Ep. 77 Anger Isn’t Bad: What Your Nervous System Is Really Trying to Tell You

Um, Anyway, today we are actually talking about anger and I was working with a client last week and we discussed some things that she had been angry about.

And this situation, this client has children and she was running late and she said, I was just sick of tripping over shoes and I lost it and I yelled at them.

And for sure, I have experienced this also.

My pet peeve, if you will, are wet towels.

wet towels in my kids rooms.

I too have lost my cool and just said, you know, how many times have I told you to hang up these wet towels? And how many times have I told you to put your shoes away? It's the same thing.

And sometimes when I'm saying it, there's this little voice.

in the rational part of my brain that's like, really? Really? You're going to be that upset about shoes today? Or you're going to yell at people over wet towels? And as I was talking with my client about emotions and anger, we were talking about how anger is often a secondary emotion, not always, but sometimes it is another emotion escalated and And I was doing some reading later because I've been thinking about anger.

And I read an article by Dr. David Hanscom in a psychology magazine where he actually describes anger as turbocharged anxiety.

And I just really liked the idea.

And as I started digging into the research, which I love doing.

Yes, I do spend some of my time reading PubMed articles and brain research.

And I think there's an even bigger idea here.

Because sometimes underneath anger is anxiety.

But sometimes underneath anger is sadness.

Sometimes it's hurt.

Sometimes it's fear.

Sometimes it's disappointment.

Sometimes it's helplessness or shame or feeling rejected or feeling overwhelmed.

And sometimes anger is just anger because something unjust happened or somebody crossed a boundary.

So I don't want you to think, you know, every time I'm angry, I'm secretly anxious or hurt or afraid.

It's not quite how emotions work, but I want you to start wondering, what if anger isn't the whole story? And instead of immediately asking yourself, why the heck am I so angry? What if we asked, what is my nervous system responding to right now? Because I believe that question can change everything.

So let's start here.

Anger is not bad.

I have talked a lot about this.