How to Process the Angers of Your Past to Step Into Your Destiny

If you're angry, do you like yourself many times not. Well, that's interesting. Isn't One of the greatest unlocks in this journey of a life lived beyond your default is not liking ourselves, but loving ourselves. We've talked about that in a previous episode. Right. And so literally, what I'm trying to paint a picture of as we get into this, it's extremely hard to do when you're filled with anger is understand this relationship between fear, this relationship between forgiveness, this relationship between loving yourself, like anger is almost like the center point of several very important pieces or the understanding of how and when to use anger.

Welcome back to beyond you'd default. I am your host, Liz Morehead, and as always, I am joined by the one and only George V. Thomas. How the heck are you this morning, Liz?

I am doing great. It is the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend, so we have had a long weekend of food and family and potential opportunities to be angry. And so I am glad that we are talking about anger and all things angriness today. So, yeah, I'm excited. I've got my coffee, and I'm ready to rock and roll.

I didn't even draw that parallel between Thanksgiving is an incubator for anger and the fact that we were recording this this morning. So to those of you who are listening to this feed, the day it goes live, welcome. We hope you survived the holiday weekend and Black Friday. Black Friday. Oh, my gosh. Well, anger is a funny little emotion. It reminds me a lot of fear in the way that there's a bit of a stickiness to it. Right. You know, we've talked about fear across numerous episodes as well as dedicated episodes. And one of the big themes that came out of our conversations of fear is that if you're not careful, it can be something that can become a controlling and extremely destructive force in your life. Anger is another type of emotion where I would say there is a similar thematic element there. Think about yourself, right? Whether you are someone who is known to hold grudges or someone who knows somebody who holds grudges, anger is a weight that you can very easily carry with you throughout your life. And that's really what we're going to be talking about today. What is our relationship with anger? What happens when we don't do the work of processing the angers of the past in order to step into our destinies are beyond our default lives? So, George, I want to start today's conversation by asking you, what has your relationship looked like with anger over the years?

Well, first of all it's been messy, to be honest with you. And, Liz, I'm glad you brought up the fact of fear and anger and both of them feeling like they have some similar traits because both are needed. Both are not 100% bad, but dependent upon when they show themselves are in a positive or negative light in our life. I shared freely in maybe multiple episodes of the podcast that, you know, one of my defining moments was somebody that I love and adore and is just like the most peaceful, loving, genuine, amazing human saying that I had an anger issue, that I was an angry person. And I've said before, no, I'm not. No, no one. You know, how dare you say that to me? Why would she say that? Like, but then realizing, like, oh, my gosh. So it has been a really interesting journey. But, Liz, as we kind of get into this conversation, I think that it's important for us and the listeners to have this basic understanding of how bad anger is for us, right? And this is why I knew that this had to be part of a podcast conversation eventually. It needed to be part of a book. It just is a very, you know, interesting thing. And again, like many of the other things we've talked about, forgiveness and anger also have some similar traits. So Mark Twain has a quote that he gave us that anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. Now, that to me, is very eye opening. If you think about you as the vessel, you as storing it, you as actually harming yourself more than where it's going to eventually bubble out. Now, we'll talk about that bubbling out as we move forward. But now that I've said that, I had my own little battle with storing anger, right? And that's why I can have that story of, like, Aunt Nancy and George, you have an issue. And my wife saying, you know, she thinks you have an issue, and me having to deal with what's fun in this topic is that, again, it's tied to this idea of fear, it's tied to this idea of forgiveness, it's tied to these other elements that we're talking about. And I'm curious how many times in how many podcast episodes will actually say this is connected to this or that is connected to that. And I think it's going to be a lot, because while we don't normally sit down and draw the lines or make the connections, we when we actually take time to plan out what we're trying to do, which is live a life beyond the default, all of a sudden you start to realize, oh, when I tip this domino, this happens. When I tip this domino, this happens. And so I have to ask the listeners a question because this is a fun topic. It's an important topic. Liz, I'll ask you, even you and the listeners, do you like angry people?

Well, that's a tricky question to answer. And maybe this is where I'm taking too much of a nuanced approach to what you're asking me. I mean, the binary answer is no. Like, if and if we're talking about an angry person, that means someone whose defining characteristic is, I am angry, there is anger all the time. What I find interesting, though, is that when I think about the people I know who have maybe an unbalanced relationship with anger in their lives, you know, how they talk about in health, like comorbidities, you know, you very rarely just have this. You will also likely have this. Anger has a similar thing to it where the people I know who have that unbalanced relationship with anger, I don't typically characterize them as angry. I typically characterize them as negative. Sometimes it's, you know, just constantly looking at things in a negative way. Sometimes it's anger. But for the most part, angry people, it's not that I dislike them. I feel like I don't even get a chance to get to know them because their anger is this big, massive buffer around who they really are.

Oh, you're taking this to the next level. So you said, my binary answer is no. And then you said, I feel like I don't even get a chance to get to know them. So here's where I would turn it. So when you're an angry person because you're storing it up, do others like you? Binary answer? Probably not. But then what I would even say is, so when you're an angry person, how hard is it to even get to know yourself because you're trying to stay away from yourself because you realize that you're an angry person from storing it up. You see, this makes the internal and external relationships hard. Anger does in the wrong way at the wrong time. Again, I'm not saying it's 100% wrong. We'll get into that. But I want you to think about that binary answer that you gave and listeners you can, I don't know unless you email me. Right. Georgeyondyourdefault.com or Liz@BeyondYourDefault.com if you email us and say, hey, my answer, do you like angry people? Is xyz we don't know, but we have to assume that it was no and maybe something very much like Liz was thinking. More importantly, if you're angry, do you like yourself many times not. Well, that's interesting, isn't it? One of the greatest unlocks in this journey of a life lived beyond your default is not liking ourselves, but loving ourselves. We've talked about that in a previous episode. Right. And so literally, what I'm trying to paint a picture of as we get into this, it's extremely hard to do when you're filled with anger, is understand this relationship between fear, this relationship between forgiveness, this relationship between loving yourself. Like, anger is almost like the center point of several very important pieces, or the understanding of how and when to use anger is the center point of many of these very important pieces that we've talked about on this show. So I'm excited to unpack what I've learned along the way on my life and any questions that you might have. I'm open, but know that when I say I'm open, I'm scared. Because I am going to try to come to this conversation as open and as authentic about things that have happened, good and bad, in my life around these times where I've stored up anger, how maybe it's bubbled out, things like that.

Can you talk to me about a specific moment in your life where you realized anger was playing an outsized role in your life? Because you've talked about it a bit in the abstract. You've mentioned, you know, folks may have pointed to you and said, hey, you're an angry guy, but take us to a specific moment.

I mean, I can give you multiple. That's the problem with me and where I was in life is that I could give you multiple reasons why it was perfectly okay for me to be angry and to be a dick.

But I'm talking about the moment that you realized, like, you're having that moment and you're starting to realize, oh, geez, I got a problem.

The time that I realized I had a problem was the time that I was uber aggressive in a moment that shouldn't have been even close to what it was. It could have been a conversation, but it turned physical. And we're talking to the point where I realized, after I let the anger control me, that it was a defining moment in my life, that I potentially could lose everything. And I went from anger to fear in.3 seconds because of actions.

What is the situation that occurred? Because you're being kind of vague.

I'm Being vague on purpose. That's probably more of a conversation for a therapist couch, to be honest with you. And it's something that I have dealt with. And I'm not trying. Listen, listeners, I am not trying to create intrigue. I'm not trying to create mystery. I am trying to be as honest and authentic as I can with things that I'm ready to share that have happened in my life.

Well, to be fair, we talked about in previous episodes the importance of holding your own boundaries. So, needless to say, there was a moment of anger.

Yes.

Where physicality was brought into it.

Yes. And again, we're talking like, it's just terrible. It's terrible. And it's the one thing, Liz. And I'm not big on taking things back in my life, but it's the one thing, if I could remove from my life, I would remove it from my life. I have been trying to fix it internally and externally ever since the day that it happened. What caused me to get to that point, what caused me to, you know, make a choice that could dramatically impact my life in a negative way was this idea of stored up anger. Listen, I was pissed, and I kind of jokingly said I could list out a whole bunch of reasons why, but I was mad at my math teacher for telling me I would never amount to anything. I had never unpacked that. And I wasn't to the point who I was going to become yet. I was very frustrated that I came from divorced parents. I hadn't unpacked the fact that it was probably actually better. I didn't have this new perception that I have, which, by the way, I'm going to go into new perceptions here in a second. I was mad that I had historically been divorced myself because it was something that I said that I would never do because I came from divorced parents. I'm not going to do that. And so this idea of learning from the process and going through the pain. And so, like, we are at a moment in time where I'm mad at all of these things and probably more. And my math teacher, instead of being angry at him and thanking him because it was the fuel that turned me who I am in today, instead of this reframing of God knew I needed two sets of parents, instead of this angry scenario of, why me? Why am I the only one? Why did they break the mold? You know, I have brother, brother's here, brother's there, but, you know, like. And this angry at myself because, you know, I did something that I said that I would never do. And so it was just this. God, it was this bubbling cauldron of toxicity waiting to explode. And unfortunately it did in the way that it did because I wasn't equipped with many of the things that we're going to talk about today and many of the things that I've plugged in of, like how not to get that way. You know, I had an example during this weekend, to be honest with you, where it was the dumbest stuff ever. It was over a light switch and I lost my mind because I wanted the light on, but somebody turned the light off and I'm like, leave it on, leave it on. And I was just aggressive. But I had to come back a day later and apologize to the whole family for being angry. And what's crazy is we are getting ready for this episode. I literally put an apology out to the whole family. I said, first of all, I'm sorry for being angry last night. It had absolutely nothing to do with the light switch. I'm angry with myself right now because I went on a journey where I lost £79 and I was £254. And now I'm back up to my beginning weight of where I was when I actually went on that journey. And I'm angry at myself right now. And I let it come out in a way that it shouldn't have come out. And I apologize. That guy never existed. The guy that, like, would apologize for the thing and understand and diagnose like, woo, that was bad anger. That was not good anger. And so I share that because I want everybody to know that while I have got many of the things that we're going to talk about in my tool belt, I'm still a normal guy. I'm still trying to figure it out. I still get upset in the moment because of things that have nothing to do with the moment.

Well, I mean, if anything listeners may recall from our last episode, you and I are very, very much works in progress. We are very much walking these journeys ourselves in our own individual paths. Although I do appreciate that you brought back the nice mug for the suite.

Yeah, yeah. I need a little bit of Christmas joy. I need a little bit of nice in my life.

So let's talk about this correlation between anger and fear for a moment, because we've mentioned this already, you brought it up here as well. Like, fear, anger can become a ruling, destructive force in our lives if we keep it unchecked. How does that happen?

And, man, I wish I had, like, this great, like, scientific, you know, theory of why. But my Honest opinion. And what I've done is I've just ignored it. And if I haven't ignored it, I've actually added to it. Like. And what I mean by that is so many times we get stuck. And that's interesting word, considering that one of the things that we're trying to do is get people unstuck. Anyway, let me just move forward. You get stuck in this mental pattern of like, it was this way, was it? It was this thing, really. And you start to tell this story in this narrative around this thing. All sudden that's like your perceived reality of the thing. Meanwhile, you haven't taken the time to actually unpack it and ask some very important questions around it. You've just fed into now this perceived reality of the thing that happened. And it might have been that thing, or it might not have. Or we do the. The old ostrich thing, which, by the way, I don't even think ostriches really stick their head in the ground. I need to Google that to find out for sure.

I don't think they do either, but. Yeah, but.

But it's.

That's fine.

But people say it, right? But we stick our head in the ground and we ignore it. And we feel like if we ignore it, it'll go away. Anger is a real interesting thing. It's one of those things when you ignore it, it doesn't go away. It just festers and it starts to melt down the internal portions of your brain and your body and your spirit in your psyche to. Then all of a sudden you're like, man, why did I just flip out on that person? I have no clue why I did that. And it's because you ignored this and that in this, and you didn't take the time to unpack this idea. And so there's an interesting part of this, right? When we think about the word anger, we have to realize that we're talking about a wide variety of things here. Anger can equal anything from, like, surrender to rage to, like, attack. And most of the time, what has happened for me is I will do one of the polar ends of the spectrum. I'll either be like, I give up. I just can't even do it anymore. Like, I'm done. I'm going to walk away. And then usually I, like, just ignore it. I ignore it. The other part of this, and it's a large part of my life, is attack mode. I'm going to attack. I'm going to get back. You're causing me internal pain. I'm going to Cause you internal pain as well. And I don't think that in the moment, but I know now that's what is happening when this goes on. And so how do you not get to that point? And how do you understand what version of anger you're actually dealing with? That's where we kind of have to get people into. In a lot of this, when I say ignore it, right? Or tell the story what we're forgetting to do. And for me, this is a phrase that I use and want to use more as I move forward, as I work through this is this idea of keep it or release it. Now, when you think about keeping it, it's because we're going down this journey of I'm going to keep it because it's going to be the fuel that fuels me to do something in the future. Or you realize it's release it because it has no good. It's only going to turn toxic. You have to, like, unpack it, get it out, get it gone, and move forward in life. It's funny now, but not funny. Listen, if I ask my kids. And again, this is the perfect episode for this story. If I ask my kids how many dads they have, they'd probably say they have two dads now. Actually, they might say they have three dads after this weekend. Who knows? Before, it used to be this running joke of they had Grizzly Bear dad and they had Zen dad and Grizzly Bear dad came out this weekend. And I don't like Grizzly Bear dad, but Grizzly Bear dad was like the pre me trying to become who I am. The pre trying to live a life beyond your default. The pre unpacking. Keep it. Just keep it in. We can handle it. Man up. Bring it on, world. I don't need to talk to nobody. And it was just this again, cauldron of toxic anger just bubbling underneath the surface.

Anger is such a funny emotion for me because when I think about the times that I've let anger rule my life, anger always felt like this energetic reserve, this reservoir of emotion that just keeps filling and filling and filling and filling. Often when it would come out and manifest itself the loudest, it was the tiniest trigger. It was an outsized reaction to something very small and minute. You were talking about keep it or release it. You know, that's why it's so important not only to. If we have that type of anger in our lives, it's not just about releasing it. It's about understanding why it's there. Because often I would find that there would be situations where I would say, well, I'm angry at X or Y or Z, when in reality, anger was masking a shame, a guilt, something that actually had to do with myself that I actually had not dealt with yet. For example, I'm angry that so and so rejected me. I'm actually ashamed because I'm worried that I'm not lovable enough, you know, or I'm not good enough, or it's just validating that I am never going to be good enough. You know, it's a weird thing that can happen where if you're not careful, anger can just explode out of nowhere if you have not dealt with the things in your life that you need to deal with. Because anger is a very interesting emotion in that one of the reasons why, at least for me, it has felt like a runaway train in the past, is because you feel it very physically. Like you suddenly will have this rush of anger and this feeling and emotion and adrenaline, and it has to go somewh. It has to translate into action, which makes it very, very tricky to deal with.

It's interesting because for me, and probably for most humans, because, I mean, I'm pretty dang normal. Face will turn red, back of the head will get tight, you know, shoulders will cramp up, and you're.

My mouth gets really small.

You just feel like you're about to explode, Right? And it's funny because when we were getting ready for this episode, I kept thinking of it's not a crock pot, but like, my grandma had one on the stove and, you know, it would. She would use it for canning, by the way, but it would let the steam out.

Oh, pressure cooker.

Pressure cooker, yes. And I started to think, man, how cool would it be if I could just become a pressure cooker where my mind, my body would only take the pressure that needed. And then there'd be this cool way to just be like. And it like. And just the excess that I don't need would be gone. And I was like, oh, man, this idea of, like, just, how do you do that with your mind? How do you do that with your responses? And again, I like visuals, right? So moving forward, I want to start to think about this in the moment. Pressure cooker idea. And here's the thing, we've been dancing around this a little bit, Liz, but I want to go ahead and talk about this idea of. Because I mentioned it earlier, this idea of rage, but I want to mention it around rage and response or response and rage is how I'm going To actually talk about this. Like there's this idea of anger and it being a response in the moment based on bad. I am angry that somebody is stealing my car. Hey, that's not bad anger. There is good and healthy anger out of response. Somebody just punched me in the face. I'm a little bit angry. I'm about to hawk out and tear some stuff up. Not bad anger, right? Like somebody's literally physically coming at you. It's a self defense mechanism. However, then it's not right. The difference between that response and it being good or healthy anger is this idea of rage. And that's what I've been talking about through most of the beginning of this episode is this bubbling up from the past moments based on nothing. That person didn't do jack squat. And all of a sudden they've got like in the dinosaur movie, right? Jurassic park, where all said, it's like the spinning dinosaur, like all over the guy. And it's like they got this toxic crap, your dinosaur crap all over you. And it's like, that's unhealthy. That's just unhealthy. What's interesting, as we were researching this, I started to dive into this area of trauma. And you've mentioned trauma on different podcast episodes, but I started mentioning understanding or looking into trauma versus anger. And trauma interacts in the present based on the past. So when you think about this rage, you have to be like, man, am I angry or have I just not dealt with some historical trauma? This was a freaking eye opener for me because I was like, I've had a pretty decent life, nothing real traumatic. And then I had to be like, wow, have I been selling myself a bag of for like 50 years? Like, did I actually have some traumatic moments but I decided to, like, ignore them? Did I try to erase them off the whiteboard of life? Like, what do I need to dive back into to actually realize why this keeps happening or why it kept happening and why I have these smaller incidences even with these tools that I've come along the way. Like, if you're sitting here listening this, you have to be like, first of all, if you're like, especially guys, gals, if you're like, why am I always angry? Go get your blood pressure checked out and see if you actually need to be on blood pressure medicine. Anyway, totally different story, different podcast episode. Liz, you can remember to bring that up at a future time. But second of all, ask yourself, man, what traumatic ish did I go through that I have refused to unpack and actually Work through. I'll stop there. Liz, what are your thoughts?

I mean, the thing that's coming to mind immediately is that, and I'm aware I'm the woman saying this on the podcast, but like, think about how men are trained from birth not to emote.

Yeah.

And I think it's tragic. I was talking with a friend of mine last week about it, about how you can't have a feeling. I think it's kind of like a double edged sword. Have a feeling. Men, you know, cry, talk to us about things, but to be quite frank, often it's rejected. There is a serious challenge and an uphill battle for men in general to emote anything beyond what is considered stereotypically male.

When you go out of that list. I'm so glad you brought that up because, by the way, I said on a previous podcast episode, if there's one thing I could get back, it would be my emotions. I'd want to get those back. I'm so mad that I subscribe to the walk it off, man up stuff through my life. And it's so interesting because this idea that you're kind of leaning into, listen, it doesn't matter who you are in my life. The minute that I move from being what the world has told me to be as a man to anything outside of that, I immediately am worried about being judged. No matter who you are, I don't care who you are, how close you think you are to me. There has been a moment in time where I've wanted to share something with you, and I have stopped myself in fear of being judged, of being something other than what the world says we are to be as men. Anyway, that's probably a whole fricking episode in itself.

We need to have a conversation about that. So let's speak more broadly, though. Why is understanding our relationship with anger critical to living a life beyond your default? What does this type of anger potentially rob you of? Because we're talking a lot about the consequences in the moment. Like, ooh, maybe I upset my family. Ooh, maybe I went off a little too much on that person or something or other. But let's talk bigger picture.

Yeah. So listen, the world is already put a challenge course in front of you. There are things that you're gonna have to climb, hoops that you're gonna have to go through, you know, escape rooms that you've got to figure out. Life has already set that up. If you go through life without figuring out that trauma, without figuring out the anger, without understanding how to use it, for good and bad. And by the way, Liz, before we end this podcast, I definitely want to dive into a like, well, how do you do that? What are the things that you can stop or a framework that you can put in place when like, this happens? But back to the analogy. Life has already given you a course that you have to go through. Why we would decide to make it more difficult on ourself, I don't understand. But when we don't deal with anger, when anger isn't a positive fuel but it's a negative force in our life, it's like we're setting extra landmines and hand grenades off around the path that we have to take. Imagine how stupid that is. I just need to jump over this river. But while I'm jumping, let me throw a grenade in the air right next to my head and see if it helps me jump over this river just a little bit better. It's not going to help you jump over the river. It's not going to help with anything that you're doing like this negative toxicity anger. Landmines and hand grenades are only going to shell shock the shit out of you and put you back paces instead of putting you forward towards where you're actually trying to go. So this is why it's so important. The other thing is that hand grenades and landmines are left laying around in past the path that you've gone back through. Guess who's back there? Your wife, kids, your husband, your family, your friends. And so all of a sudden these hand grenades and landmines that all sudden are going to go off are impacting the people around you. Now, we've already talked about how important the relationships that we curate for the climb that we're about to take are. So why would we let our anger affect us and affect the relationships of those that we want around us when we're on this journey beyond your default? Like, it makes no sense, yet we do it every day because we don't take time to think about it and we don't take time to figure out how can we fix it.

Let's go ahead and take a little detour here. Talk to us about what that framework is that you were alluding to.

There's a framework and then there's a couple strategies that you might use. And by the way, I'm not making anything new here. These are things that I have found and I'm like, oh, I like that. I think other people will like that. There are somebody that will listen to this podcast, will enjoy these Things. So it's not a big mystery or it's not a bit like unknown thing that I like when I can make letters, words, mean other things. I'm just.

You're a big fan of the good old acronym.

I'm naturally attracted to the acronym. I would date the acronym. Well, I'm married, so I can't date the acronym. But I love acronyms. This one for me, there's a couple reasons why I love it. First of all, the acronym is rain. The reason I love this is because hopefully there's been a rainstorm once in your life and you've just stepped out and you've let it rain on you. You felt the idea of it just being refreshing, especially on a hot day, of the cleansing manner of it. The idea of that. It's just this like amazing manna from heaven that just open your mouth and the raindrop drops are going in your mouth and you're like, this is amazing, refreshing, cleansing, cleaning. Right, Rain. So when we're dealing with anger, what this acronym is for is the first thing is when it starts to happen. When your mouth starts to get a little small, the back of your head starts to get a little tense, you start to breathe a little bit different. You feel your face getting a little bit flush. Frickin recognize it. Recognize that that's happening. Also, if you just blew up on somebody, oh snap, that just happened. Recognize it. Don't just like ignore it, like I talked about earlier. Don't just wipe it off the whiteboard of life. Like, recognize it. This is about to happen. Or that just happened, one of those two. Then you kind of have to allow it. And what I don't mean when I say allow it is like, okay, I feel it coming on. You're a stinky bark. Like, no, that's not what I'm saying. There's this thing that we do. We fight it or we accept it. And what I mean by fighting or accepting is the feelings. And Liz, you bumped into this earlier in the episode. It's usually a layer or two below what we think it is, but we fight those feelings. We push them back, push them down, instead of accepting. Like I said, did I have a traumatic life push down, fight? Like not accepting, not allowing those moments, those emotions, those hard things to actually be there in the moment. But if we recognize it, holy crap, I just felt that way. Oh my gosh, it's because of this thing, because you allowed it in. Now you can investigate it. And this is where it gets real interesting. And I'll talk about some questions that you might ask when you're in this investigation part. But this is where we're battling our perception of what just happened or what will happen, or running scenarios of how we could handle it in our brain. But we recognize it, we allow those deeper feelings, we investigate it, and then over time, we nurture it. And when I say nurture, I want your mind to go to a mother with a newborn baby or whatever version of nurture that you can think is the most pure in your mind of like you're coddling it and creating it and making it the best that it can be moving forward. By the way, in this case, you're actually nurturing yourself, mentally nurturing yourself. So this idea of rain, refreshing, cleansing, recognize it, allow it, investigate it, and nurture it. This is a process that we can. And it's going to look different for everybody. Like, you can take those words and do with them what you want, but that's a process that you can put what's going to happen in life because it's not if, it's when, and make it so you have something to go with when you get in those moments.

I love that acronym so much, especially the investigate part, because one of the things that I like to practice personally, well, two things. Number one, I noticed through a different relationship in my life that someone had a tendency to express anger with me when they were struggling to sit with an uncomfortable emotion. Basically, it was the equivalent of this doesn't feel good. It's your problem now. So one of the things that I've tried to do is I try to force myself actually to sit down with just being uncomfortable. Sit. Whether that's through meditation or just sit in the effing corner for a minute and chill out before you do anything or before you say anything. But then the other piece of it, too, through that investigation, is what am I actually feeling? So one of my favorite little games to play in that moment is I'm not allowed to say I'm angry. What are three different words I can say for what I'm feeling right now? And I force myself to actually name the feelings that I'm actually having. Because again, we were talking about this earlier and I mentioned this earlier. Anger is this big wave of energy, and that can either be stored up over time or it can just rush on you like a tsunami. But you often have to peel back those layers to understand what is actually there. Sometimes it's not anger at all. It's unfathomable sadness or grief or shame or all of These things like, I'm not angry. I'm hurt that I was left out. I'm not angry. I feel disrespected. I'm not angry. I'm xyz.

Yeah, it's interesting because many of us will just be like, well, why did you yell at me? Because I'm angry. That's where we stop. You are bouncing all around where my brain was going. I would beg the listeners, moving forward, the next time you hear yourself say, that made me angry, or I'm angry at you, to simply follow it up with this, because I feel X, dishonored, unloved. As I'm actually thinking about this, I feel like anger is an emotion. It is the thing, the icing to the emotion that you're actually feeling. I know that's not truth in the world that we live in, but if I can visualize it a certain way, anger is only the covering of the thing that made you get that way. And again, listeners, I'm angry at you because I feel X or this makes me angry because I think or I feel whatever it is. It's interesting, Liz, because. Can we dive into that investigation piece for a second?

Yeah, let's do it.

So there's this interesting thing that happened in my life, and usually interesting things that happen in my life, they're either like something I went through or something I read. So, again, bringing back a story that if you're a lifelong listener of what, episode one through 18, because we're on episode 19, I think you would have heard the story of Arden. And he's like, are you looking for the perfect church? And he said, if you find it, don't go there because you'll ruin it because you're human. There was a scripture that came along with that story that I didn't share in the original story. It was the scripture of Matthew 7, 3, 5. And the scripture goes, why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but you do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, let me take the speck out of your eye? The log is in your eye, you hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye. So to me, I was, again, I'm visual. I'm a very visual person. I love, you know, these stories, analogies, acronyms, things that you can wrap your brain around visually to understand. And for me, what this meant is in that investigation phase of what we talked about, that I had to take my million dollar high powered microscope, Len, that I had off the other human and Simply turn it 180 degrees right onto myself. So when I talk about investigating, it's things like, who am I? Who am I right now? That this is what's happening in my brain, this is the way that I feel inside my body? Who the heck have I become to allow this in this moment? Who do I actually want to show up as? Because this, by the way, shows me the canyon of, like, in this minute, I have become this person and this is who I want to show up as. And I have some work to do. What part did I have to play in what just went down? Was it 10% me, 100% me? What lessons can I learn from what just happened? Because if I ignore history, I am doomed to repeat it every time you've got angry at somebody or something, that is historical data. It's the marketer in me coming out for a second. That's the historical data that you could be using to fix potential future problems and give a better user experience to those around you in life. Then I want to ask myself in this investigation, who do I want to be? Right? So who am I? Who have I become? How do I want to show up? What part did I play? What lessons can I learn? And who do I want to be moving forward from this moment in time? You start to ask those questions in that alignment of you made me angry because I feel. And you're investigating the second or third layer, the real reason. Now you're gonna start to get to some places in life.

Now, you know me, I always have to play devil's advocate. So are you ready for it?

Yeah, absolutely.

Is there ever a case for anger for you? Is there ever a situation where you feel anger in its purest form is a valuable feeling that needs to be honored?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So here's what's fun. You want a fun Google search, because by the way, I try to make this a podcast that anybody can listen to. But I also need people to just understand that I fundamentally believe in God. I'm a spiritual human being. I have faith. It's like one of the core tenets that eventually we'll talk about faith. But I need you to have like 20, 25 episodes of other stuff to be able to listen to before we need to probably have that conversation around faith and the importance of it. But here's the thing. If you want a fun Google search, and again, not dependent upon what you believe, but if you look at the Christian faith and you will probably find this in other religions, by the way, they believe that Jesus was sinless. But here's a fun Google search. Search the five times that Jesus got angry. It's in there. It's in there. So like John 2:15, 17. So he made a whip of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned the tables. Sounds like somebody kind of pissed if he's turning over tables to those who sold doves. He said, get these out of here. So yeah, there is Liz. Times where anger is actually what is needed. It is the thing that could be the activating point. My only worry about myself, not others is that is a very interesting sword to yield. And I would say that you would have to be a master of that craft before I would feel secure in using it in the way that it can be used for positive. Now I kind of jokingly at the beginning of this said, if somebody punched me in the face, I'm going to use anger for good. And listen, I didn't start it. But ladies and gentlemen, like daddy starts a fire, but like daddy said, you didn't start it, but it's okay to finish it. There are times where it's a positive force. Listen, my anger for my math teacher became a positive force because it turned me into. It was the fuel when turned from toxicity to pure ethanol turned me into who I am. This educator mindset. You know, HubSpot Zero to HubSpot Hero. Even today, like the beyond your default podcast may have never happened. The book may have never happened. If my math teacher didn't tell me, I'd never amount to anything. The anger that I got from being from divorced parents was the fuel for me to like be consistent and staying power in relationships many times no matter what and no matter what mentality. But again, that was just like taking a toxic anger and turning into positive ethanol for a methodology, best practice or principle that I wanted to live life by. And so that's the thing. I think that we can take this, and I said it a couple times, I think we can take this cauldron of toxicity that sits in us because we ignore it, we don't unpack it and we can put it through the refinery and we can, when we refine that toxic blah, blah, blah in there all sudden, it can come out in positive energy that we use for the things that we need to do in the places that we need to go in life.

No, I love that because anger in its purest form is not a time to take action. Anger to me is a signal of something until you go through that processing, you know, and you have to be very careful too, because I don't know if you've ever had this, but like, man, when I get angry, sometimes I will become the most self righteous little gremlin on the planet. And it's so hard to throw the emergency brakes on that runaway train because in that moment when that adrenaline's pumping, you're like, I don't need to do rain, I don't need to investigate. Ish. I know exactly what happened. That guy sucked. This girl did this thing to me. This made me feel. And I'm gonna let them know, you know, and it's so hard to pull that emergency brake on that, but it's so critical.

Yeah.

Anger is not the feeling or the thing that should immediately precipitate an action. It has to be processed first.

Yeah. That's why from the time you were a kid, people were like, count to 10. If you get angry, count to 10. Right? And that's the thing. There are all sorts of strategies that you can do. Because I agree with you, the impact or effect of anger should not be a knee jerk response. And therefore, if there's one thing that you do as a listener is devise a plan. When I get angry, when I feel anger coming upon me, I'm going to walk away, I'm going to count to 10, plan for that knee jerk response and something that you know that you're going to do, and run that scenario through your brain. And again, it comes down to simple strategies that you, like, listen, you can start to breathe deeply from your diaphragm. Breathing from the chest won't relax you. Right. But like, like we're talking deep, you know, breaths. Like again, there's this show called Limitless. If you haven't watched it, it's super dope. It's Thor, the guy, you know, Chris Hemsworth.

Chris Hemsworth, yeah.

He's amazing. But Limitless, there's one where they're talking about breathing and it talks about this like, deep from the diaphragm breathing and how it actually like slows your heart rate down. I'll give you a little tidbit of information. Every time I'm at the doctor and they're going to take my blood pressure. I've already done breathing techniques before I even walk into the office to like get my heart rate down so that my blood pressure is actually like at a decent Level my blood pressure medicine and breathing techniques. And they're always like, oh, your blood pressure is great. And I'm like, thanks anyway. Not why we're here, but you have to breathe from this diaphragm, this lower right? And it from your gut. Deep breaths. And it'll literally, like, just, hey, I'm gonna do that because it's gonna slow my heart rate. It's gonna give me time to think. You could come up with a phrase. I don't know what your phrase is.

Have an emotional safe word. Banana.

Right? Banana, whatever. But, like, take it easy. Take. Relax, Relax, George. And this is one of those times where I have found it's super powerful to use your name. Use your name. Talk to yourself in this. Relax, George. George B. Thomas. It'll be okay. Relax. Relax, George. Like, whatever it is, but repeat it to yourself. And again, it almost creates. Or if you can create a breathing with that, like, response, use imagery, right? Visualization, Relaxing experience. I love the movie Happy Gilmore. He goes to his happy place, right? When I think about this, like, if you're about to get angry, like, where's your happy place? Where is that? Is it on a ship in the middle of the ocean eating ice cream, 247 pizza? Like, where's your happy place? Because if you can take yourself there, then this is going to help with what you're feeling in the moment. The anger that's bubbling up. Or you could do some type of, like, slow movement or exercise. I'm not a big yoga person, but I was like, man, depending on how weird this would look, if I could get away from the scenario and do his, like, some light Tai chi or something, right? Where again, because now you're thinking about the motions of your body. You're thinking, you're. You're taking your mind for a walk.

It doesn't even have to be that fancy. Just, like, go burn some of that energy off. Give it somewhere to go.

That's it. That's. That is burning the energy off, whether in a physical form or a mental form. The pressure cooker, right? We're literally talking about how do you create the pressure cooker moment in your life so that you let off the steam that doesn't become toxicity?

Okay, so let's say someone is listening right now, and they may have been nodding along with us. They may have related to a lot of what we've talked about today, but they still feel a bit like they're being held captive by their own anger, that they struggle to move through it when they know they need to move through it. What is one challenge you want to leave them with today from this episode?

Yeah, I like the setup there. Listen, I'll go back first before I go forward. At the beginning of this, I put a Mark Twain quote out there, and I said, anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. If you feel stuck in that, first of all, you got to ask yourself, why would you do that? Like, why would you leave that toxicity stored up in you to do more harm? But the challenge that I would give the listeners is I would beg the listeners, and I mean beg in the truest all capitals, three exclamation marks that I can say it. I would beg them to stop and ponder this last thought. And again, I would date the acronyms. But I will take quotes out for lunch every day of the week. I get a chance. Albert Einstein has this, what I would call a stop and think moment, and that is, anchor dwells only in the bosom of fools. Anchor dwells only in the bosom of fools. Don't live your life as a fool. Don't be considered a fool. Don't even try to dance in the realm of being foolish, because fools rarely make it to a life beyond their default. And if you're listening to this podcast, I truly believe that you are destined for greatness, that you have what it takes, that you can take everything that we talked about today, understand all the connection points that anger has with forgiveness and relationships, and that you can take this anger and you can turn it into energy for the climb, for the grind that you're heading for the mountaintop, that you're heading for a life of significance. Let it be your fuel. Don't make it that you're a fool.