[00:00:01] Intro: Welcome to Threads of Connection, the podcast where three licensed therapists listen to your stories and help strengthen relationships. We believe in the power of connection, whether it's with your partner, family, or friends. Join us as we dive into real stories and offer expert insights into human relationships. Now let's get connected with Alefyah, Tyana, and Michelle.
[00:00:30] Michelle: Yeah. So we're going to talk about anger today, and I think I'll jump right in. We have a great letter from Quinn, who says, Dear Ty, Michelle, and Alia, I love your podcast. Thank you. Your insights are wonderful and have been so helpful. I'm reaching out because I'm confused about something related to anger and was hoping you could clarify it for me. I was raised to believe that anger is a negative emotion, something we should strive to control.
However, my therapist recently told me that anger can actually be healthy if expressed properly and that suppressing it can cause problems. This has left me feeling uncertain and conflicted. I'm worried about hurting others with my anger and want to understand when is anger considered healthy versus unhealthy. Can you help me make sense of this? Thank you so much, Quinn. It's another example of a therapist throwing a wrench in the works. Right.
But I do think that we can help Quinn out on this. And so, Ty, you're actually the person who taught me about the difference between clean anger and dirty anger. And so can I toss it to you to get us rolling on helping Quinn out?
[00:01:48] Ty: First, I think we need to clarify that anger by itself is not a negative, that anger is an appropriate emotion that every human can and will experience. The catch the hook to that is, what do we do when we feel the anger? How do we experience it, and how do we express it? So Quinn learned that anger was negative and is since learning by going to therapy, which is awesome, Quinn, that you are participating in therapy now.
Quinn is understanding that maybe it's not right, that it's not a negative, that there's not a.
It's not a bad thing to feel anger and to express it.
[00:02:36] Michelle: Yeah.
[00:02:37] Alefyah: So I think that's a common thing to. For anger to be shamed. Right. I see a lot of people kind of have that awakening in my sessions, too, of like, wait, I can be angry. It's okay to feel angry. They just. They want to come in and say, get rid of my anger. Make it go away. Why won't it go away? They feel bad about it. They were told forever that it was bad about it. Don't be angry.
And I think women and men are given different messages in society, but both kind of shaming in different ways.
[00:03:07] Michelle: There was a book a long, long time ago, decades ago, called the Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner. And I'll never forget the analogy she used, which is that feeling anger is very much like being thirsty. It's going to happen. It's a human response.
The trick, like you were saying, Ty, is when you're thirsty, do you drink water or do you drink gasoline?
And so I think what I hear both of you saying and what I think is anger will happen.
And instead of focusing on how not to be angry, which I think a lot of people might do because of what you said, we're raised that anger is not okay. Maybe the energy, Quinn's and other people's energy is best put into. So what do I do once it happens? Because it is going to happen and people not handling it well is why it gets a bad rap. Anger can be scary. Anger that goes unchecked leads people to do dangerous and destructive things.
And we know that a lot of bad things have happened to people because of anger that went unchecked.
So what do y'all think? What are some ideas? If we know that we're going to get angry anyway, what are some appropriate ways to express it?
[00:04:32] Ty: I think that's where we get tied into the clean versus maybe unclean anger and the behaviors that we can participate in that would be an effective way of experiencing our anger as well as being able to share it. Right. So some of the things that are some of the behaviors that we may participate in where it's sort of that unclean or dirty anger is sarcasm, hatred, mean spirited kind of words or behavior, violence, Right? Those are choices that we may make in order to express our anger.
That's the dirty, the unclean anger. Whereas if we start to learn how to befriend our anger and express it in a clearer way, send a clearer message about our anger that isn't attached to any blaming, aggression or shaming. And we can sort of sit with it and express it in a way where we are assertive, right? But we're also caring. We can also elicit that sort of caring for the other person, being caring of our words when we express our anger to others. And that's more of the sort of cleaner, more effective way of relating our anger to those who maybe have, have hurt us. We have anger does.
[00:06:20] Alefyah: I like how you broke that down. If, if you are shaming, blaming, criticizing. So if you're taking it and whatever that anger's telling you, instead of Being able to communicate that message, you're completely putting it outward on somebody else. That's that dirty anger that you're talking about.
[00:06:36] Michelle: Yeah.
So I wonder if we could use. Maybe we could use an example. Let's say I'm angry. Classic. Let's say I'm angry because someone cuts me off in traffic and I'm angry. They didn't take turns, they didn't do what they were supposed to do. They probably scared me because I have a certain amount of vulnerability that pulls up all of that anger that says, this isn't fair, this isn't right, and you scared me.
So when you talk about unclean anger, what would be a way someone might respond? That's not okay. In that situation.
[00:07:19] Ty: Reactive anger would be, well, we could honk our horn, we could roll down our window, we could get in the next lane and cut them off and slam on our brakes. We could yell out really mean spirited words to that driver.
That's. Those would be ineffective ways of expressing our anger.
[00:07:50] Alefyah: Yeah, came up with those real quick. Ty, you got some experience?
[00:07:55] Ty: You know, my husband would tell you that I have a history of being a very angry driver.
[00:08:07] Alefyah: Okay.
[00:08:08] Ty: Okay.
[00:08:08] Alefyah: So interesting. You know, there's so many people who are like the calmest people in life and then you see them behind the right deal and it's like, what? Who are you?
[00:08:18] Ty: I had to work on it. That was something I really did have to work on. I mean, that's, that's a, a very true story. I really did have to learn how to effectively kind of feel my anger if someone did cut me off or slammed on their brain. Like, you know, I had to learn how to deal with that in a different way than I had previously for the first, like, I don't know, 20 years of driving.
[00:08:46] Michelle: Okay, so what do you do now? Because I know you still get cut off or treated rudely in traffic. So how do you. Because you still get angry?
[00:08:58] Ty: I do still get angry.
I don't outwardly express it in the same way that I used to. So instead of using unkind words or honking my horn, and I have to say I was not a honker, I would lay on my horn. I'm just going to go ahead and put that out there.
I, I don't, I don't use my horn to the same intensity that I would use it previously.
I allow my body to feel what it's going to feel.
Right. So heart racing, I would just sort of say, oh my goodness, these, these people, whoever these people might be in that Moment, right, Of not paying attention or, you know, feeling like maybe they're not the best driver. I may say something to that effect, but I am saying it. I'm not yelling it. I'm not rolling down my window. I'm not waving my hands around, giving particular hand signals to the driver in front of me either.
And there's a very important reason that I started doing that. It's because I had kids.
And I am a female in this world, and I am a minority in this world, and I'm a minority in my particular community. So I have to.
I had to shift how I experienced that road rage, sort of anger and not be the same person, not behave in that way anymore. So I allow myself to be angry and say, that was terrible, ridiculous. I can't believe you did that. And then feel my heart race and take some deep breaths. And then I just gotta keep going where I was going so that I can get there safely. And whoever else is in the car, get them to our destination in a safe manner.
[00:11:10] Michelle: It makes a difference to have an audience. We sort of see ourselves from the outside and we do tend to behave better. And I don't hear you saying that in that moment. You discount yourself. You don't say, that's ridiculous. Ty, don't be mad. Of course you're mad. It threatens your safety and maybe the safety of your loved ones. You feel disrespected.
There's a sense of things not being just.
And I think you allow yourself that because you know, of course, that's how you feel. How? How. How else would. Would somebody feel? That's normal and natural. But you also keep perspective, is what I hear you saying. I've got children in the car. I'm vulnerable. If I put myself out there too much, I could hurt. Could hurt someone else, but also could get hurt myself. I'm. I'm identifiable.
I. Ty, you said you let your body feel the emotion.
I love that. That is not denying that you have this emotion.
It gives it space. Right. I feel that it burns in my chest or my head is pounding or my face is hot. I feel that it is real and it gives us some space instead of trying to squish it down. Because I think we know when we try to squish emotions, they tend to pop out other places where they don't belong.
And then you said you keep track of the context. You've got kids in the car. You're trying to keep everyone safe. The bigger context.
[00:12:47] Ty: Maybe I just, you know, shifting the perspective.
[00:12:53] Alefyah: Right?
[00:12:53] Ty: And naming what's happening for me and knowing that it's okay for me to get angry.
I'm not a completely different person. I still feel the anger. I just don't express it in a way where it could become dangerous and even embarrassing for me.
You know, behaving in that way in front of my kids is not the best example I'd like to set. And, you know, once you kind of walk away from, like, that sort of encounter, for me, I kind of feel a little bit of ickiness afterwards.
Like, oh, t. You should have, like, just like you. Why you had to yell all of those words.
[00:13:40] Michelle: Right.
[00:13:43] Ty: You know, and so in order for me to kind of be the best version of myself that I can, I just name it and just try to keep moving forward. And, like, that's not how I want. I don't want to drive like that. I don't want to sort of be that individual, and I don't want my. My kids to recognize that either and become that type of driver. You know, then I can go home and tell my husband someone cut me off and did they make me mad? But I didn't do anything. And see, I get. I get recognition. I get acknowledgment for that.
[00:14:20] Alefyah: Right.
[00:14:21] Ty: I get kudos for, like, not being reactive.
[00:14:24] Alefyah: Right, right.
[00:14:27] Ty: If I'm reactive, I' to go home and. And tell anybody that I, like, you know, did all these things to this other driver because they cut me off.
[00:14:37] Michelle: That's a great point. You're acting in your integrity there.
You know, if you're wanting to hide what you did, you probably didn't. You weren't being the person that you want to be.
[00:14:48] Ty: Exactly.
Well, I was just thinking about the letter.
Can we go back to the letter really quickly?
[00:14:56] Michelle: Oh, he was actually saying that he's always been taught that anger is to be avoided, but his therapist is saying that anger can be healthy if you express it the right way and that it can be unhealthy if you suppress it.
He doesn't want to hurt people with his anger, but obviously he doesn't. You know, he's trying to be healthy, seeking therapy. He's trying to think about things in a new way and just really wanting to know, like, how do you know when it's healthy versus when it's unhealthy?
[00:15:24] Ty: Gotcha.
[00:15:26] Alefyah: And so I think the emotion is never unhealthy. And Ty, you kind of gave a wonderful example of that.
Even though you change your reactivity around it and you didn't want to act in a way that was outside of your integrity and doing something that wouldn't be a good model for your children, you still gave yourself permission to feel that right. And this one, you know, especially you're saying society kind of gives you messages that black women can't even be angry, but you still gave yourself that permission to. I'm allowed to be angry. This is a frustrating situation. And there's a lot of really wonderful things in holding on to that anger. For you to be able to go to your husband and say, look, I was angry. I have a right to feel angry. There was so much space and permission for that. So that's the healthy part of that anger. To say, I have a right to feel this way. In anger, there's so much of, I'm, I have a right to be outraged. I have a right to not be treated this way.
You see your situation clearly too.
I'm kind of the opposite of Ty, where I'll like shove my anger down and get more confused about it. Like say in the situations on, on the road or something, I might, if somebody's honking at me or something, somebody's driving in a funny way, I might instantly be like, oh, wait, did I do something wrong? Have I messed up here? Same thing relationally. And then it might hit me later of like, wait, I should have been angry. That person didn't treat me right.
My anger kind of tends to come up much later.
So I can definitely appreciate the being able to pause in the moment, say, I have a right to feel outrage because I have enough self worth to know I don't deserve this.
[00:17:07] Ty: That's a, that's a really important example of like, how it can swing in a different way in terms of how we can experience, how we can turn up the volume of anger and how we can turn it down. Right? And then an hour later, we're kind of rethinking, what did I do, what did I say? What didn't I do? What didn't I say? You know, should I have behaved in that way? Or maybe I shouldn't have. And that's, I love that you gave that different perspective because that's so important. And there are a lot of people out there who experienced exactly what you just said, Alia, you know, turning down the anger.
[00:17:46] Alefyah: How do you find that middle ground, let's say, for somebody like me, who doesn't even know that they're angry in the moment? And I know we had, we had such a wonderful, like six week men's group. And this is where some of this topic came up where we were all discussing how anger shows up. And some of them were saying, oh, yeah, I don't know. I'm allowed to be angry, or I don't know what to do with it. When it does show up. My instinct is to shove it down.
[00:18:13] Michelle: I think that there. What I heard from them was there can be this element of shame. As soon as they express anger, people who are off put by that or frightened by that will attack them. And so they had sort of learned to just tuck it away, or some of them had learned to just tuck that away, but then they would experience it later when it felt out of proportion.
And so we really encouraged them to try to label that this is something new. I'm trying so to say to their partner, hey, I need to talk to you about something. And I. This is something new, so I might not do it well. So I'm just labeling that. But I need to let you know it made me mad when you did this really incurteous thing or you forgot about me or you spoke that way to me. I didn't like that. And several of them tried that and reported back to us. It went really well that it was so helpful to say, this is a new thing I'm doing.
I may not do it right. Be patient with me. And none of them were being abusive or aggressive or any of those not clean things that you were saying, Ty. They. They were owning it, saying, I didn't like whatever it was that you did.
And. And I think they all had let a little bit of time elapsed before they said something. I don't know that that always has to be the case, but I do think there can be some wisdom if you've. Can feel in your body that this is really hot. I don't know if I'm gonna say words that I'll regret later or not. There can be some time or some wisdom in letting time go by before you say something.
And if you're like Alethea and Alephia, I tend to be this way. In some situations, I freeze. So I had an instant recently, randomly, a stranger in the locker room at the gym, of all places, was hostile toward me. I had. Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out what happened.
I had just. I was getting ready, she was getting ready, and I walked by her, and she had kind of a. She made sort of a frustrated noise. And I said, are you okay? And she said, are you okay? And like, really? I know it was super aggressive. And I. I did the same thing. As you like. I just froze. I didn't see it coming. And. And this isn't someone I have a relationship with. I don't know her. To this day, all I can think is maybe mistaken identity. I'm not sure.
Or, I don't know, maybe my face was annoying. I'm not sure.
[00:21:01] Alefyah: No, I think I'm tracking what you're saying. That that freeze response can be so intense that you don't feel your anger in the moment.
[00:21:09] Michelle: Right.
[00:21:10] Alefyah: Very similar to what happens with me. And that's. That's a trickier situation. It's your instantly not allowing yourself to feel angry. You're not realizing you have a right to feel outraged or upset. You get confused instead. And then you might go more inward where you're asking yourself, what did I do wrong? What's going on here? And in that case, this is why anger is. Is actually very healthy. Because if you were able to just be more centered in that moment, if it didn't trigger that freeze response, you would be able to be like, what.
What are you doing?
Why are you talking to me like that? Right. You might have. I think you're. I think you're mistaking me for somebody else right now. Nothing happened between us. Right. But when you can't access your anger, it can turn into something else. Yeah.
[00:22:01] Michelle: And I have spent days with that exact thing going through my mind. Things I wish I had said, like, hey, wait, what's wrong? What did I do? You know, not even an angry response necessarily, but. Yeah, but letting that anger be a signal to me that something's off here, that is what anger tells us. Something's wrong, something's not. Okay. Our response is needed. And if we don't freeze that out, we do have a lot of options for how to respond.
[00:22:30] Alefyah: Right. Right.
And I. I relate to that so much of, oh, what did I say? I used to live there when I couldn't express my anger, right. I'd be sitting in the shower, like, having all the conversations I wish I would have had.
And then, Ty, you're kind of saying the same thing. When I get too reactive, I'm having all these feelings later on of, oh, I wish I didn't say that. I'm ashamed I said that. I wish I didn't say that too.
So there's that so much value in that middle ground of tapping into the anger, not shoving it down and, like, swallowing all the words we wish we would have said, or letting the words get so inappropriately big that we're feeling embarrassed by all the Stuff we did.
[00:23:09] Michelle: Say when we were trained in eft, we've learned that anger a lot of times is a secondary emotion. So what that means is there's a deeper emotion, maybe shame, maybe fear, that is really painful to access. And so instead, people get angry, so that's secondary to what they're actually feeling. And when that's the case, it can be helpful to. To calm down, accept the anger, something wasn't right here, and really access, maybe through journaling, maybe through processing on your own or processing with an attuned listener to figure out what drove that anger, what was the real core of what I was feeling. I was ashamed. I was afraid that the car was going to hit me. I was afraid that my partner was going to leave me or, you know, so there's some value in that for our listeners to think about sometimes, but sometimes, Alethea, you're the one who taught us that sometimes anger is primary. When it is, I believe you said it's when it's just righteous anger.
[00:24:21] Alefyah: Yeah.
[00:24:22] Michelle: Would you say a little about that? How does that. How do you know the difference if you're angry and you're trying to figure out what's happening?
[00:24:30] Alefyah: Right. And I see this often with women, because women are taught to not be angry, be more appeasing. You know, our society always teaches us to be appeasing.
And so they suppress their anger, suppress their voice, and that there is so much value. When they start healing, they'll start getting more angry. And they don't. They're not used to that at all. And it's a. It is a righteous anger of, I do not deserve to be treated this way.
And you're seeing the situation clearer. There's so much clarity when you're angry because you can see injustices that are happening around. You say, say an abusive relationship. A lot of times if you're gaslit for a long time, and then when you start waking up to the reality of what's been going on, you're going to be angry and it's going to feel inappropriately angry because it's been stored up for so long. Right. You shove your voice down and then suddenly you're saying, I. There's a. There's a loud feeling to it of, I do not deserve this. I deserve better.
I did not deserve this.
Versus the secondary. The secondary emotion feels more reactive. Like if you can really sit with yourself in some honesty, you know that there's some hurt there.
You just want to be mad at somebody else because you're kind of embarrassed by something and there's shame underneath.
Somebody called you out on something that you don't want to deal with. If you can really sit with that, you can see, is it, am I embarrassed by something that I don't want to deal with for myself? Or is this some real righteous outrage in case that's primary? That. That is primary anger. And what's your relationship with anger? Have you been taught that it's okay to be angry? Have you always been taught to always shove it down?
[00:26:28] Michelle: So does knowing the kind of anger you're experiencing change how you respond then what you do with your anger?
[00:26:37] Alefyah: That's a good. That's a really good question. So what I do with. With my clients, if I know that it is. If it is secondary, we can sit with it for a little bit. There's still some value in there, right? Your anger is still trying to protect you from shame, still trying to protect you from feeling some kind of hurt. But can we just sit in it for a little bit? Right? Sit in it for a little bit, be curious about it. Where is it showing up in your body?
And then once it starts calming down a little bit, what is left over? Is there hurt there? Is there embarrassment? Is there sadness? Is there grief? And then if you know that it is primary, this one gets a little trickier. Because a lot of times people who have this primary emotion that's showing up, they don't. They're very uncomfortable with anger. So I think a big question you need to ask yourself is, how uncomfortable am I with this emotion? What was my experience with this emotion? If that's something you're uncomfortable with, you might try to jump out of it really quick and turn it into something else that feels friendlier to you. I can beat myself up. I can go get this inner critic and make it really loud. That actually feels better to me than me being angry at somebody else. If that sounds like you, you probably have primary anger physically, too. Like a lot of times, often the women, they'll feel their throat closing up because, you know, you swallow your words there. That's a good sign that you probably have some primary anger. And if you do try to start being friends with it, it's trying to take care of you. It's standing up for you. If it's showing up more, that means you might be increasing your self worth.
[00:28:23] Michelle: I think it can be helpful to think of anger as an actual separate person, almost to be able to say, thank you for defending me. Thank you for flashing a red light that says something's not okay, here.
I'm really glad for you and I can take it from here. And I know that sounds funny to talk to your own anger, but ultimately you, as the core person that you are, can and should be making the decisions. Anger contributes to your decisions about what to say or not say or who to be in relationship with or not.
But ultimately your actions, you do want to bring emotion plus thought into how you decide to act so that, so that you don't have as many regrets or you don't cause harm.
I did want to mention too, I've had men tell me that when it comes to anger for them, especially if they are bigger, like tall or bigger in size or have really deep voices, they have to be really careful with anger because they can be scary.
They may not be dangerous, but they still can be perceived as scary. And so that is, that's, that's a reality. Just like Ty, you were talking about, you may pull back your anger or your expressions of anger so that you aren't misperceived and don't put yourself in harm's way.
And I think that's a reality of. But it doesn't, it is a reality that that can happen, but it doesn't make the anger any less valid and hopefully not more shameful because it is, it's a universal emotion.
[00:30:12] Alefyah: It's fine.
[00:30:13] Michelle: All right, so I think in summary, anger is natural and it is universal. Everyone experiences it to some degree and therefore it is not something to be ashamed of. The most important thing about anger is how you express it. And so we want to not attach blame or shame.
We do want to recognize it in ourselves and validate that if we're angry, we have a reason to be. Go ahead and experience that in your body. Think about, hey, that really makes my face turn red. That makes my hands feel tingly.
Keep track of the bigger context. I'm angry right now, but what else is going on? Children are listening. Someone I love is standing in front of me. I could put myself in danger. So pulling out to get the bigger context and even naming what's happening in your head. Of course I'm angry. Someone just made me feel like I was in danger, for example. And then finally, it can be helpful to track the difference between secondary and primary anger. Secondary anger means there's something really, really uncomfortable underneath, like shame or fear or sadness, grief. And there may be some more exploring to do where primary anger is more that self righteous anger, that is saying, I'm not being treated fairly. Something unjust is happening. And this anger is needed in order to right a wrong, regardless though of whether it's secondary or primary. Focusing on who do you want to be? How do you want to handle this? Finding an attuned listener, maybe not the person you're angry at, can also be really helpful to de escalate that, along with some breathing, until you are regulated enough to make some decisions about how you want to advocate for yourself or let people know that you're angry and try to change things.
[00:32:16] Ty: Thank you for listening to Threads of Connection. If you have any questions or stories you'd like us to discuss, please email
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