Blossom Your Awesome Episode #17 - Healthy Anger Tools With Marty Wolner

Hello and welcome to the Blossom Your Awesome podcast episode #17 - Healthy Anger With Marty Wolner.

I'm talking to Brain Strength Coach Marty Wolner about healthy and powerful ways for dealing with anger and stress. 

Marty is certified and licensed as a stress and trauma educator, peak performance specialist, and emotional intelligence coach. 

He has been empowering people to manage their stress more effectively for nearly two decades.

He came to this work by way of stresses in his own life in his younger years that lead to health issues and an ulcer.  Marty quickly realized he wanted to find more powerful ways of managing anger and stress and committed himself to this work.

He is the founder of the Healthy Anger Toolbox and he has a special offering for Blossom Your Awesome listeners.

It's the Emergency Healthy Anger Tool  and you can download it here. 

And a little bonus - another valuable Healthy Anger Tool. 

How HOT is your anger?

Check out the Anger Thermometer here to gauge how hot or cold you are.  

We have a powerful exchange about managing stress, anxiety, anger and Marty is dipping into his toolbox and sharing all sorts of insights.

It is an insightful exchange and will have you thinking in a new way about stress, anxiety and anger and how you too can learn more powerful ways to recognize the signs and triggers and manage that dis-regulation in more dynamic ways.

As Marty says - "Learn to manage your anger and it will change your life."

For more inspiration check me out at Blossom Your Awesome.

Or for some of my other work check out Sues Blues.

Transcript

00:00:10
Hello and welcome to the blossom, your awesome podcast episode number 17. Today on the show, we have got brain strength coach marty Wallner, He is a certified and licensed stress and trauma educator, peak performance specialist and emotional intelligence coach marty has been empowering people to manage their stress more effectively. For nearly two decades we are going to be talking about stress anxiety, anger anger management and powerful ways to deal with that. I am so delighted and honored to have marty here with us today, sharing his insights and wisdom marty. Thank you so much. Welcome to the show. Thanks Sue. So grateful to connect with you and have this conversation. Oh, I am so excited to have this conversation. Um so marty, why don't we start with your background? Give us a little bit of your background and we'll take it from there.

00:01:13
Well, um you can visit me at the healthy anger toolbox dot com but I go back 17 years Sue in terms of being a trauma educator and stress coach. I've helped hundreds of people understand their stress, deal with their stress, their anger anxiety in entirely different ways and empowered them with tools to be able to meet their needs when they're feeling that emotional discomfort or that emotional escalation or dis regulation. And so I go back a long time. I've helped a lot of people and I've developed some programs to be able to reach out and really help people again understand their stress and their anger in entirely different ways and to be able to advocate for themselves what they need and perhaps what another person needs when they get into that stressful situation. Okay, now marti, let me ask you a personal question. So this work that you do was that kind of um was it through you wanting to learn for yourself, your own kind of powerful means of dealing with stress and anxiety and all of that?

00:02:20
Is that what kind of led you into this? Well, I do have a long history of of dealing with stress and not really having a lot of tools to be able to manage my own stress. And so it goes way back actually to when I was a child. Um growing up, I was very a very active child, somewhat hyper aroused. Um in terms of my activity and my behaviors and certainly through my growth and development. Um there were connections um in terms of understanding for the people around me, my adult caretakers, primary caretakers, and other adults around me um to hopefully be able to meet my behavioral needs and somewhat on my relational needs, but there were some of my emotional needs in terms of anxiety and stress and some of my expression of anger um that I really didn't have a lot of tools. I I really didn't know really how to deal with that. And when I was 17 years old as a high schooler, I actually developed a stomach ulcer. And so my stress got to be so intense as to what I was dealing with as a teenager and back then it was dating and trying to figure out how to get into college, what I was going to do with the rest of my life and not really having the tools, not having access to be able to figure out how to attune to what I needed, both mind and body and then having tools to really be able to help myself.

00:03:39
So a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of negative thought patterns and again, not a lot of support around me in terms of how to try to process some of those emotions and some of those thoughts and in the meantime my teenage brain was going through a lot of changes with different types of brain development and connections, so there's a lot going on for me is, there is for many teenagers at that age, but the impact on my mind and body, especially my body manifested itself in a stomach ulcer and so certainly that will change my lifestyle as a teenager in terms of what I could eat, my social events and my different my energy level. I I was, I was active in sports and certainly when I went through that it changed my my connection to that and a lot of my activities and so I I struggled with it and got it firsthand and realized the impact of what it can do and and then I got to college and dealt with a lot of that and some of the stress and and went through some of that development, but I started to really learn to about who I was and what would get me into more stressful situations and started to realize that it's how you view stress and how I viewed stressful situations, my perception of of stress and my interpretation and how I was processing that and I started to empower myself with the education when I got into becoming a trauma and stress educator and coach, I started to learn more about the brain, what was going on in my own brain and my body when I was becoming stressed and then to empower myself with tools to be able to meet my needs in the heat of that emotional moment, wow, okay, so I really, I love something you just said right now about changing our perception because you know, I think people when they're mad, angry, upset her, stressed out, you just you're in that state and it's so hard to get out of that.

00:05:39
So give us an idea here of that, what is that other perception? How do we see stressful situations or a heated moment with this heightened awareness? So, stress is the perception and the sooner that I realized that, realized that and what was actually going on in the human brain when people went through experience and as it turns out, people perceive what's happening to them much differently than others and so the same two different people can be in the same or similar situation and feel different levels of stress, have different emotional response to what's actually happening to them. And that may be based on who they are, their makeup of who they are. Maybe they're resilience level or maybe some social support they have around them. But it is different in terms of the impact of different stressful experiences. And so if you look at it neurobiological and there's certainly a lot of information out, they can actually do brain scans on the human brain live brain scan to see what's happening in the human brain when a person is stressed and what's going on.

00:06:43
Just generally we won't get into much neurobiology here, Sue. But generally what's happening is something called brain states shift. And there's a part of the brain called the survival part of the brain which is also the sensory part of the brain. But that's where our stress response system is activated and where our whole brain and body then goes into a series of reactions once our stress response system is activated. And and that can bring on a lot of different chemical release within our brain and anti stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline and epinephrine can be released. Um and also different wiring as those brain states shift. And then that will cause us to have behavioral changes and emotional reaction changes. But all of that is based on the perception of the experience and so we can empower ourselves to be able to have different thinking patterns and really have new tools of being able to control our stressful thinking rather than our stressful thinking controlling us and we can actually change our stressful thoughts and view stress in different ways.

00:07:47
And so for some people, when they deal with a stressful situation it becomes energizing and motivating and it gives them purpose and focus as to what an outcome may may look like for others. When they get into a stressful situation it becomes overwhelming and the emotion shifts and those brain state shift and a lot of negative thinking happens with with the stressful thought patterns and so how an individual perceives what's happening and then interprets it with those thinking patterns and then processes it in terms of the behavioral response and emotional response all of that, all of those different parts of that sequence who can actually be impacted with healthy anger tools or healthy stress tools? Okay, so healthy anger tool number one, where where do we start with this? What's the first tool you've gotten? Your healthy anger toolbox? Well, I would say the first thing is to understand impact and so for many people, they may not necessarily have made the connection with how their brain and body is reacting and being impacted and that's being connected to something stressful in their lives and so just making that connection really is the first tool.

00:09:06
we have a lot I deal with a lot of people that I help with this journey of understanding and awareness and empowerment that just making those connections and realizing that perhaps a lack of sleep or a change in eating habits or maybe even irritability or willingness to connect with people or spending more time alone or maybe over sharing in situations like online or in other situations, there can be behavioral responses that may actually be attached to stress. And so sometimes just that awareness and realizing that I'm struggling for an individual may say to themselves, I'm struggling in this situation and then make that connection to realize that that's because of the stress that they're feeling. And so if we may not want to focus necessarily on the behavioral action and what you're trying to change, we may want to deal with the stress and the underlying emotion and meet those needs and then see a behavioral or even a thought pattern change. And so really I would suggest that it's really attunement and connection to realizing for an individual house stress is impacting how they think, how they feel and how they behave.

00:10:15
And then once making those connections, then we can start to take some steps on our own behalf. We can start to self advocate in terms of understanding our needs, both brain and body and have tools to meet those needs. So we can talk about things like once we understand that stress or some type of dis regulation is impacting our thinking process or emotional response or even how we're acting and behaving. Um we can really start to try to catch that early and so sue one of the things and one of the tools that I'll share today from the healthy anger toolbox is um something about really being able to pinpoint points on our body where we feel stressed first. And so in many live workshops, we hand out a page of little colored dots, You know, sticky dots that you find, you know, in arts and crafts and things like that. And each person would get a page of these dots or any type of sticky post it notes or any any other type of sticky substance and then we'd all turn around and we spent about 30 or 60 seconds putting the dots or the or the sticky post it notes or whatever we have on different parts of our body that we would feel stressed first.

00:11:29
And some people would put on their forehead or their chin or maybe on their wrists or maybe their heart on their chest where they feel their heartbeat, maybe around their stomach lower back, we've had dots all over people's bodies very individual. Soon as you can imagine where people feel stressed first, but once we start to feel in our bodies and once we can we can feel our body sensations changing the earlier we can start to do something for ourselves. And so that would be the second piece of awareness or tool that we could suggest and share. Is that really the body sensations of the first thing to change as we perceive stress. We feel it first in our central nervous system and so that's going to change our our body sensations and again many times it's a heart beating faster muscle tension. Maybe we start to sweat somewhere as well perspire somewhere. I mean I I have people around you maybe get like an eye twitch in one of their eyes, their eyelids starts to twitch when they feel stressed so there can be very individual devised ways of how people react to stress.

00:12:33
But if if each individual can really feel that early and start to really attuned and and really dial into their own body sensation changes, then they can do something. Does that make sense? It does. And I love that you brought that up because it's so fascinating to me how that you know how we carry. I've heard this before and retreats and workshops I've done where it's like you know, that's stressed if we don't work on that or let that hurt or wound or whatever it is go we store it in our bodies and as adults we tend to deny those needs so many times, like you're saying the reason why it gets stored and trapped that that stress, that energy, that negative energy can get trapped in our bodies and cause all sorts of physical or even mental health issues is just an awareness pieces not realizing that that that it does have the potential for us to get emotionally stuffed or trapped and it could make us feel uneasy or even unwell or ill.

00:13:39
And if we could try to attend to those needs and get that energy out and find different ways to release that energy and we can talk a little bit about that as well. But just again that awareness of of saying okay, there's energy trapped in my body and I need to do something about it. And you and I have actually talked previously even over the past year and a half with Covid and the pandemic and the lockdown for a lot of us are schedules changed and we didn't actually have the opportunity to get out and connect with people perhaps do the same level of exercise or physical activity. And for many when we stay home and we're not as active in connecting that energy can settle in. That stress can get locked and trapped in our bodies. And so many times, me personally, as well individually as I shared with you, I had to be very intentional about finding new activities to be able to meet the needs of that energy that can get trapped. Mm hmm Now marty Tell me now, what about So this way this method works for anyone and everyone right?

00:14:46
So you're wondering if these types of tools can meet the needs? If they're if they're nuance are specialized. And the answer really is their generalized and they have to be customized and individualized for the person. And so not all tools will work at different levels for all people. Like the first thing, for instance, when our body sensations change. One of the first things that in the next tool that we usually discuss and I'll share with you and your listeners is breathing intentional breathing. And so intentional breathing. That's all the way down to our diaphragm. The belly breathing. And and and that takes a little practice in the beginning. Because a lot of times when we get emotional, certainly stressed, we can do a lot of breathing from our chest. Very shallow choppy type breathing. So we want to slow our breathing down. But intentional belly breathing down to our diaphragm can actually activate the calming part of our central nervous system. It's called the parasympathetic part of the nervous system. And so just one or two intentional breaths will actually slower heartbeat will slow.

00:15:48
Our pulse will actually perhaps reduce the perspiring that we're that we're feeling in our bodies. Now breathing doesn't work for everyone. Those two. It works for a high percentage of people. And people can really use different types of breathing. Different types of intentional breathing in the heat of an emotional moment. But that doesn't it's not a 100% um uh, a tool that works 100% of the time for everybody. And so it really has to be individualized. And certainly in some situations maybe things are happening so quickly or somebody has responsibilities and they don't aren't able to use that tool. But to answer your question directly, the tools start out as general tools and then each individual as we connect. Have they are very intentional about customizing, individualizing the tools so that they make sense and work for them. Mm Okay, now, what about that stress response mechanism? What is a practical way that, you know, let's say something.

00:16:51
A hypothetical scenario, I'm just someone did something to me or to us or you know, and I am so upset and just beside myself. Oh, what's that first step to kind of realizing that when you get into this situation, Sue, your brain has shifted. The states, your brain states have shifted. If we had an actual brain scan on your head at the time, we would see the emotional part of your brain and the survival part of the lower parts of your brain lit up activated, um, what brain researchers call inflamed, that's how much activity goes on. And then when that part of the brain becomes inflamed, the rest of your brain calms down which includes the thinking part. And so in the heat of an emotional moment, when we become really emotionally dis regulated or even emotionally hijacked is the way it's described is when the emotional part of the brain takes over.

00:17:53
And so we don't think very clearly at that point and we certainly even our I. Q. Goes down our sense of time, our contacts, we can't lose situational awareness and what's happening again. If we had the brain scan on your head or any other individuals head in the heat of that highly intensely angry moment or stressful moment is we would see the part of the brain, the survival part of the brain. The emotional part lit up and activated even inflamed. And this is where the fight flight or freeze response of the brain is activated. So once the human brain goes into that stress response system and your heart beats faster, the adrenaline is released. Um your your lungs open up from the cortisol because again if you're ready to fight or you have to either take off if you're going to run away from the situation and flee or you need to engage and fight the situation, you need to be in a certain that's the cortisol and the adrenaline that's being released in your brain and your body. And so the answer to to that situation and to meet the needs for you or anybody else in that situation is what does your brain and body need at that moment.

00:18:58
And so we describe it as you're at that moment you're highly dis regulated and for you Sue or any other individual that gets to that point where someone has done something or said something, you're just in the middle of an experience where you've now been emotionally hijacked and your sense of time and context. You can't figure things out. You can't put connections together again. If you're with someone, maybe they can help we call that borrowing their cortex because at that moment when you're feeling stressed or angry or or afraid or anxious or whatever, the intense feeling, maybe we're not able to think the rest of the brain has shut down. So if there's someone that were with or someone that we can call or connect with, we may be able to use the thinking part of their brain to be able to help us problem solve or figure out what's best for us. But again, going back to that heat of the moment. The first thing we could possibly do is breathe and breathing will shift those brain states the breathing intentional breathing down in the belly will actually change the chemistry that's being released in the brain breathing will actually bring on more serotonin.

00:20:02
Perhaps even some dopamine with intentional breathing at that time though. Again, and your body is going to change because the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of your central nervous system is activated, which relax your body with breathing. But then soup perhaps you want to back it up with what we call positive mantra is that positive self talk Because one of the things we're breathing is now working and helping regulate the mind and body. It's those thinking patterns are thoughts, fuel our emotions and so the emotional response our bodies and brains really the emotional activation should only last about 90 seconds for most mammals. For others who don't have the thinking part of the of the, of the brain, like the human being does the the cortex, the six parts of the cortex. Most emotion and stress will run through a system in about 90 seconds. Now. You can probably remember the last time you were angry or stressed. It probably lasted or may have lasted more than a minute and a half.

00:21:04
And the reason for that Sue is it's our thoughts. It's the thinking that fuels the emotions and so many times as another tool as we move on to try to support people when we get into the heat of that moment after we start to intentionally breathe, we can have positive mantras that we can recall and recite to ourselves to try to bring the emotional temperature down now. Excuse me, these Montas can be neutral and they can be somewhat um just very stating evidence and neutrally stating um what's happening in the observations or can move into somewhat positive or even hopeful mantra as and so maybe in the heat of an emotional moment. I'm just going to use some personal mantra is just as an example. I may say to myself, I can handle this or only have 20 minutes to go or if I'm dealing with a child that's pushing my buttons. I may say she's only 10 years old and there may be other things that I can actually say to myself to myself in my mind that can change some of that angry thinking.

00:22:08
So I'm not fueling the emotion and making that disregard elation even worse or more intense. Mm I love that. I really love that. I think it's so that self talk is um so powerful and it makes such a difference and I think like you say, marty bringing, having the awareness and knowing, you know, being conscious of what we're saying out loud and we really have now gone into a really primary emergency anger tool um as we share here Sue, which I refer to with the acronym of B. M. R. So we just did two of them, we breathe Mantra and then the R is to refocus and so again this can be very valuable in the heat of an emotional moment is once we and then this can be done in 60 seconds or less. So actually we call this in the healthy anger toolbox, the one minute calm down. And so this is why I say it's an emergency anger tool and I've had a lot of people that I've supported with this tool within the heat of the moment, Even athletes do I even have have connected and have coached some some high level professional athletes who when they get in the heat of the moment in athletic competition and their their brains get into this emotional hijacking, where that emotion can be very positive in the athletic um community and athletic environment.

00:23:38
It also can be negative where the stress takes over or they become triggered. And so we use BMR in the sports environment, but also in terms of leadership and and self regulation and self awareness, it's very effective. So we breathe, we mantra again, that positive self talk, just quick mantra as that can simply again, if we had the brain scan on your head at the time when those monitors were being recalled and recited, we would see a shift in the brain states, We would see a shift in the neurochemicals switching from anti stress hormones to more pleasurable neurochemicals because of those mantra is those thought patterns. And then the third is to refocus and really find ways to be mindful and to be able to kind of not focus on what just happened and be able to focus different ways on healthy outcomes or desired outcomes of what we're looking to achieve. And that could take some other tools that we need to bring in for that. But after we start to do our intentional breathing and we offer some mantra and get the mind and body into a more relaxed place and then our minds will be more apt to be able to refocus, wow, you make it seem so easy marty, it's like 123 bam you're done well, We do like to offer simple tools, I will say to your point, so it's a bit more complex because we're changing habits and so there's simple tools but they're not easy.

00:25:07
Change is not easy. And so if an individual is used to reacting in an angry or stressful situation in a certain way, you know, that whole step of that emotional reaction and then the thoughts fueling the emotions and the brain states, shifting those are habits and it's gonna and each individual is going to be different and it's really gonna take some focus, some tenacity to hang in there. Some days it's gonna go a little more smoother with some people um you know, you're able to stay a little calmer and BMR works a little more effectively in some situations, but I will say we need to all of us need to keep trying and and really working that skill and the change habits and again, I'm going back to the brain, the neurobiology of itsu but if we really had the brain scan and saw the connections, the angry connections, what was going on in the inside of the angry human brain and and the neural pathways, we would see that they could be very established and again, depending upon how old an individual is and how developed their brain is.

00:26:13
They could have very established beliefs about anger and established patterns of thinking and emotional response and to come in with these tools. Again, like to your point, there's simple tools but to integrate them and to have the tenacity and the focus and the commitment to stick with it um can be a challenging at times, but again, I've seen and experienced some profound change because if people can change their stress, they can change their life and if you can think of, you know, if you if you live with a lot of stress against, certainly we've all lived with a lot of situational stress and trauma over the past year and a half, just what we're facing with covid the pandemic, but there's also a lot of other stressors and other things out there that emotionally just regulate people and if people can be empowered to change that how they're viewing their stress, how they're reacting in their stress and that change may take a period of time, but to really be able to picture what their life may look like without stress.

00:27:14
If if we could wave a magic wand and take away the anger, take away someone's anxiety, what would that look like? What would joy? What would happiness look like? What would relationships look like if we could take the stress, the anger, the anxiety away. And so we also saw to go through a lot of visualization because the mind and body can really respond and make new connections with imagining things with visualization and so we do use a lot of visualization tools in terms of helping people understand their stress and anger in different ways as well. Now marty you said something really powerful that I absolutely love and I just think it's so profound you said that you know, it can be done, it's easy, but it's it's changing habits, it can be done, but you know, these are long term habits that are established and you know, one of the things I feel it's a societal kind of norm to say as a blanket statement that people can't change, but people absolutely can change.

00:28:25
And I love and I want to thank you for putting this the way you did that hey, it can it works, it can be done here are the tools, it won't necessarily be easy because these are habits that we're breaking, but it can be done. And now we're moving on to um europe plasticity, Sue. And so not only can things be changed, but there is actual hard evidence, scientific neurobiological evidence that the brain can be changed at any time despite traumatic experience despite less than healthier toxic relationships in a person's life and all of these connections and neural pathways and how development of brain and body has been impacted by experience. There's a lot of research that our biography becomes our biology, but everything can be changed and it's never too late. Um the change again may take a period of time. It is a process and change takes support. And so for some people, if they don't have the support and they aren't able to And really just one or two people that can kind of support to be able to talk about our story.

00:29:32
Our struggles, healthy relationships are a huge healthy anger tool. And so just having that social support and it really doesn't take a lot. Maybe one or two people that can be accepting and understanding and respectful in terms of the journey, the process of change and what that looks like for everybody may be different, but that's what it takes to make the change. But change takes place in the context of healthy relationships and low stress environments over a period of time. And so what that period of time looks like can be different for everybody. But it is possible a lot of research about neural plasticity, the changing of the brain. Even for senior adults Sue, I've actually partnered with senior adults who have anger stress anxiety problems and I've been able to empower them with new awareness and understanding and and also emotional regulation tools. New thinking patterns to be able to show more forgiveness. To let things go to really change what's stressing them out because they want to feel more joy.

00:30:34
They want to be happier. And certainly we all do. But at different stages of life and in different situations that means different to different people mm hmm. Now what is the thing you find with people who are resistant? Two things um is what is that? Is that just being stubborn? Are we resistant to change? Are we not? We don't believe it'll work when you encounter people who might be resistant to some of you know, the tools and guidance. What what is that? So yes. Yes. And yes. To everything that you said, it could be all of that. A little piece of all of that. But a lot of times um there it's a belief system Su so we really have to go into people's belief system and belief systems and figure out why they believe what they believe. And for many people, especially when we talk about anger, they believe that um that their anger controls them rather than they control their anger.

00:31:37
And so this happened to me or she did this to me or they made me this angry. They did this. And I became angry if he didn't do this, I wouldn't have gotten angry. And so a lot of its power and control. And so we try to figure out what that's about if if someone has has been trauma impacted or dealt with a lot of stress and hasn't been able to be given appropriate power or voice or control in situations. We kind of look past the angry behavior, the stress, the the impact of the stress or the anxiety to try to figure out what may be going on underneath the surface. And if it turns out that it may be some control, some power issues or something else may be going on. They just maybe attachment issues in general, there may be some other things going on. We then have tools to meet those needs. So and because if we can find and meet some of those needs and the underlying needs, then we're going to get a change in that behavior. And so that's another tool that we share. Um in terms of understanding anger is what's going on underneath. Anger is a secondary emotion.

00:32:39
What else is that person feeling? Are they feeling inadequate? They feeling shame, disappointment, frustration. When we talk about stress. You know, stress is a is an overarching term really to get down to the to the understanding for that individual, emotionally relational e what's going on for them and how can we meet those needs to try to change or empower them to change their stress and anger. And many times it's power and control. And just realizing again that people can actually change or control their angrier stressful thoughts rather than they're angry or stressful thoughts controlling them. And it's all about that story, we tell ourselves Sue. So we all have this ongoing real in our heads of a story. We're telling ourselves about how our position in the world, how we view the world. Um or certainly our our capability of self esteem are able to connect with people. It's a belief system and that story can be changed. And so we worked and I worked very closely with with lots of people, hundreds of people to really lock into that story they're telling themselves and then find safe ways for them to change that story.

00:33:51
Mm That is beautiful and marty. I think it's just amazing. I've always felt this way. You say it just in such a clear way, anger is a secondary emotion. I think we forget that because a lot of times when someone's yelling at you or is mad or whatever and they resort to anger. We're just, you know, you hear people say, oh he's so angry or she's so angry vs you know, I'm always when I someone's angry, I'm always empathetic because I just I can see the hurt, I see the anger for what is what it is. It's externalized, you know, his anger but really it's so much deeper, wow. So that that's that's an amazing gift. So because being able to see past that that outward behavior, that angry behavior can come out as, you know, certainly aggression or all sorts of different ways and be able to see past that behavior and and really try to figure out for that person what's going on for them have empathy for them, what a gift that is because a lot of times that that that angry behavior can be extreme behavior and it may not always be aggressive, it could be passive or passive aggressive, passive aggressive anger.

00:35:07
It can be a very, um, a very toxic type of an anger expression and response. And so yeah, and so realizing that there's something else going on underneath the surface and just to be able to look at people that may have that outward behavior of anger or the stress stress response. I will say just again, I keep bringing up the past year and a half. But a lot of the behaviors, even fast driving and a lot of behaviors, extreme behaviors that we see change over the past year and a half or because a lot of people are in that fight flight or freeze part of the survival part of their brain because of the stress and the anger. And so if we can look past that and try to get underneath and figure out what's going on for that person a lot of times. So I'll share with you, it's grief a lot of times, anger is an expression because people get stuck in their grieving and their grief. And so grief is the loss of anything. A lot of times. Obviously we think of grief as the loss of a person or a situation perhaps, but people grieve, losses of safety and power and control and intimacy and there's losses, you know of all sorts of types and and people need to have a process of grieving that.

00:36:16
And if they haven't been able to have that process or have denied themselves to be able to grieve or the people around them or telling them to get over it and spend this period of time and they're not honoring the grief. People can become angry. And so a lot of times that anger expression is just people that are stuck in their grief. And so once I uncover that and I get involved with a lot of people in terms of that piece grieving, um, we, we focus a lot of the tools on creating time and space and honoring people's grief and allowing them to go through that process. A lot of anger Sue is shame. There's a lot of shame underneath people's anger that they, they've got messages, shame messages, um, their whole lives and, and for whatever reason they, they feel inadequate less than in situations and it's making them angry. Um, that can also go not only individualized but culturally or geographically. And so yeah, this goes into a lot of different areas really focused on the, what you brought up in terms of looking past that behavior, that anger is a secondary emotion.

00:37:19
And what is the roots, what are the roots? What is the underlying emotion that may be causing that anger, wow, That is just, and you know, another thing just to reiterate something you said with anger, it's kind of people, there's two options, There's that, okay, I'm gonna run because I'm mad or I'm gonna fight, I'm here to fight and it's so beautiful to know that there's we have other options. Well, that's and again, I appreciate that that awareness, because that's why I began and started and developed the healthy anger toolbox is for most people when they think about anger, it's a less than healthy um emotion and expression of anger is an inevitable emotion, even though it's a secondary emotion, it's a natural emotion that we all feel at some time. And so we want to honor our anger, we want to understand it better, but there are healthy ways to express anger. There are healthy ways to be able to actually feel better after being angry rather than regretful or curious or defeated.

00:38:25
There there are ways to feel closer to the people that you've just been angry with after being angry if it's in a healthy way. And so that's again, we have over more than 77 tools in the healthy anger toolbox in terms of those emergency anger tools, when we get into the heat of an angry or stressful or anxious moment, but also longer term tools to be able to change thinking patterns, to be able to be more emotionally regulated, to be able to have different types of visualization, to be able to see what joy and happiness looks like, what does it look like past the anger and the anxiety and the stress and for some people, those thought patterns, they just don't spend a lot of focus and energy on that and by being able to really be more intentional, it starts to change their perception of what anger is. And again, once all of us, except that it's a natural emotion and that we're gonna feel inevitably feel at some time and we understand it and it's a secondary emotion, something else may be going on. We empower ourselves with tools to be able to meet our needs and the needs of others around us.

00:39:31
It really shifts what anger, expression and connection looks like and healthy anger becomes a superpower. So, I mean once a person stays calm in situations that they normally uh someone else or previously they got stressed in, they're able to stay calm and stay clear thinking. Be able to find the words to communicate and connect with someone in an assertive way. So one of the tools is about not being aggressive by being assertive, healthy anger, being able to it's not about letting people get away with things, it's about being able to share and being able to project the proper energy by and the proper message and communicate that in a healthy way. And so by being able to do that, it becomes a superpower suit because again for many people, anger is a negative thing and it's something that they feel they're out of control when they feel I get out of control when I'm angry, okay. And that maybe the habit and thinking pattern in the individual's brain, but the idea is all of that can be changed, wow, I just I have loved this conversation marty now a couple of last things, this is so powerful and just it gives us so much to um think about and dip our toes in and I love that, you know, you just affirm for us all that we can change and there are powerful ways and it doesn't stress and anxiety and being hurt or upset doesn't have to be negative.

00:41:02
It can we can use it powerfully to our benefit and it can actually build up strength and resilience. So and so we don't think about that very often, but being able to go through stressful situations and emerge on the other end, feeling somewhat empowered, understanding how we responded perhaps even have deeper connection with people and situations around us can make us feel stronger and more resilient. I mean, the definition of resilience is about being able to go through stress, bouncing back and being ready and stronger for the next time an individual goes through stress. And so that's what this is all about, this is all about educating awareness and an understanding but empowerment to realize that we can advocate for ourselves and make ourselves stronger in terms of how we deal with these situations, I absolutely love that. Now marty, you had mentioned you're gonna have a little freebie here, we're gonna have a link to marty.

00:42:05
Getting in touch with marty accessing some of his resources. I'm gonna have a link to his website but I think you are gonna have a little something for listeners if they'd want a a little free resource. Yes. So I've shared a lot of tools with you and I hope that some of this has been valuable. But I do have a specific um tool. It's a it's a module that we created. It's a it's an emergency anger tool. Um and it's certainly for any stressful situation, anxious situation, angry situation in the heat of that angry moment. Um it will provide um again empowerment. It's very customized and individualized. But I've created this just for your listeners and so I have something special for them and yet will provide the link and they'll be able to download a 10 minute module with a lot of different downloadable tools connected with that as well. Uh huh. That is amazing, marty. Thank you so much. Now we will have a link to that. That is just so wonderful. And um I am going to say we are going to close with you leaving us with something powerful little insight wisdom tip, Whatever you want to leave us with.

00:43:21
Well so I'm very grateful to have had this conversation with you. I always feel more awesome after we talk soon. So I always appreciate that. And I will say again, um that anger is about understanding that if you change your anger, you change your life and to be able to realize that at any point in terms of the level of dealing and struggling with anger or stress, that you have the power to change your thoughts, your beliefs and your emotional response. And it's just about new awareness and empowerment with new tools. Wow, that was awesome, marty. Thank you so much. Thank you. Sue. Okay, thank you. Mhm, mm hmm, mm hmm. Thanks. Mhm.