Hey there, it's steve again and thank you for joining me for this week's podcast. It's good to be with you is always happy june. I hope your month is getting off to a good start and please remember that if the day the week isn't getting kicked off the way you wanted to, you can always pause and reset and move forward. You don't have to chalk it up to a bad day. I always like to walk through the winds, celebrate the winds a little bit, just kind of reassurance, a little conversation with my higher power before I go to bed about the things I did right. It's always easy to let the self critic intervene and talk about all the things we didn't do. So I like to remind myself before I hit the pillow, I did some things right and it is a good day and there's plenty to be grateful for this week. We're going to talk about another topic that a lot of people it gets talked about a lot. I'm not sure how it gets interpreted sometimes by outsiders, what's going on in the media, interpersonal relationships and that's anger. We all get angry at some point in our lives. Our day are weak. We may not show it and I'm here to tell you that. It took me a long time to realize this because part of my coping was to not show a lot of emotion I felt. It was frowned upon in some relationships in my past. So I worked real hard to wear a mask and what I've learned is that anger. First of all, it's okay to be angry and what I found out was that I was just masking wearing a mask for another feeling, another emotion that because I avoided it and didn't want to talk about it. I wasn't able to pinpoint what the origin was of my anger for a long time. So I really believe, and I've learned that it's okay to feel angry to get angry. It's not okay as we know to lash out to fire back, attack people, hurt their feelings. Even when our feelings we may feel have been hurt, neglected, our needs are not being met. That's not healthy and certainly any kind of mental emotional abuse we may have inflicted on others in the past. We certainly know physical is inappropriate to say the least about that and stuff that many of us don't condone. There's healthy ways to address this that I've learned over time and I work real hard on. And so I'm going to share with you before we wrap up today four ways to deal with anger or internal anger. Next week we'll talk about other people's anger. But as you've heard me say before, it's an inside job first. That's what I've learned got to turn inward first and then I'm in a much better position to deal with somebody else's anger that might be calling time out and creating space and moving away from it. Hey, you're too worked up for me. I need to move away. So there's healthy ways to work on that. We'll talk about that in the future Today, I'm going to talk about four ways to deal with it internally. And really the goal I believe is to understand the origin of our anger that often can lead to needs, still not being met and eventually form resentments. And many of us know resentments. We don't want to carry those with us. There's no, it's not a way to live a healthy life and to enjoy being free, free freedom from this stuff. Ultimately, we want to be able to identify our needs that aren't being met in anger if we don't address it properly, will block our opportunity to connect with people at a deeper level, a deeper understanding and appreciation from where they're coming from and what's going on for us and that there's an opportunity for connection for intimacy which I believe we all crave. We all need that we're born with. So we're gonna miss out if we don't take the time to turn inward and deal with this again, it's okay to feel angry, but we don't want to lash out. We don't want to hurt back regardless. We don't want to do that. And I know when I don't, I feel so much better, I suffer so much less. This one was a very difficult one for me for a long time because when I did get worked up and lash out and verbally explode sometimes on people, I didn't even want to admit that I had lost my cool and that I was angry about something here, you are getting worked up, you're not, you've stopped being clear and concise with your words and your choice of words. And then I was would want to deny my anger, that there was something wrong with me that I was upset about something realizing now that if I did that, I thought I was giving up my power and then I felt powerless and that admitting that and that something upset me or maybe I was hurt, needs were not being met and that felt too vulnerable for me. So again, it was very tough to come down from that. I would be embarrassed. I would feel bad for treating somebody that way. I would feel guilty and then I would beat myself up. And you've heard me talk about shame in the past. You know, I I needed to let go of this stuff and again tap into the source the origin of this anger that can block so many opportunities. And it's difficult for many of us, it was difficult for me for such a long time because many of us have experienced and been a part of a toxic relationship where in that relationship, it feels unsafe, we feel unprotected and somehow we're made to believe and we fall prey to thinking that we've done something wrong when a lot of times it's just the other person's issue, not that we're not responsible for things, but some people just haven't dealt with their anger, their shame, but they're still afraid to let us go. So they keep us around, tell us that we're not good enough and that we're the blame for their issues. That made me feel very unsafe. Unprotected and a lot of shame came with that. And ultimately, to deal with this, like other emotions that I couldn't deal with, even the good one I drank to help regulate out to smooth things out to take the edge off. Eventually it got the best of me. So this is a very important part of my recovery. So a couple of things that I'm going to touch on here number one again in these four way that I'm gonna suggest that you think about and practice a little bit. That's what we're really talking about here. Number one, identify the anger anger messages. You know, I've talked about pausing meditation, other forms to start to sit still be with our feelings, name them, be able to talk about them. So, in identifying an anger message, I'll give you a few examples and this is ongoing for me. I mean, it's I'm human, we're human, we get angry. It could be that I'm hurt about something, I'm scared. I already feel powerless in the exchange the relationship maybe because I didn't speak up soon enough. So I'm beating myself up, I haven't set the boundary if I did, I didn't maintain it and then I feel like I've been pushed too far. I go to set the boundary. It feels rigid for me and the other person saying, hey, why didn't you talk to me about this sooner? I didn't know this was bothering you. That's fair. I realized now because I didn't speak up, I wasn't able to identify the needs. You know, sometimes we, we need each other, it's okay to need some external validation from a loved one, A friend, a family member. We don't want to be totally dependent on it. Like I talked about in a previous podcast because we've gotta, I've gotta turn inward to validate myself and to my higher power. So identifying those messages and sometimes we feel helpless and hopeless and desperate. It can come out and anger. So those are a few examples. This is something I've talked about before. # two. The check in with ourselves, here's some questions that I ask myself now. You know, there's always the question is what they're saying true because sometimes it's not true, what they're saying about. I can reject it, accept it or accept part of it and reject some of it. That's my choice, which I'll get to on point number four, suggestion. Number four, a lot of times for me, it's stuff that's come from the past. It could be from a decade or so ago here's this person and this happens to me when I'm continuing to get out of my comfort zone. This person could be somebody I've known for a while here I am. I'm in growth mode. I'm getting out of my comfort zone All of a sudden. I'm thinking there this person from 15 years ago, I have to ask myself, is it something from my past that I'm in turn projecting this is uh, part of what I think is projection. There's other definitions onto somebody else. I'm treating them like the last relationship or somebody I did business with from 10 years ago and they really haven't done anything wrong. So Those are two critical things for me. Number three. So back up for a quick second on number two. I also ask myself, what am I feeling right now? That's why being still and checking in and taking some time for ourselves in various forms of self care so that we can access this when this stuff is happening real time. For me. It takes practice. It just doesn't happen overnight. I don't think any of us were born with this worrying is a learned behavior. So in a lot of ways I learned how to worry. So I'm learning how to check in and what's coming up for Steve III one I also like to do as a part of the check in is what they call a halt. It's an acronym, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Hey that can affect our frame of mind right there. I've had people do it with me and I don't take it personally. I've had people say I need to call it a night. I'm just, I'm tired all of a sudden it happens. Doesn't mean the other person isn't interested being able to do that for ourselves and communicate that to somebody else is very important. I think to say, hey look, I, hey, you know, what do you mind? I really need to get something to eat or could we continue this discussion later in the week? I just haven't slept well the last two nights. If that person gets upset and takes it personally, that's not on us. I don't have time to delve into that one tonight. But that goes back to boundaries and speaking up for ourselves and a whole bunch of other things that I'll get into next week with external anger. So self care is so important. It helps put, put us in the right frame of mind mentally, physically spiritually, emotionally. I work out with a coach and, and do mixed martial arts and it helps me set my mind right for the week. I love to get in there too. Great release. I do that for me. I've got somebody that cares about me that's pushing me and wants to help me accomplish my goals this at the end of the day. These three things, if we can work on these and you can practice them again to identify, sit with them talk about them role play with a friend and if a friend is good enough to be that generous with their time. I strongly suggest if you're called upon you reciprocate recep reciprocity helping others, volunteering being of service for me it makes me feel better about myself. I just help somebody, hey, I'm enough. I carried a lot of shame with me. Someone says that really helped me. I don't have to turn it into a dissertation and a lecture and give them more than they bargained for. It's like, wow, thank you. They helped me to number four. This gives us an opportunity sets us up to succeed in terms of choosing our experience to where when we circle back with these people, we can listen to them a little bit better to identify to have some empathy that's connection. Start to talk about our own need and choose how we want to respond. And if you need to take a time out and just say, hey look a lots coming up for me, I need to pick this up later. Somebody that's in a decent place will respect that and they may even need that time out too. So again, identify number one, identify anger messages, check in three halt, hungry, angry, lonely, tired self care, so important here, number four, setting ourselves up to choose the experience we want to have and how we want to respond that's empowering, losing our coal is giving up our power in my opinion. So ultimately we're looking for deeper connection. We want to understand the origin of our anger. Unmet needs A lot of this comes back to we have UNmet needs, we've got to deal with ourselves internally so that we can speak about those needs, identify and articulate them clearly and under control, not in anger. People will tune us out and what we'll find out and what I found out is we can not only we can repair strengthen relationship, do better the next time. If we feel like we didn't quite get it right, we're practicing and it will suffer so much less. At the end of the day, a lot of this is to take so much of that suffering away. That's life. We get to live life, live the dream, pursue our dreams and be free. That's it for today. Thanks again for being with me. I hope you find this useful. Please continue to reach out. It's always great to hear from you next week. We'll talk about dealing with external anger. Talk about a few things there A few more suggestions and uh, that's it for today. Good luck with this and have a great week and be well and God bless you