at them, but you've told them you are upset and you are angry, and you've done it in a way which is not threatening to them You found out how they perceive what's going on, and now you've corrected, hopefully, what's happening. On the downside— excuse me, on the other side of it, you may also be changing their skill sets by introducing the idea we can talk about things. Yeah, yeah, so you're doing both.

Love that, love that. And I think that's just what we as women just need to, you know, we need to always kind of be very conscious of. That we need to take that time to recognize that not only that they have a different model, but the fact that every, every situation is a learning situation for both, for both parties.

Yes. And, and, and you as a woman also, I'm suggesting, don't want to get caught up in the idea that this is unfair, because it is. So, so, I mean, if you're in a situation where the display rules say you can't get angry but he can, It's unfair. Until you can change it, just deal with it and use your anger to bring about corrections, which then makes your job easier and your life easier. And it also, by the way, improves your relationship with your boss.

It's just frustrating for women.

Yes. No, I get it.

Let me— yeah, it's just frustrating, frustrating, frustrating. And we just— and it's not even for us anymore because I have 5 sisters. And, you know, with, uh, they have young children and/or, you know, teenagers into the 20s. And, you know, you just hope that it'll be different for the next generation, the next generation, the next generation. But, um, anyway, all right, so what would you say for our listeners? What would be kind of the first thing or one thing that they could be doing to be using their anger strategically, to make— use it as a strategic tool? What if they were to walk away from this conversation with one thing, what would you suggest to them?

When you get angry, take a deep breath. Now, what I mean by that is because if you do that, then everything else falls in place.

Yeah, it's true.

If you take a deep breath, yes, you're not going to react. 'Cause when you react, you may say something you later regret. So take a deep breath. That's the first thing. Then, and I need two things, I can't do it just in one. Take a deep breath and then understand that you need to assess the nature of the message before you choose how you want to respond.

The message of your message that you're going to be sharing?

No, the message that your anger is telling you about how you perceive what's going on.

Okay. Okay.

Because then you have the choice of it's either valid, which you stay with your anger and do what you have to do, or it's not, in which case you have to choose then to take another breath and let the anger go.

Right.

That empowers your listeners to be able to deal with their anger. Take a deep breath and then assess the nature of the method, the message of how you perceive what's going on, right, and then choose a response.

And Formulated Response. Beautiful, beautiful. Now, how can our listeners use your approach to deal with someone who directs their anger, you know, at them?

That's an excellent question. And the way— and it's the same process, but it's applied to the other person. Because see, if you get angry at me, and I say, I know what anger is. Anger says you perceive me as a threat. So now I need to understand what it is about me that leads you to see me as a threat. I'm not going to get angry at your anger, but I'm going to say, okay, what's going on here that you see me the way you do? How is what I'm doing leading you to get angry at me? Not causing, but what have I done that has led you to be angry with me? So that gets it what the threat is, right? But again, using anger as a tool, if I know the message is that when I get angry, I perceive a threat. When you get angry, you perceive me as a threat. So maybe I've done something that is threatening to you. Maybe I've said something that is threatening to you. Maybe you're just angry with me because you're a man and you don't like being around women. Who knows? But if I understand what— how you perceive me as a threat, now I can proceed to perhaps eliminate that or change your perception.

Right, right. But don't— I mean, okay, so now I have a bigger question for you, and, and it just came up.

Um, fine.

All right, so there are some people that are I, I won't say naturally angry because we're not born angry, you know, but it's so embedded in them. And because it was me for a long time, but it's so embedded in them because of their upbringing, because like you said, you know, the, their model of the world, um, and it's so embedded in them that they don't even— they're not— they don't even perceive it as they're doing anything in an angry state, right? Yet the other person is. So is it only important that the other, the receiver of the anger, you know, it, you know, is understanding it and is responding to it? Or, you know, how does that person who is carrying around all that anger— I guess it goes back to you, like your young women, right? You know, where they just have to start to recognize it. Is that what—

Well, ideally, if both parties understand what anger is, then that's best, but sometimes it won't happen.

Right.

Okay. Do you know, by the way, if somebody's yelling at you, do you know how to respond to them?

I don't say anything.

Okay. When somebody's yelling at you, when you say something back to them, you whisper.

Ah.

And here's why. When they're yelling at you, they're trying to get their point across to you, and they're trying, and they're preparing themselves to be able to defend whatever it is that you say. When you whisper, they have to stop yelling because they have to hear what you have to say in order to respond to it.

That's beautiful.

Yeah, so when they, when they stop yelling, you then can say to them, what do you want out of this situation here? Yeah, see, now you're not dealing with their anger, but you're saying, what do you want to happen here? Which is really what you want to know, right?

Right, right.

Because, and when they answer that, and by the way, let me say something that might be interesting to your listeners as well. As much as possible, you want to avoid the question of why. And here's the reason. When you say, why are you angry? Why are you this? If I say to my kids, why did you do that? Their first response is, reaction is to me is to give me an excuse. I don't want an excuse. So instead of asking why, ask what. What is it you wanted to accomplish? What do you want to have happen here? What do you want to go on between you and me? That's really what I want to know.

Yep.

And so if I do that, then I'm going to get from you the information that tells me how you perceive me as a threat.

Yeah, I can see that. But I bet you 9.9% of us, or 9.9 out of 10 of us, ask why as opposed to that what.

Exactly. And it's hard to eliminate. I'm not saying eliminate it. I'm just saying be aware of it. Because if you ask, if you ask why, then your next question will be what, right? Which is fine, right?

Right. That's all that I— and I love the whisper. I love the whisper. I have a hard time, but I like that idea. I love that idea. All right, so, um, I want to just remind everyone, so he has a couple of books, a self-help guide— oh, I'm sorry, I'm going to back up— uh, Emotions as Tools: A Self-Help Guide to Controlling Your Life Not Your Feelings. And his other one is— his newest one is Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool. I would be picking— oh, beautiful. I would be picking those—

that's the first one.

I would be picking those up, everyone, simply to have it, you know, use it obviously, but simply to have it if when you, you know, are kind of not even just face to face, literally. But if you, you know, all of a sudden have a situation that you need to process or work through.

Right. But let me give your viewers an even, even, even better resource that's free. My blog, which is The Emotions, T-H-E-E-M-O-T-I-O-N-S-D-O-C-T-O-R, TheEmotionsDoctor.com. I've gotten, I have over 100 posts there on anger and shame and guilt, all the different kinds of feelings, including the Emotions Process. They can access all of my posts by going to the index tab in the upper right-hand corner of the home page. Tap on the index tab and it'll take you to a PDF which lists all of my posts by title, category, and date.

That's great.

Yeah, they can then go over to the archives and just go to the post that they want, right? There's a ton of information there. Yes, I'd like them to buy my book, and that's great. But they can get a lot of the information for free by going to the blog.

Right.

Okay.

And I love that tool because if they're dealing with a certain situation, they could just look very quickly on that list.

Yes.

To find what it is that they need at that point in time. TheEmotionsDoctor.com, right up in the index section.

Look, there's an index tab in the upper right-hand corner. Okay, next, tap on that. Takes you to a PDF. You open the PDF.

Awesome. Fabulous. All right, um, any last words, Ed Dobby?

Yes, just remember that your emotions are just tools. They don't control you, though they seem to and feel like they do, but you can use them to improve your life and your relationships by assessing the nature of the message and and then choosing how you want to respond after you take a breath.

Right, after you take a breath and then whisper.

And then whisper.

I love that. I am so grateful for you being part of the show because this has been a fabulous conversation. You've taught me quite a bit, mind you. And I would say I was sitting here trying not to look down as I was scribbling notes down, you know, down here. But, um, thank you so much for being part of the program. This was an awesome conversation and right in line with what our our listeners deal with and therefore what they can use and what they can have in order to help them.

Well, thanks for having me. I've enjoyed it. And if I've been helpful, that's what I want to do. That's my goal here.

Absolutely, absolutely. Ed Dobby, go to theemotionsdoctors.com.

Emotions, emotions doctor.

That's what I said.

You said doctors. You put an S on the end of doctors.

I'm sorry. The emotions doctor.com. Thank you.

There you go.

Um, and check out his index section, uh, for all of his blog posts and subjects and topics. I so appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. And for everyone else, check back in next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio. I'm Bernadette Boas. Have a beautiful, rich week, everyone. Take care. Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com.

See you next week.