The Art of Manliness - #489： How to Get a Handle on Your Anger

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast if you've been

00:00:18.800 trying to get a handle on your anger you've likely read tips for calming down like take

00:00:22.580 a deep breath and counting to 10 my guest stay argues while those tactics might serve as a band

00:00:26.380 in the short term truly getting control of your anger has to begin long before you have a blow

00:00:30.640 up his name is david lieberman he holds a phd in psychology is the author of several books

00:00:34.340 including his latest never get angry again we begin our conversation discussing talking about

00:00:38.920 what happens in our minds and body when we get angry the ill effects anger can have on our health

00:00:43.020 and relationships and why common anger management advice isn't very effective david then digs deeper

00:00:47.420 into the root cause of most anger issues and walks through what you can do to address and solve them

00:00:51.480 after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash anger

00:00:56.380 all right david lieberman welcome to the show thanks brett pleasure so you got a new book out

00:01:13.440 never get angry again the foolproof way to stay calm and in control in any conversation or situation

00:01:19.280 now over the years since i've been doing the art of manliness on the website and the podcast and i've

00:01:23.640 gotten a lot of emails from guys saying they've had a problem with anger and something they want

00:01:27.880 to get a handle on i think a lot of people want to get a handle on their anger but before we get into

00:01:32.020 that like why in your practice in your experience working with people why do why do we get angry

00:01:37.600 a million dollar question so there are many layers to that but at the root of it is that our desires

00:01:46.780 our goals our expectations are not met we feel threatened sometimes it's a mask for other emotions

00:01:52.260 but even beyond that we find that anger comes because of a fear and that fear is always rooted

00:02:00.760 in the fear that i'm not good enough that i'm not lovable enough i'm not worthy enough which is why

00:02:08.540 whenever we get angry it is always preceded by a fear that we are going to be taken advantage of

00:02:16.220 we're going to be ridiculed we're not in charge it comes from sort of feeling vulnerable and anger is

00:02:21.600 a response to that fear so yoda was right right and the star wars movie things i've got fear leads

00:02:27.740 to anger and anger leads to the dark side yes i suppose yoda said it before i did well so i mean in

00:02:36.100 your experience have you noticed that men have problems with anger more than women and if so or

00:02:41.960 if not why do you think that's the case yeah so what's interesting is there's conflicting research

00:02:47.240 on that and in doing research for the book i found that at first we thought yes men have more anger

00:02:53.000 issues than women and then other research indicated maybe not so because women tend to internalize their 1.00

00:03:01.280 anger so while men may express it overtly women may express it maybe more passively anyone that's

00:03:08.640 been married can testify to that and then beyond that that anger may also manifest in terms of feelings

00:03:14.640 of guilt insecurity and shame so it's turned inward but the emotion itself i think is fairly evenly

00:03:22.440 distributed amongst the sexes even though some preliminary research had showed that men are more prone to

00:03:28.100 anger than women so that that raises an interesting question anger can manifest itself differently 1.00

00:03:33.180 and i think a lot of people don't realize that and as a consequence they miss out on you know

00:03:38.600 whether they're experiencing anger or whether someone else is experiencing anger so i think when

00:03:42.380 most people think of anger they think of like you know stereotypical guy turning red yelling screaming

00:03:48.300 swearing but beyond that how else can it manifest itself that's that's true right and that only is

00:03:54.200 important for us to understand how anger can manifest for ourselves but also in our relationships because

00:03:59.860 you know we can't operate on the assumption that just because somebody didn't scream at us

00:04:04.540 that our behavior was acceptable so there's generally four sort of responses to anger and they mirror

00:04:12.260 what's called the fight flight or freeze response used to be called the fight or flight but now it's

00:04:16.200 flight fight freeze and it's either a sort of aggressive where we come out sort of fighting attempting to

00:04:21.760 control the situation as you mentioned then you've got the passive aggressive which parallels the flight

00:04:27.840 where anger leaks out in more subtle ways because a person is unable to confront directly they sort of

00:04:34.300 seek to control stealthily and they're not able to sort of stand up for themselves or don't feel like

00:04:41.360 they're able to but they're going to even the score they're going to exact justice one way or the other

00:04:46.680 another way anger can manifest is in sort of a surrender or suppression and that is when a person's

00:04:55.220 unable to consciously acknowledge their anger so they either tell themselves that they're not worthy

00:05:00.860 of asserting themselves meaning you know what you know i'm not you know who am i to go ahead and say this

00:05:07.300 person is wrong or they suppress their emotions and tell themselves they're not really angry to begin with

00:05:13.860 and the issue there obviously that's the suppression is it ends up resulting in a host of

00:05:20.520 physiological causes such as anything from anxiety to depression to feeling a lot of like back pain and

00:05:29.140 it manifests in a host of sort of physical symptoms and then finally is the immobilization and that's when a

00:05:35.560 person is very angry they feel powerless but they're not able to even acknowledge the the pain or the fear so

00:05:43.680 they really just shut down it's sort of like if you've got you know your toaster plugged in and

00:05:48.080 there's a firestorm or a thunderstorm you don't plug it to avoid it getting overloaded so this person

00:05:54.900 can't deal with the the pain of anger at all and they just shut down shut out the world just to avoid

00:06:01.920 feeling that pain so let's talk about that passive aggressive because i think a lot of people have

00:06:07.640 probably experienced that or maybe people do it and they're not realizing it so you're not expressing

00:06:12.100 you're not asserting your anger right like you're not saying hey this is upsetting me instead you're

00:06:17.080 doing things you're still angry but you might do something like if you have a job and your boss asks

00:06:21.620 you to do something you turn it in late or you do sort of a sloppy job maybe on purpose or unconsciously

00:06:27.800 yeah that's right and i i would say that passive aggressive is probably the most devastating to

00:06:33.660 relationship because even though all anger should be dealt with responsibly in a healthy way

00:06:38.700 if you are sort of aggressive and you've got that sort of screaming yelling at least you know

00:06:43.960 where you stand and the other person does as well passive aggressive it damages the relationship because

00:06:50.700 we're looking to exact justice we're looking to even the score and as you say it could be conscious

00:06:55.560 could be subconscious and we'll go ahead and you know forget to do something we'll turn something in

00:06:59.960 late we'll inconvenience our spouse or our co-worker and it causes friction in the relationship

00:07:07.780 because they're going to then get upset with us but once again we're not able to confront that we're

00:07:12.720 not able to stand up so it sort of ingrains further into more passive aggressive behavior

00:07:17.940 and it's it can be very very damaging in our relationships and what often happens is once the

00:07:23.540 passive aggressive person gets called out on it they they continue the manipulation as you said

00:07:28.240 they say well no it's not me this is you it's your problem and it's like well no that's right you're not

00:07:33.720 going to find a person engaging in passive aggressive behavior to suddenly acknowledge

00:07:37.680 their responsibility and say yeah you know what because the decision to not confront generally

00:07:44.620 doesn't happen at the conscious level so they feel wrong but if they were able to confront that wrong

00:07:51.700 at the moment they would have so there's no reason to think that they're now able to go ahead and

00:07:55.520 confront their passive aggressive behavior once they're called out on it and that other that sort of

00:08:00.840 you know you've experienced where you experience anger but like you deny it uh that sort of freeze

00:08:05.680 thing we've had a lot of people on talking about like the nice guy syndrome right where a lot of guys

00:08:10.660 they'll experience anger but they're like no i'm a nice guy i'm not angry and they just keep pushing it

00:08:14.920 down pushing it down and as you said lead to anxiety depression but also it can eventually lead to like a big

00:08:20.580 giant blow up that would that that could do a lot more damage that's that's quite true that's quite true

00:08:26.340 because anger does need a a release valve of sorts and when we suppress it and look you know

00:08:32.240 if you want the world to see you as a nice guy or most likely you know the person grew up in a house

00:08:38.260 where they weren't allowed to express themselves or when they did it was shut down so this is how they

00:08:42.840 learned to deal with their anger and they would tell themselves that oh it just rolls right off me

00:08:47.840 it doesn't ruffle my feathers it doesn't matter now if that were true then this guy would be

00:08:52.100 fantastic his ego wouldn't be involved and he'd be on a very high level but if in fact he's selling

00:08:57.040 himself himself a pack of lies because he doesn't want to acknowledge the anger because he doesn't

00:09:03.260 know what he's going to do with it he will suppress it and as you say it will either just tear him apart

00:09:09.480 from the inside or it will lead to an overt explosion which can be quite devastating and damaging not only

00:09:15.560 to himself but to his relationship now it sounds like uh what we've been talking is that anger

00:09:20.960 can be useful because it's sort of a signal to you that something's going wrong and that you need

00:09:27.000 to do something to fix it now there's now the question is like how do you go about fixing that

00:09:31.120 so i mean would you say like anger is not a completely terrible emotion it's useful if it's

00:09:36.160 used in the right way you know i'd say yes and no and i know it's you know it sounds like i'm covering 0.95

00:09:42.060 my bases here but you know there's an expression that you know anger lies in the in the bosom of fools 0.62

00:09:47.040 meaning that if you have anger on the table to pull out of your tool belt at any point when you 0.69

00:09:51.960 feel you're justified the problem is when you're in the situation you're going to assume that it's

00:09:57.340 justified and you know no one ever walked away from a conversation and said you know what i wish i would

00:10:02.680 have gotten angrier i would have been able to handle myself so much better you know when you're angry

00:10:07.720 you're not seeing through a clear objective lens you're seeing through distorted emotions and while it

00:10:13.600 does increase your acuity and it brings a lot of you know your attention and emotional and mental

00:10:20.620 resources and focuses it at the same time you're not able to process your world with a proper

00:10:28.280 perspective so you are going to be inclined to act irresponsibly recklessly and go overboard so quite

00:10:35.960 frankly i tell people take it off the table completely could you have used that anger and

00:10:41.620 capitalized on it in one out of a hundred cases sure but i'd rather be wrong one out of a hundred

00:10:47.000 than to use it 99 out of a hundred knowing that i too quickly went for that angry response because

00:10:53.280 if you think about it if you said to yourself i'm not going to get angry no matter what happens

00:10:57.720 the entire day you're going to have an entirely different day than if you said okay fine if i get

00:11:03.820 angry to be justified but in there lies a problem when you are in that moment your perspective is

00:11:09.240 narrowed your ego's engaged and you're going to assume it's justified when through the objective

00:11:14.360 lens of clarity and a little more perspective you would have realized that it was not called for

00:11:19.020 yeah you you devote a section of the book about what happens to our brain whenever we get angry

00:11:24.960 as you said it has so you can like focus us and narrow our attention but that has some downsides

00:11:30.240 because as you said you're not really seeing the bigger picture where you're you can see other

00:11:34.460 options other solutions you're just narrowed in on that one one thing yeah no sorry ask yourself

00:11:40.160 the question is you know who would you rather rather go to battle with somebody who was just you

00:11:45.060 know flying in a blind rage or somebody who was cool calculated you know very cognitively aware

00:11:51.580 and clearly you'd rather go into battle against the guy who's just not thinking clearly and you could

00:11:56.680 say oh he's got you know a lot of it and when a person does become angry the nervous system

00:12:00.740 releases whether it's adrenaline nor adrenaline cortisol but what's interesting actually about

00:12:05.520 cortisol which is also responsible for weight gain called the stress hormone a cortisol actually

00:12:11.500 interferes with the prefrontal cortex the part of the brain responsible for executive functioning

00:12:15.760 it literally makes us dumb it interferes with our ability to process information clearly

00:12:20.780 so with a physiological basis for the fact that anger clouds our judgments and while certainly yes

00:12:28.300 there are some limited advantages i would much rather go into a situation with the objective

00:12:34.220 lens of clarity than have my perspective clouded by emotions right a great example you can see that

00:12:39.540 in real time of cortisol and anger making you dumb like social media is people get angry so they they do

00:12:46.180 something right away and they'd usually type something that they regret day later oh gosh yes sometimes

00:12:51.540 two seconds later i think whatsapp now has something where you could pull back you know how many times do

00:12:56.000 people send off a text and then they send a correction two seconds later when all it would have taken

00:13:00.300 them with those same two seconds to do a you know a spell check and to realize that you know it auto

00:13:05.440 corrected something ridiculous but we all have that just visceral response where we want to answer back

00:13:11.640 and yeah it it invariably will produce conversations and interactions that are just not productive 0.80

00:13:19.140 so besides the psychological downsides of anger it makes you dumber you make poorer decisions there's

00:13:25.880 physiological so you mentioned cortisol if you're constantly exposed to cortisol it causes weight gain

00:13:30.840 which is not good for health but any other like physiological downsides of being angry all the time

00:13:36.320 sure in the short term you've got anxiety high blood pressure headache these are symptoms that manifest

00:13:42.540 instantaneously and certainly the long-term damage on your emotional health and your relationships

00:13:47.500 is incalculable so let's talk about what we can do about this and you argue that the typical

00:13:54.180 anger management advice doesn't work in the long run so before we get to why you think that doesn't

00:14:00.740 work like what is the typical anger management advice that you see out there right so you know you have

00:14:06.140 your basic take deep breaths visualize your happy place and there's some you know cognitive behavioral

00:14:11.940 sort of reframing and it's one of the reasons why i wrote the book was you know yes there are some gaps

00:14:18.380 in terms of i think traditional advice but even from our own perspective i mean when was the last time

00:14:25.540 you were really upset you took a deep breath you visualize you know your happy place or something else

00:14:31.200 and then you instantaneously calm down you know it may work for the smaller stuff but when you're entering a

00:14:37.180 situation and you're you know you are already enraged it's very very hard to sort of talk yourself

00:14:44.400 down from that okay so what what is the solution then like how do we if those things if they can work

00:14:51.060 sometimes but not all the time i guess the goal is to like not even have to go to that like you don't

00:14:56.100 you get to the point where you don't even need to use those things like what what are we looking at

00:14:59.460 here that's right one of the reasons why the book has gotten so much attention is because

00:15:04.200 it shows you how to avoid getting to that fork in the road where you find yourself fighting against

00:15:11.000 your own nature meaning that if you enter the situation with a wide enough perspective

00:15:15.000 and you realized ahead of time that this is something that's inconsequential you're going

00:15:21.700 to forget about it 10 minutes 10 days 10 years you're not even going to remember it happened

00:15:25.920 so in much the same way that you're in a situation at the moment when you've got that clarity of

00:15:32.420 perspective after the fact you're not going to be bothered so what if you were able to bring that

00:15:37.180 same perspective that you would have after the fact into the moment right you would never find

00:15:43.320 yourself bothered certainly by little stuff and even the bigger stuff you're able to instantly frame

00:15:49.700 in the proper perspective and that's really what time gives us time it gives us perspective so

00:15:55.180 by entering these situations without your ego involved you're not you don't have to fight

00:16:02.440 against your own nature you don't have to remain calm you don't have to force yourself to do anything

00:16:06.060 you're naturally unbothered because of the gift of perspective gives you the ability to recognize

00:16:12.640 that it simply doesn't matter and most things we get upset about simply don't matter so basically

00:16:18.320 as we talked earlier the the root of anger is fear and that's fear comes from a very when we have an

00:16:23.580 ego-based view of life right where we're just thinking about us and what's in it for us so what

00:16:29.280 are some of the stories that our ego tells us right that we sort of you know it goes on internally

00:16:35.480 that contributes to us getting angry about big things but like even like little things like the

00:16:40.100 guy cutting you off in traffic yeah or your kid you know ignoring you we get angry because there's a

00:16:45.360 story that we're we're we're telling ourselves that that that event means something that's right

00:16:50.840 that's right and that story regardless of the narrative always comes down to the same message

00:16:56.720 and that is that they don't care enough about me they don't love me enough they don't respect me

00:17:00.780 enough but let me give you an example let's say you're driving along and someone cuts you off on

00:17:04.960 the road right now many of us have a tendency to see what this person looks like right because who

00:17:10.240 is going to typically bother us more a nice little lady driving you know when you just see her hat and 1.00

00:17:15.960 her hands on the on the uh steering wheel or a young guy driving with the beer bottle in one hand

00:17:21.960 cigarette in the other music blasting from the the car who's going to generally bother us more

00:17:26.560 the little lady or the young guy the young guy of course right of course because we assume the nice

00:17:31.420 little lady probably didn't see our car but the young guy did it to me on purpose because he

00:17:35.440 doesn't care enough he doesn't respect me blah blah blah blah blah blah and if you appreciate the

00:17:39.980 insanity of this you're driving along then you almost get into an accident then you speed up

00:17:44.380 risking life to see what the person looks like to see how angry you should be i mean it's sheer

00:17:48.820 insanity and but that's what the ego does it connects the dots it makes everything about me

00:17:54.280 when the truth is it has nothing to do with me we treat other people based on how we feel about

00:17:59.980 ourselves you give love you give respect but when we have a inflated ego we assume it's about us

00:18:07.120 and we're not able to see the other person's pain we're focused on our own pain so when you take

00:18:12.380 your ego out of the equation you can look at the other person with empathy with compassion

00:18:17.020 with sympathy and you're not absorbed in your own pain and if you're not absorbed in your own pain

00:18:21.820 you're not going to get upset because you don't take it personally and that's really what real anger

00:18:27.540 management comes down to something happens you take it personally you get upset something happens

00:18:32.240 you don't get it personally take it personally you don't get upset that's 25 years of therapy in a

00:18:37.000 sentence you know so you know the degree which we're able to take ourselves out of the equation

00:18:42.240 is a degree to which we're going to manage or anger much more effectively because if our ego is not

00:18:47.900 involved there is nothing to get angry about yeah i feel like the ego thing it's we tend yeah as you

00:18:53.720 said we personalize things and we even like do the personalization for like just like you know acts of

00:18:58.860 god that like you know you have no like a hurricane it's like why why me it's like well the hurricane

00:19:03.900 doesn't you know it doesn't doesn't have any emotions it doesn't care it's just it just happened

00:19:07.640 right right but and it's it's indiscriminate it doesn't discriminate and that's just it and you can

00:19:14.160 tell as you know i've done a lot of work with reading people and and body language and emotional

00:19:18.080 health in that the more personal i personally people take things that have nothing to do with

00:19:24.300 them the less emotionally healthy they are so when they begin to say that you know it was a

00:19:29.420 thunderstorm and it rained you know god doesn't love me because he doesn't want me to have a

00:19:33.280 picnic today you know those are things that are indicative of somebody who's really personalizing

00:19:38.380 a bit too much and even again at the highest level if somebody legitimately does something to you

00:19:45.600 but you realize it really doesn't have anything to do with you yes it is to you but once again

00:19:51.520 we treat other people based on how we feel about ourselves so their capacity is limited the fact that

00:19:56.880 somebody can't love me the fact that somebody can't give me respect the fact that somebody can't

00:20:01.240 show me the attention or the or give me the accolades and praise that i feel i deserve

00:20:05.760 if my ego is not involved i recognize it's their limitation it's not mine but if my ego is engaged

00:20:13.640 i'm going to assume they're doing this because there's something wrong there's something lacking

00:20:17.920 there's something broken bad or defective about me and that's what makes me so angry well so how do

00:20:23.400 how do you get to that point where you personalize everything where you think it's all about you and

00:20:27.600 people do things to you or things happen to you because you're defective you deserve it you're 0.98

00:20:32.420 inadequate like how do you get to that point because there's some people who you know don't really have

00:20:37.320 that problem but other people who really have that problem so what was the difference between those two

00:20:41.640 people right so first you will not find a person that has anger issues that did not have some sort of

00:20:49.220 childhood trauma tragedy abuse it is as and it is so sad but the scars and the imprint on our emotional

00:20:57.880 health that childhood leaves is very very difficult to undo unless the person is able to revisit it and

00:21:05.400 i'd like to share with you a fantastic technique to accomplish that but before that is that to answer

00:21:12.280 your question is that we've got this thing called shame now there's legitimate shame and some people tell

00:21:17.140 you all shame is toxic and it's not true there's legitimate shame that when you act beneath your

00:21:22.540 level when you do something that is just not you and afterwards you feel a little bit maybe disturbed

00:21:27.520 or disgusted and you know you think back and you think that was unconscionable i i can't believe i did

00:21:32.400 that that's legitimate shame and shame is the voice of our conscience that says hey you know what you did

00:21:37.800 something that was beneath you and it's a self-correcting mechanism to wake us up to take responsibility

00:21:43.500 and to move forward but if we're not willing to do that we sort of double down and the ego then

00:21:49.620 justifies minimizes blames rationalizes whatever it can to avoid feeling that pain at the core we're

00:21:56.020 still left with that stain of shame that says i'm not lovable now that's legitimate shame and there's

00:22:00.960 ways to deal with that unfortunately we acquire as i said before toxic shame and that comes courtesy of

00:22:07.100 childhood where we because children by definition are completely egocentric right and that's okay

00:22:14.360 that's their job we know adults like this as well but at least children have an excuse for it so for

00:22:18.940 example let's say you've got a seven-year-old boy whose father comes back and screams and yells at him

00:22:23.100 that child is never going to say well you know what dad just had a hard day at work let him go ahead

00:22:28.400 and have a cocktail let him calm down and he'll be okay no the child's going to assume that there's

00:22:33.580 something wrong with him because he's egocentric he takes everything personally how people treat him

00:22:39.460 is a direct reflection of his self-worth that's his equation so as he transitions to adulthood he walks

00:22:46.980 around with that same stain of shame that says how i'm treated by other people is a reflection of my

00:22:53.080 self-worth and when you're able to undo that you realize that your self-worth does not hinge on

00:22:59.520 somebody's acceptance of you not only is it very freeing emotionally but you will find that you're

00:23:04.580 going to be living anger free and how do you how do you do that i mean you mentioned there's like

00:23:08.320 something we can do to sort of help unpack that right so there's a whole protocol and i've worked

00:23:14.420 with really hard their whole reason why i got into this was because as you may know i do a lot of work

00:23:20.320 with law enforcement techniques of interview and interrogation and i found that you know you had

00:23:25.240 otherwise decent people who just in a moment of anger or rage completely upended their life and i said

00:23:35.120 that there there has to be a way to help people before they get you know into this situation and

00:23:40.720 that's the genesis of how i began with the book and first is the appreciation the acknowledgement

00:23:48.380 that just because somebody can't love me doesn't make me unlovable and that goes even to the core

00:23:54.860 of childhood and the way i explain it to people is like this you know you ever watch a movie or read

00:24:00.480 a book and you know the ending is just amazing and it was like a big twist like the sixth sense comes to

00:24:06.840 mind right you sort of replay back the entire movie in your life and you recast everything through this

00:24:13.920 new awareness or you read a book and the ending is maybe uh you know a twist of an ending you sort of

00:24:19.560 replay everything back so while we can't go back in time we can give new meaning to the experiences

00:24:27.360 from our childhood and when we look at it in a different light and we're able to recognize

00:24:32.220 that just because my mother wasn't able to give me the love and respect that i needed and deserved

00:24:39.680 or just because my father yelled at me or abused me doesn't mean there's something wrong with me

00:24:44.920 when a person really owns that then they're free we're gonna take a quick break for your word from

00:24:50.000 our sponsors and now back to the show i like that and i and the one thing i've that's helped me too

00:24:56.280 with anger is like so typically our brains are like hypersensitive to negative right like we're

00:25:01.780 looking constantly vigilant for any negative things that happen to us yeah so when the guy cuts you off 0.91

00:25:05.720 you think well that guy that jerk disrespects me and everyone disrespects me then you have to like stop 0.79

00:25:10.440 like no not everyone disrespects me like my kids like me my wife likes me my friends like me like 0.98

00:25:15.460 like focusing on all the things that got going good in your life like really puts things in perspective

00:25:20.780 for you it sure does and we've got this term in you know in psychology we label everything it's called

00:25:26.440 negativity bias which speaks to that exact point or confirmation bias also and that is that you know

00:25:31.960 if you believe something to be true you're going to not only look for that but you're going to

00:25:38.520 manifest you're going to create you're going to live a life that tells that narrative and that

00:25:45.540 fulfills that story of yours so your entire sort of existence and as awful and as sad as this is

00:25:54.120 so many people do this we live a life of masks and games and we really go into hiding to avoid facing

00:26:02.660 the pain of our reality and we want we have a story to be told and if our story is i'm no good i'm not

00:26:11.280 lovable then we're going to bring that to fruition no matter what it takes and so not only we will look

00:26:16.800 for it but we're going to go ahead and manifest it and these are the people that will read into things

00:26:20.960 they'll connect dots that don't exist and it's almost like a form of of of paranoia where they'll

00:26:26.720 begin to make connections only to tell the story that they've been telling themselves for so long

00:26:32.800 and a person like this would rather be right than be happy yeah no i've seen that happen in my own

00:26:38.840 life and in other people's lives as well like you're so used to the story like you know it's the devil

00:26:43.560 you know you just keep going with that because it's so familiar and comfortable yeah yeah that's it

00:26:49.120 and and once again it's so sad is because people live lives that are they're barely scratching the

00:26:56.480 surface of their potential but it is comfortable and they ensconce themselves in their pain and they

00:27:01.600 tell themselves a story because this is all they know and the ego sort of is it tells them and feeds

00:27:08.220 them the message that this is the truth and when you're able to sort of cast it aside and connect with

00:27:15.620 other people and appreciate your worth you know you'll find that this veil of anger just lifts off

00:27:20.460 you because you're no longer looking to confirm you know some distorted truth that you're not worthy

00:27:25.940 and in fact that if somebody can't treat you properly you could see you could focus in that

00:27:30.920 they're the ones that are in pain and you don't have to be in pain and yeah so this is accepting the

00:27:35.800 reality that you have and accepting the pain but doesn't mean you have to approve of it right i think a lot

00:27:40.180 of people confuse accepting as approval that's not necessarily the case you just have to accept okay this

00:27:44.140 happened to me this was bad but it is part of the reality but it's not the whole reality that's right

00:27:49.920 that's a great point and and the acceptance versus approval hangs up in our relationships as well

00:27:55.440 and also with our own self-esteem meaning that i can accept me and love me 100 and i accept and love

00:28:01.680 my kids 100 and i always tell them there's nothing they can do that would make me not accept them it

00:28:06.820 doesn't mean i approve everything they do and it doesn't mean that i approve everything that i do and

00:28:11.520 there are behaviors that i engage in that i i work on and i have regrets and i try and make it right

00:28:17.600 move forward but when we conflate the two when we say that i can't accept a person or accept me unless

00:28:23.740 i approve and have this sort of perfectionist mentality then we are throwing the baby out with

00:28:28.340 the bathwater and we're living up to some sort of unrealistic expectation that everything has to be

00:28:33.660 just so in order to have acceptance and it's not the case i can accept me 100 unconditionally i can accept

00:28:39.820 my wife and i can accept my kids and now we roll up our sleeves because the thing is this bread if you

00:28:46.100 let's say you plug into your gps that you wanted to go from where you are to i don't know toronto canada

00:28:51.920 the first thing the gps has to locate is where you are so the beginning of growth the beginning of moving

00:28:58.060 forward begins with acknowledging and accepting who you are where you are how you are right now but you're

00:29:05.000 never going to go from point a to point b unless you accept you're at point a so i'm never going to

00:29:09.800 work on myself i'm never going to be able to get rid of my anger i'm never going to improve my

00:29:13.680 relationships if i refuse to accept the reality that exists and i'm sure that in finding you know

00:29:19.220 figuring out what that reality that exists that might involve other people too maybe talking to a

00:29:23.740 therapist talking to your friends and families so they you can get a better idea because if you know

00:29:27.840 if it's just you your ego might tell you a story that's probably not true yeah and you know what

00:29:32.680 that's so true is our ego will tell us a lot of stories and none of them true because the last

00:29:38.660 thing the ego wants to do is accept responsibility and you know the one thing even the wisest of men

00:29:44.500 can't achieve on their own is objectivity which is why it does make sense to talk it over with a friend

00:29:49.620 you know a trusted confidence someone that knows you trust you respects you likes you that can give you

00:29:55.260 a objective sort of reality check because when our ego is involved you're right we're a piece of our

00:30:02.060 own puzzle we lack that perspective to see objectively and we're gonna come up with a

00:30:08.280 distorted conclusion so yes acceptance can very easily be gained more readily by speaking it over

00:30:15.700 with somebody who can look at the situation and give us that objectivity that we don't always gain

00:30:20.640 on our own so one thing i noticed in my own life is a lot of my you know when i get angry it comes from

00:30:26.160 when i feel someone's violating some personal boundary like you know the perfect example getting cut off like

00:30:31.840 the personal boundary is man like i had the right of way right i was like sort of acknowledged but

00:30:36.580 this guy disregarded it and went in but it also happened other places the boss calls you on the

00:30:42.020 weekend right and violates that and you get angry but you know you don't do anything about it so how do 0.98

00:30:47.880 you get better at enforcing boundaries but without going overboard like being coming off as a jerk about 0.87

00:30:54.240 it sure sure that's that's a great question because it goes to the core of a lot of people's anger

00:31:00.040 issues and that's sort of like this you know take take a person that gets put in that proverbial no when

00:31:05.060 where someone asks you something that that you you don't want to do so if you don't do it they're mad at

00:31:11.780 you and if you you do do it you're mad at you and we sort of get boxed in particularly if you've got the

00:31:17.120 sort of people pleasing you know perpetual doormat mentality which is a strong manifestation of anger

00:31:22.700 particularly passive aggressive because a person doesn't feel like they can assert their boundaries

00:31:26.560 invariably we find that boundary issues become distorted from childhood and that's because if

00:31:35.160 my boundaries were traipsed over if someone didn't respect my boundaries in one way or the other i don't

00:31:41.980 have a clear sense of me and if i don't have a clear sense of me i don't have a clear sense of we

00:31:45.980 now that may manifest into the person who becomes very arrogant very pushy and drip and and encroach

00:31:52.680 into other people's boundaries or it may manifest into the person who's sort of that people-pleasing

00:31:57.240 mentality that allows other people to come into their boundaries so first when i give workshops

00:32:03.000 i let people know that and and and often the people that come for anger management unless it's

00:32:09.280 court ordered are the ones who feel like other people are taking advantage of them and i i say like

00:32:15.100 this you can't say yes if you can't say no meaning that if you don't feel like you can stand up to the

00:32:21.940 person and say no then you're not really saying yes because if you do choose to do an act of kindness

00:32:28.540 for somebody that means you are making a choice but if you feel like you're getting guilted into

00:32:35.000 something you are not secure enough to stand up you don't think you can enforce your boundary

00:32:39.400 and you tell yourself oh i'm just being a nice guy i'm gonna go ahead and do it why make a big deal

00:32:43.700 about it you're really not giving and it's a difference between giving a donation and being

00:32:47.240 robbed in one case a hundred dollars going out of your pocket you feel very good it's very empowering

00:32:51.800 the other case you're being robbed it's unempowering now in both cases a hundred dollars went out of

00:32:56.280 your pocket but one was a choice to give and the other wasn't so the beginning of setting boundaries

00:33:02.020 first is to take a step back and ask yourself where is my boundary in other words what is accepted

00:33:08.400 what will i find proper and am i legitimately choosing to give or am i simply just rolling

00:33:16.700 over and allow the person take advantage of me and people that have an issue asserting boundaries

00:33:20.920 would do well to practice in a small way and it can be very very uncomfortable because i don't want

00:33:27.980 to assert my boundaries because this person may reject me they may tell me you know what i don't like

00:33:34.940 you and that's just going to reinforce my fear that i'm not lovable and it's going to bring out all my

00:33:39.580 feelings of shame that i'm not worthy so i'm going to go ahead and give in because i don't want to feel

00:33:44.320 the pain of somebody thinking that i'm not worthy and that's why we allow people into our space and

00:33:49.980 when you appreciate that at least intellectually then you can begin to own it emotionally and it once

00:33:55.560 again it is fewer things are more empowering and infuse us with a greater sense of self-esteem

00:34:00.720 than drawing a responsible boundary line and asserting ourselves in a situation where we feel

00:34:08.760 somebody is taking advantage of us so you mentioned start off in a small way what would be a small way

00:34:13.700 to start off with that if you're if you're someone who has problems enforcing boundaries right so whether

00:34:19.500 generally try with somebody who's more safe that you feel is not going to run away they're not going

00:34:24.740 to give you a hard time not going to reject you and it could be with a good friend of yours a

00:34:30.220 co-worker your spouse whomever it is and just say you know what i and you even let the person know

00:34:36.300 i'm working on trying to assert myself and you can tell the person you know what there's nothing wrong

00:34:42.580 with what you're asking i appreciate it but i am going to go ahead and i'm going to deny decline your

00:34:49.680 request and you've got to get more comfortable and it is a matter of comfort being okay with the fact

00:34:56.820 that somebody may not like you because if you set out to have everyone like you everyone like you 0.89

00:35:02.960 everyone appreciate you everyone think you're great it's the surest path to be a miserable human being

00:35:08.620 because unfortunately you have people out there who are not well forget about those that are actually

00:35:13.400 suffer with a pathology such as you know psychopathy psychoses or sociopathy sociopaths or

00:35:20.120 narcissists forget about those people that are going to run roughshod over you

00:35:23.220 other well-meaning well-intentioned people are going to be doing what makes sense and just because

00:35:29.680 it makes sense to them or for them doesn't mean it makes sense to you and you can't act irresponsibly

00:35:36.020 and give in to somebody because they're going to become upset with you because again if you continue

00:35:41.120 to do that you're going to be upset with you and they don't need a reason to become mad at you

00:35:46.440 and if you're upset with you then you are going to

00:35:50.960 magnify and increase your own feelings of guilt and shame and inferiority because all it does is

00:35:57.240 reinforce the fact that you don't deserve to stand up for yourself and so when you practice in these small

00:36:01.980 ways and you realize the world will still spin and you're okay just because you asserted yourself

00:36:08.580 you feel fantastic and how you assert yourself by the way should always be with proper empathy and

00:36:14.140 compassion and as you say not be a jerk about it but i don't have to defend my right to assert my

00:36:23.000 legitimate boundaries and i don't have to give a person a thousand reasons a thousand excuses 0.54

00:36:27.880 sometimes no is a complete sentence yeah and another thing to think about too is that as you

00:36:33.320 mentioned earlier it can define the relationship sort of fine-tune the definition of the relationship

00:36:38.260 right so the the person who's asking you for something that you don't want to do you say no well now

00:36:43.120 they know something new they have new information now there might be some conflict but now you guys

00:36:48.160 can if you accept the conflict you can move forward and actually be proactive about it now it might mean

00:36:53.160 you just go your separate ways or you look for another solution that's right and and a person that tries

00:36:59.260 to avoid asserting themselves to maintain the illusion of peace will find that they're not going to either

00:37:05.240 have boundaries or peace every healthy relationship requires boundaries and if you think that you're

00:37:13.460 going to just make things okay by allowing someone to traipse into your space when they're not welcomed

00:37:19.740 you're going to find that it keeps on coming up and up and up and again and by drawing that line

00:37:25.240 you're right you redefine the relationship and you've got proper and responsible boundary lines and this

00:37:31.100 person knows what's no longer accepted and when they know what's long accepted then they can make

00:37:36.000 a choice they'll either say you know what this relationship isn't worth it in which case then

00:37:40.760 you know that they're only interested in the relationship because of what they can gain from

00:37:45.140 it or they're going to respect your boundaries in which case it benefits both of you but make no

00:37:50.520 mistake i tell people who are very very sensitive those perpetual people pleasers the ones that have a hard

00:37:56.620 time saying no i said if you can't say no for yourself say no for the other person because you

00:38:02.480 do no favors by making easy for the bully or manipulator the bulldozer to run into you you don't

00:38:09.140 do the many favors by making easy for them to take advantage of you so it is selfless meaning you're doing

00:38:16.240 them the favor by asserting yourself so i mean it sounds like the goal again i'm reiterating this point

00:38:22.520 is the goal is you know we're not trying to manage anger at the point it happens we might have to

00:38:26.460 use some tactics for that every now and then you talk about some of those in the book but the goal

00:38:29.760 is to basically inoculate ourselves so we no longer have those angry emotions and that involves you

00:38:35.320 know reframing changing the stories that we tell our ego tells ourselves about ourselves but besides

00:38:40.780 that sort of and then that's going to take a lot of work might take months years for that to happen

00:38:45.500 but what are some other things you can do to inoculate yourself from anger so you see reality

00:38:51.200 for what it really is and not just sort of this narrow focused negativity bias that

00:38:56.340 you typically have when you come from a place of anger sure sure i love that word inoculate and

00:39:01.640 that's uh that's a beautiful word and that's exactly what we do here is once you have the shot

00:39:07.120 then you don't have to worry about putting yourself in situation where people have got those you know

00:39:11.160 negative germs they're not going to infect you and there's two main things you can do to answer

00:39:15.580 your question in brief one is when you find yourself in that moment where you're feeling angry

00:39:22.460 the biggest mistakes i'm always surprised when people say this is the therapeutic advice they got

00:39:26.880 was to go ahead and just sort of shut it down and say no i'm not angry it's not a big deal and all they

00:39:31.840 do is move into the world of illusion and they lie to themselves and that's where the ego lives in the

00:39:37.900 world of lies rather acknowledge i am in pain right now somebody either cut me off on the road or my wife

00:39:44.760 didn't do something i thought it was important or my co-worker didn't do this or my kids didn't do this

00:39:49.580 acknowledge the fact that this is a moment to be in pain but then here's the key brett you have to

00:39:55.400 ask yourself which part of me is really in pain is it my soul or is it my ego is it the real me that's

00:40:02.880 in pain or is it the part of me that craves respect that craves honor that craves appreciation

00:40:08.140 accolades and so on and so by having an honest conversation with yourself you'll find that the anger

00:40:15.540 simply dissipates again assuming that you've you're at this fork the ideal is you say is to

00:40:20.580 not get that yourself beforehand but it's sort of like if you're familiar with john sarno's method about

00:40:25.460 the back pain is by not avoiding it not ignoring it by fully owning the emotion it's processed completely

00:40:33.520 out of you and and you what's another method so there's that aspect um what's another thing so

00:40:38.560 the other is there's fascinating there's a part of the brain it's called the reticular activating

00:40:44.820 system and it acts as an antenna of sorts you ever have the experience of having a conversation with

00:40:50.640 somebody at a party and you realize there's a much more interesting conversation happening about 10

00:40:55.140 feet away and you sort of like mute the person in front of you and you like tune in and pick up the

00:41:00.440 other conversation and that's what the reticular activating system does it allows for us to hone in

00:41:07.240 on what we deem as important or what we deem is interesting in much the same way that if you're

00:41:13.200 thinking of getting a new suit or a watch or a car you suddenly see all of those suits and watches and

00:41:19.520 cars on the road not that they didn't exist before but the reticular activating system is honed in on it

00:41:25.540 so when you move through your day looking for the good looking for positive looking having the perspective

00:41:33.660 that things are good and picking up on what you're grateful for your antenna will sort of hone in on

00:41:41.800 that and you're the entire rhythm the cadence the mood will be completely different than if you're

00:41:49.640 always looking for the negative always looking for areas where you're feeling disrespected or taking

00:41:54.340 the vantage of or being you know manipulated if you hone in look for the good look for the positive

00:42:01.280 than others you begin to see it in other people you'll see it yourself and you'll see it in your

00:42:05.820 world and then when those you know conflicts happen they don't bother you as much that's right because

00:42:12.200 also you know as we talked about before negativity bias and confirmation bias i am going to find the

00:42:19.640 reality that i expect to find time and time and time again so if i expect that my spouse is a good

00:42:29.860 person who loves me she's got her own faults as i do but i already go into the situation knowing that

00:42:36.720 she is good she is um a lovable person who loves me we have a positive relationship whatever she does

00:42:44.260 will be filtered through that if i move through the day knowing the same thing about everyone else

00:42:48.640 it'll be filtered through that and once again whether we know the person don't know the person they

00:42:52.960 cut us off whether it is something that happens in a moment or something that we've been leading

00:43:00.040 up to if we don't take it personally we can't become upset but the minute we assume that somebody

00:43:06.460 else's behavior is a reflection of my self-worth i'm now fighting against my own nature i'm fighting

00:43:12.760 an uphill battle and i'm gonna have a hard time managing my anger but if i'm able to instantly come

00:43:18.920 into it with the proper perspective my ego is not engaged and i'm simply not angry well david this

00:43:25.500 has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about your work they can go to i

00:43:29.880 suppose uh my website which is dr david lieberman dr david lieberman.com and also on amazon i've got a

00:43:36.880 number of books and um i've got some workshops and some different programs but i just encourage me

00:43:43.820 and doesn't have to be really quite frankly my book on anger but if if you've got an anger issue

00:43:49.780 it is something that you will be surprised at even no matter what the root is even if it's childhood

00:43:56.260 even if it's rooted in something very very significant you don't have to walk around with

00:44:01.500 the anger anymore if you can free yourself from it you'll just live a different quality of life and

00:44:07.480 encourage anyone with any anger issue to do what they can to try to eradicate it because the entire

00:44:13.160 their entire emotional framework will be different and the relationships will be forever transformed

00:44:18.720 david lieberman thanks for your time it's been a pleasure brett you are amazing you've got a

00:44:23.900 fantastic show i wish you lots of good luck with everything thank you thank you my guest here is dr

00:44:29.380 david lieberman he's the author of the book never get angry again it's available amazon.com and bookstores

00:44:34.140 everywhere you can also find out more information about his work at his website dr david lieberman.com

00:44:38.580 also check out our show notes at aom.is slash anger where you can find links to resources where you can

00:44:43.040 delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the a1 podcast check out our

00:44:59.480 website art of manliness.com where you can see our podcast archives we had over 480 episodes there

00:45:04.020 you also see thousands of articles you've written over the years about personal finance stress

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00:45:22.960 brett mccay reminding you not only listen to the a1 podcast but put what you've heard into action

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The Art of Manliness - March 11, 2019

#489： How to Get a Handle on Your Anger

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