 This episode was prerecorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on the many facets of anger. We're going to explore the function of anger and identify the types of threats that may prompt it, and identify different types of anger to include run-of-the-mill anger, irritation, resentment, envy, jealousy, guilt, and regret. One of the things that I found over the years working with clients is when we start talking about some of these different feelings, they feel like they're different animals, totally different animals and not related. So helping them see how they may be different forms of anger and maybe different levels of anger. So irritation is a lower level of anger than rage, obviously. It can help them kind of start understanding how things relate, and they might start seeing the ability to generalize some of their interventions for regular old anger to some of these other emotions. Anger is a part of the fight-or-flight reaction, which is the brain's natural response to a perceived threat. We've gone over this. We know this. We know that when people experience some sort of threat, they will either fight or flee, depending on how they assess the situation. Now sometimes, you know, think about a cat backed in a corner. The cat may not think that it can beat you up. It's five pounds and you're 150, but it realizes that it needs to do something because it's trapped in that corner, so it's going to fight to get out. It's a survival mechanism. So we want to make sure people understand that it's normal. We don't want to not ever feel anger because that's not realistic. That's not a realistic goal to have. We're going to feel it. We're going to experience it. It is an automatic sort of emotional reaction when our body or our brain perceives a threat. It's what we do with it that can make it helpful or harmful. Anger generally pushes away or helps you dominate a threat. So, you know, when you're in an anger situation, what are you trying to push away or get power over? What types of threats are we talking about though? Well, there's the obvious type of threat where you're threatened with physical harm. You can get angry at somebody because they, you know, bumped into you. Whether you should get angry about them, about them just bumping into you on accident or not is a whole different topic. But you can get angry if there is physical harm. If somebody hits you, you might get angry. If somebody cuts you off in traffic and you have to slam on your brakes and you risk, you know, you think, well, I could have been killed. Well, you might be angry because there was this perception, golly, that you might experience physical harm. There's also threats to your property, damage to your stuff. And some people are more attached to their stuff than other people. Whether it's somebody spilling coffee on your shirt or somebody going by and playing whatever that game is where they take a baseball bat and they hit your mailbox or whatever the case may be. When people's property gets damaged, they tend to get upset. Now, like I said, depending on the person, there's probably different levels of anger that go along with that. And depending maybe on how you interpret the situation, whether you interpret it as being purposeful, you know, going along and swatting at mailboxes with a baseball bat, that's clearly intentional. You know, if somebody accidentally spills coffee on your shirt, you know, you may not get as irritated. But there's also situational aspects we need to consider. And we're going to talk about all this. But I mean, think about if somebody spilled coffee on you and you were, it was the end of the day. You were getting ready to go home. You're like, you know what? It's irritating, but whatever. Not a big deal. I'm going home after this versus somebody spills coffee on you. And it's the end of the day, but you've got one more meeting that you've got to go to and you're going to end up walking in there with a stain on you. I remember when my son was little, poor thing. I mean, he had gastric reflux really bad, but the child puked all the time. And I just got used to having, you know, somebody going, you missed a spot. I'm like, sorry, you know, and I started keeping extra shirts at the office because I knew that I was probably going to get to the office and realize I missed a spot. So we're going to talk about different ways to handle these threats because I could have gotten to the office and realized I missed a spot and gotten angry about it, but what good would that do? The final threat category, if you will, are threats to your self-esteem or self-concept. If somebody does something that hurts your feelings, maybe they stand you up or they cancel plans at the last minute, that may make you angry or at least irritated. And so you want to ask yourself, what was the threat? Why did I feel threatened because they canceled plans? Because I was out of control of the situation. I wasn't able to control and make that person do what I wanted them to do because it felt like it was a rejection, maybe so. So we want to look at what was the threat. You can also get angry if somebody makes you question your goodness as a person. They criticize you and it makes you angry when they criticize you and you're looking introspectively going, I wonder if they're right. I wonder if I really suck as a person. Or another threat to your self-esteem or self-concept can make you concerned that other people will think poorly of you. If somebody criticizes you or tells you that you're not good at something, then you might get angry. You might feel self-conscious because you're going to think that other people might think poorly of you and therefore reject you. Or you wouldn't, you won't have control over how they think about you and you want them to like you. And this may mean they won't like you. So we want to look at all the different kind of permutations, if you will, that threats can come in. The origin of threats generally come from three places. Things that other people do or don't do. You know, we can get angry at ourselves for things that we do or don't do too, but internal critic old tapes or others from the past. So if you do something and you get angry at yourself, sometimes it's in the present. But a lot of times it's that internal critic going, you're such an idiot. Why did you do that? So we want to look at where's this anger coming from? Why are you angry at yourself or why are you angry at other people? And your conscience, you know, like I said, you can get angry at yourself. You can have guilt and regret for things that you do. You're not going to envy yourself, I hope. So looking at where is this anger coming from that you're experiencing right now? Themes. And we've talked about these threat themes before, but we're going to go over them real quickly. Rejection and isolation. Most of us don't like to be rejected. Most people are accepting of the fact that you're not going to be liked by everybody. But a lot of our clients have difficulty because they don't like themselves. They look for external validation. So when other people don't like them, they take it very personally and they start questioning their goodness as a person, start questioning their self-worth, which is a threat. So if they feel like they may be rejected or they're unworthy, that's a threat. If they feel loss of control or the unknown, if this person rejects me or if I'm not good at this, what's going to happen? If they can't control another person's behavior, if I can't control my spouse or my boyfriend or my whomever, then they may leave me. And if they leave me, then I won't be able to survive. Death and loss. That's another threat that comes up. And sometimes the death, you know, it's imminent, but other times is I could have been killed or you could have been really, really hurt. Parents will get angry with their children when they come home late from missing curfew. And the parent is worried because the child didn't show up for curfew and they're like, I was worried you were dead in a ditch somewhere. How many times did you hear that growing up? That triggered a worry, but also an anger when you walked in the door, the parent was like, I am just so going to kill you. You could have been dead. You're like, well, my, that doesn't make a lot of sense. And then the threat of failure and failure is pretty broad. It can be failing at tasks. It can be failing in relationships. It can be failing as a person. So if somebody perceives themselves as a failure, they feel like they can't do whatever it is correctly. So these recurring themes will come up, whether it's, you know, going back here to a threat to your person. You know, I failed to protect myself or I failed to protect my child or I failed to protect my stuff if we want to talk about threats to property. You can control over what other people did threat to property or potentially physical harm and self-esteem and self-concept. Again, rejection and threat of loss of self-control or loss of control often come up when we talk about these different threat scenarios. Well, that's all well and good. But remember I've said that we feel anger when your brain or your body perceives a threat. The question is, you know, with a lot of our clients, they perceive threats when there is none there. Heck, most of us occasionally perceive a threat when there's not one there. They may, we may get like the heebie-jeebies and be like, oh, something's making me feel a little wonky here and you look around and you're like, there's nothing to be stressed about. So real threats actually exist. There are ones that you can identify that there is a threat to my safety. There's a threat to my property. You know, when the hurricane was getting ready to come through. Yeah, I can tell you I was a little frustrated that there was going to be a hurricane hitting land. And, you know, my husband started getting all frustrated because, and that's a nice word for it, going over the fact that, you know, after Katrina, a lot of the insurance companies pulled out. So if there is widespread damage, a lot of the damage won't be covered and, you know, he kind of went off on a tangent. But anyway. Recognizing that the hurricane coming, that was a real threat. Now, recognizing that, yeah, it can make you irritable, it can make you angry, it can make you frustrated. Okay, now what do you do with it? Is staying angry over a big thunderstorm going to do any good? No. Is getting angry at the insurance companies for pulling out of Florida and putting riders on everybody's homeowner's insurance going to do any good? No, that's just a fact of life. So the question is, what do you do with that anger that's productive that can help you live a fill in the blank, rich and meaningful life? Thinking about, okay, worst case scenario, if you want to, what could happen? And how could I deal with it? So making a plan. Perceived threats are the ones that really kind of bite us in the butt sometimes, because they're based on cognitive distortions, taking things overly personally, over generalizing the availability heuristic thinking something's dangerous because you've heard about it on the news, even though it happened like three times ever. But you hear about it on the news, and you don't hear about other stuff that happens a lot more frequently. Prior experiences can also tell you that there may be a threat. So your body may perceive a threat if, for example, you were home during a home invasion robbery. And you hear, you know, fast forward 10 years, you're at home, and you hear somebody knock at the door or you hear somebody rattle the door, or what you think is somebody rattling the door. Would that give you a cause to feel anxious or angry? Certainly. But then you check the experience and go, I'm perceiving that there might be a threat right now. Is there really one in the present? Emotional reasoning is another one that can get us caught up where people get angry. I feel like I should be angry about this. I feel like this is unfair. So it must be unfair. Now, let's take a step back and look and say, is it really unfair? If you and your coworker are up for a promotion and your coworker gets the promotion and you don't, and you're like, I'm so angry, that was totally unfair. You know, you want to back up and look and see, you feel like it was unfair. So you're angry about it because you didn't, you don't have control in that situation, and it may represent you were rejected for that job, or you failed at the promotion. Okay, fine. Those are all true. However, was the situation really unfair? Incomplete information. Sometimes we get angry about things because we don't have all the information. So go back to the teenager that's late getting home from, from, from their date or being out, they miss curfew. The parent is livid. The teenager is late for like the fourth time. And, you know, they've talked about it. They've set goals. The teenager seems to be being disrespectful by breaking curfew. But when you get all of the information, you find out, oh, the person had a flat. They were in a zone where they didn't have any cell service or their cell, cell phone was dead. And they got home as quickly as they could. Does it make the anger completely go away? Probably not. You know, there's also looking at, well, how can we plan so that doesn't happen again. But the initial anger that was brought on by the threat that the child might be in, in great peril was probably not accurate. So making sure you have all the information to judge the situation and decide is this worth me getting, getting angry over and doing something about. So you have this anger feeling is, and we all know what it feels like when we have that flush of anger, and then you got to stop and you got to check it. So encourage clients to think, how do you handle threats to your person or property? When somebody starts messing with your stuff or messing with you, how do you handle that? What do you normally do? And this can create quite a lively discussion in group. How do you handle threats to your self esteem? Some people will bow up and be oppositional and caustic. Other people will kind of shrink and feel less than and start feeling bad about themselves and get depressed. So we want to have people examine, you know, think about a time when somebody threatened, you felt threatened as a person, you felt like you were in an unsafe situation and you got angry. You felt like somebody made you be in an unsafe situation. How did you handle that? And was it effective? Think about a time when you got angry because somebody damaged or was threatening to take away your property. How do you handle that? And, you know, I don't know about you, but I get really upset when I see and probably shouldn't, but I do. When I see there are fraudulent charges on my credit card or whatever, partly because it's annoying because I have to have my credit card replaced and everything, but that's sort of a threat to property. And do I get annoyed and irritated? Yes. Was it a threat to my property? Yeah. I didn't have control over the situation and, you know, I felt powerless when somebody gets my credit card information. But thankfully, you know, the credit card companies are good about handling that and dealing with it and you can move on. So you've got to think about do you get angry about it and start ranting and raving and using a whole bunch of energy, talking to other people about how unfair and unjust and awful it was. Or do you just take a breath and go really this again and use that energy to take the steps to resolve the situation. And when people threaten your self-esteem, have clients brainstorm or tell you about situations where you've gotten angry at people because they made you feel self-conscious or they made you feel bad about yourself. And yes, you can talk about the whole semantics of made you feel. Nobody can make you feel anyway. But in reality, people do something and you feel a certain way. Now, whether you choose to hold on to that feeling and nurture it or you choose to let it go or do something about it, that's where you have your choice to come in. And talk about how can you handle threats from other people? You know, there are people in our life and I usually have people identify one person in your life that just knows how to push your buttons and really ticks you off. We all have those people. Think about that person and think about what threats that they bring up for you. Threats of rejection, threats of being out of control because you can never please this particular person, whatever the case may be. And talk about how can you handle the threats from this person? How can you handle whatever they do or don't do that causes you to get angry in a way that's productive for you? There's one person in my life who, you know, just can't seem to always has something negative to say. And, you know, whenever that person is getting ready to come visit, I freak out and I used to one day my husband looked at me and he's like, you know, she's going to find something to criticize. So why don't you just do your normal stuff? And she's going to find something whether you bust your butt or not and not get all worked up about it because that's just what she does. And I'm like, you know what, you're right. And I've dealt with that person totally differently, henceforth and forevermore. So encourage clients to identify those trigger people in their life. Look at kind of what they do that pushes their buttons and say, how can you deal with it in a way that is more healthy and helpful for you? Because, and where, you know, if you want to go there, where is this behavior coming from for them? Why do they feel the need to push your buttons? Or do they even know that they're doing it? Maybe that's just how they are. One of my relatives typically is very critical and very harsh about things. And, you know, well, it's easier. My mother-in-law doesn't have a mean word to say to anybody. And this particular relative whenever they visit just always has something critical to say about my mother-in-law and bless her heart. You know, so if I were her, I would have to think of how am I going to handle it when this relative comes over and is going to be critical and nasty to me. Then we start talking about your internal critic. And this is the voice inside your head that says, you're a screw up, you suck, you're a failure, you're going to be rejected. I don't even like you and I live in your own head. And when we start talking about that in therapy, clients start looking at me going, oh yeah, I guess I do have one of those. I'm like, yeah, so how do we handle that internal critic? Sometimes it's easy as telling that internal voice to just shut up. And I encourage clients to dialogue with it a little bit. But also to understand where it comes from, that it comes from something in the past, someone in the past. And if their opinion is still and or their words are still affecting you, then that may be an issue you need to resolve. Because maybe it represents an incident or incidents when they rejected you. A lot of times people will have a parent or a relative who was very critical and always told them that they didn't belong. They were the black sheep of the family yada, yada, yada, you're never going to succeed. So people will internalize that message. And even in the present day, when they're not involved with that critical person, they still hear that voice going, you're a screw up. Helping people identify that voice. And so it's not just, you know, something vague in the background that's causing you anxiety. You hear it and you respond to it and you tell it to go away. But also addressing that issue. Was that person critical because they were trying to be hurtful and hateful? Was that person doing the best they could do? Did it have more to do with their jealousy and envy? You know, we can explore those issues. Because the internal critic can also come from peers from, from long ago and your conscience. How do you handle threats from your conscious self anger? Sometimes we do things and we get angry at ourselves and we know we shouldn't have done it. Okay. So how do you handle that? Do you continue to beat yourself up for it? Which probably doesn't do any good. Or do you learn from it and forgive yourself? Which sounds very easy to say, much, much harder to do. And we want to talk with clients about how can you learn from your mistakes and forgive yourself? And what's the benefit to holding on to this anger, guilt or regret? Anger is a generic term that describes the fight reaction in response to a threat. And comes on when you feel like you can conquer the threat or you don't see any options for escape. And I gave the cat in the corner example earlier. You can also have, think about high school and you're kind of trapped in that same high school with that same cohort for four years. You can't escape. So sometimes people will get angry and lash out instead of trying to escape. Anger happens on a continuum ranging from mild irritation to rage. So yeah, we kind of get that. The level of anger experienced is usually in proportion to the immediate threat. So if it's, you know, a huge threat, somebody is threatening your life. You're going to get more angry or threatening the life of your children. You're going to get more angry than if, you know, somebody made fraudulent charges on your credit card, which is going to be an irritant more than, you know, all outrage. I'm ready to fight, put up your dukes. It can also be the cumulative effect of multiple threats. So if you have a lot of little threats, you know, again, think about those days you've had bad days and, you know, this has gone wrong and that has gone wrong. And this person was incompetent and they didn't do what they were supposed to do. And this person didn't turn in their notes. And it was just mistake after mistake after mistake, which each one got you a little bit more irritated. And then finally, somebody makes a mistake and you rip their head off, which is not the best way to handle it. Don't get me wrong. But it happens. I mean, it, let's be realistic here, or you get snappy with them. We'll say that it sounds a little bit better. You want to look at where did that come from? You know, did you react with a 10 to something that should have been a two? And if so, why? And sometimes it's not just that day. We've all worked with couples where one person just all of a sudden freaks out one day. And you're like, well, and the partner is like, well, I don't even know where that came from. She gets furious over the most mundane things. And then we start talking about what are you angry about? And there's this litany of done me wrongs that is 17 pages long. And the partner has been pushing it down and stuffing it and dwelling on it and, you know, marinating on it. So all of a sudden, this one thing that broke the camel's back, think about an old fashioned pressure cooker. When it gets too hot, it blows off steam. If you can't blow off steam, because it's, you know, the vent is closed or whatever, you know, pushing it down. What happens? The top blows off and it explodes and takes out your cabinets. So that's a bad thing. But that's what happens with anger when we perpetually stuff it a lot of times. Many times, and this is important for clients to understand that when people feel angry underneath, they also have a sense of helplessness or disempowerment. So again, look at the threat. You felt threatened, you were out of control, felt rejection, all of that kind of comes back to helplessness and disempowerment. So what is the opposite of that? To deal with anger and helplessness and disempowerment, we want to look for how can you empower yourself to take charge of this situation or how you're reacting to the situation. Encourage clients to brainstorm what triggers their anger. And this is a good homework activity, have them spend, you know, one day on each one of these threats to really, you know, flush it out and think about all the times that they felt rejected or isolated. And then you can share this in group. And people will find that a lot of times they have very similar triggers for their anger. And when we start looking at it, we start examining, well, when somebody is rude to you, it makes you angry. You feel like you didn't have control over how they behaved at you, towards you, and you felt sort of rejected. So because they were being disrespectful. And you took it personally. Oh, going back to those cognitive distortions there, personalization, did it have anything to do with you? Or was it maybe they were just having a bad day and you were the one thing, the final thing that blew the lid off the pressure cooker. So we look at the threats, we look for common themes, we help people see that they're not alone in what triggers their anger. And then we also examine anger triggers for those cognitive distortions and then restate them in terms that are more realistic, less personal, less all or nothing. You always do this, or you never do it, which tends to help temper the anger a little bit. Recognizing and reinforcing the fact that yeah, you're going to feel angry, it's going to be sort of an automatic feeling. But again, it's what you do with it. If you stop and you address it in a way that helps you be the kind of person you want to be. So identify the threat, explore the automatic beliefs triggering the anger. Ask yourself, why is this making you angry? Or have them fill in the complete the sentence, it makes me angry when or I hate it when fill in the blank. How is this similar to other unresolved situations in your past? Because remember I said a lot of times what we're reacting to in the present is influenced by the past. So if this seems to be something that always happens, it may be more triggering. And are there alternate explanations for the situation? A doctor running late, I think most of us can say that that's irritating. Five minutes late, not bad, 15, okay, an hour and a half. I'm starting to get pretty ticked off because it shows a level of disrespect. It shows a level of you're out of control in this situation and the doctor is in total control of that. So going down to how is this similar to other unresolved situations in your past? Well, if you've been to other doctors that have run late and you felt disrespected and out of control. It can be additive because it's like you start lumping them all together. Doctors just don't have any respect for us. Are there alternate explanations for the situation or alternate ways to handle it? And one way to handle it, one of my friends, bless her heart, she evidently went to the doctor and he ran 30 minutes late and she saw him walking in 30 minutes late. He wasn't even at the clinic. And she promptly got up and told him that when he was able to make his time, her time a priority, that she would be back. But until then she was going to see another doctor and walked out. You know, you don't have to be quite that confrontational. Some people can just leave. But it doesn't, most of the time you don't have to stick with a doctor that is disrespectful if that's your choice. But going back to all, are there alternate explanations for the situation? If you're dealing with a doctor that does surgery, maybe surgery ran late. Even if they're not doing something doctor related, you know, maybe they had a flat tire or something. So if it happens once in a while, maybe you'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But those are things that you want to look at. Could there be another reason besides, you know, personalization that this occurred? A friend failing to keep a promise, you know, what automatic beliefs does that trigger? They were being disrespectful. They're rejecting me. They don't like me. They take me for granted. Yada, yada. How's this similar to other unresolved situations, either with that person or other people? And are there alternate explanations? If the friend failed to keep the promise, did they give you an explanation for why? Could there be other explanations for why they're not, you know, keeping that promise? And again, going back to personalization. What threat theme is it related to? Rejection. Is it really about you? Failure. Are you globalizing? When something happens, you know, you don't get that promotion and you start thinking, I am never going to be able to get out of this position or I'm never going to get promoted. That's kind of globalizing and using those all or none terms. But also, what can you learn when you experience failure? What can you learn from that? So the next time it comes around, you don't fail, whether it's a relationship or a job promotion or, you know, making a souffle. Loss of the control and the unknown. When this happens and you feel angry, look at what parts of this were and were not in your control and ask yourself what actions are worth your energy. Because sometimes things happen, you know, people are rude to you. You have no control over that. So is it worth your energy addressing the situation or getting into an argument with somebody? Or is it more worth your energy to just take a deep breath and go, you know what, they're probably having a bad day and let it go. And that's going to be situationally dependent. And death and loss, when it happens and it makes you angry, how does it impact how you see the world? You know, after deaths, we go through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. So how does it change how you see the world that this person or thing is not there anymore? How that person or thing was taken from you? And does it change how you see yourself? And it's important for people to look at whether they're rejecting themselves based on this event. So maybe somebody passed away and they are regretful that they didn't be able to get closure with that person, or they didn't contact them more, you know, all the woulda shoulda couldas. So encouraging people to look at that. An activity you can have people do is make a chart. And I like doing this as a worksheet. Have them identify a trigger. Getting cut off in traffic is a pretty benign trigger that I use because most people have been cut off. What's the threat? Is it to person, property or self-esteem or all of the above? In this case, it was all of the above. Who's causing the anger? Other people? Is it caused by something other people did, your internal critic or your conscience telling you you screwed up? Well, in this case, somebody else cut you off in traffic. So it was triggered by other people. The threat of the theme, loss of control, loss and rejection. Why is this threatening? Well, it was threatening. I felt like I lost control because others put me in an unsafe position. What can I do to address the threat in a way that helps me live a rich and meaningful life? Be more aware. Avoid rush hour. If it was a commercial driver, maybe consider reporting it to their employer. You know, I rarely do that, but every once in a while, somebody's egregious enough that I do. Rejection, because the person who cut you off was being disrespectful. What can I do to address the threat in a meaningful way? You know, sometimes it's just letting it go because it's not worth my energy and all my, you know, happy chemicals, as my daughter would say, to engage. You know, that person's probably having a bad day. I'm just going to let it go. In the case of getting cut off in traffic, you know, driving up next to them, not going to do anything. Getting out and having an argument with them, probably going to put you in more danger. So cut off in traffic, best option is usually to let it go, even if they were intentionally being disrespectful. Resentment is anger directed at others for doing things that either did and shouldn't have done or didn't do and should have. So, you know, we brainstorm for a while when I do groups on what's the impact of holding on to resentments, the emotional impact. You know, how does it affect your level of happiness by holding on to these resentments towards your family, towards your friends, towards the system, towards whomever. Mentally, what's the impact of holding on to resentments? How does it affect the way you think about the world, the way you think about the goodness of people, the way you expect things to happen? Physically, what's the impact to holding on to resentments? You know, how does it affect, do you get headaches? Do you have, you know, tension when you start thinking about that person, especially if it's somebody that you interact with on a occasional or regular basis? You know, how does it affect you physically? If you have resentments towards people in your family, you know, holidays come up, you've got to go to family gatherings. How does that affect you physically? Socially, holding on to resentments, how does that affect not only your relationship with that person, but also your relationship with other people? A lot of times when people have resentments towards a person, they are more skeptical and less trusting of other people. So you want to kind of look at that. And spiritually, and I use that term really broadly, how does it affect your concept of hope, faith, courage, willingness, discipline and integrity? You know, if you consider yourself a compassionate giving forgiving person, but you're holding on to resentments and holding on to this anger, that's kind of counterintuitive with integrity. It's keeping you from being the person you want to be. But encouraging them to really brainstorm how it's impacting them and their lives. Many times underlying resentments are hurt feelings. So like you invited Jane to the party and not me. So I resent the fact that you did that. I resent the fact that you got the promotion and I didn't. So we want to go to that personalization. Why did it hurt your feelings? Why did it make you feel bad about yourself and rejection, failure, you know, what themes are there? And I try to keep it to those basic, you know, four or five basic themes. So it's a little bit easier for clients to kind of categorize and start implementing interventions. And yeah, it's important to go over the fact that with clients that resentment not only hurts other people. You know, if I resent you, it's going to hurt my relationship with you and it may make you feel bad, but it's also going to hurt me. It's going to drain my energy and resentment is something you got to hold on to and it just, it sucks a little bit of your energy every time you think about that person. So what do you resent? Make a chart with four columns, one for each threat and take 30 minutes, identify as many resentments as you can and place them in the appropriate column and only one column per resentment because it can apply to multiple threats, but you'd be there all day. Have them review the finished list and mark off all the resentments over things that they have no control, you know, getting cut off in traffic. I resent that when it happens, but crossing it off. You know, it may be somebody from your family doesn't call you enough or doesn't call you at all anymore doesn't return phone calls. Well, you may have no control over that so you may mark that off. So mark off all the ones you have no control over. Now cross off any that have no effect on your ability to live and live a rich and meaningful life. So things happen that you resent that make you irritable. You know, it could be politics, it could be things on Facebook, it could be people at work, whatever, but does it affect your ability to have good relationships with your friends and to live what you define as a rich and meaningful life. A lot of times other people's behavior really doesn't. And we lop onto it. Because we have that momentary threat response, instead of going you know what, not worth my energy, I'd rather work towards improving my relationships with these people over here, and I'm just not going to worry about that. Explore how you can accept the things that are out of your control and let go of the anger. So that radical acceptance concepts comes in here. And of the things that are left brainstorm ways of addressing the resentment. You know, if you have resentments towards how your sister treated you when you were in high school together, you know, whatever it is, how can you address that now. Envy and jealousy can be thought of as anger at someone else for having something you want. So again, looking at what is the impact of holding on to this envy and jealousy. When you look at movie stars or pro athletes that have 15,000 square foot houses and drive Jaguars and whatever else. If you envy them, if you if you watch all those reality TV shows and you're like, Oh, they're so lucky, they must be so happy. What is the impact of that having on you holding that envy for other people. You know, it keeps you from looking at the things that you have and being glad about those. But it can also have a hurtful effect emotionally, mentally, physically, socially and spiritually on you, because you have an anger you have a resentment towards them. Many times underlying envy and jealousy are low self esteem. I envy this person because they're so pretty, and people don't like me because I'm not as pretty as her. So you may need to look at why do I envy this person, why do I want to have whatever this is a lack of gratitude awareness, focusing primarily on all the things you don't have. And it's easy to get into that in our in our society, focusing on the fact that you don't have the biggest house or you don't have a super nice car. Or do you want to focus on what you do have lack of clarity about personal goals. I wish I were a CEO like her, or I wish I were a movie star like her. But that would mean sacrificing other things more important to me because I mean movie stars have to travel a lot and they have difficulty keeping family life together if family is really important to you then that might not be, you know, such a grand thing. And erroneous conclusions. If I were rich, I'd be happy. You know, really. So looking at people who are wealthy who are not happy who are addicted to substances who are clinically depressed and recognizing that money can't necessarily buy happiness it can buy stuff. But happiness can come from inside. Encouraging people to identify people, the people and things that they envy. In what ways does each of those things that you envy represent acceptance and inclusion into the in crowd, as opposed to the threat of rejection. In what ways does each of these things represent control and power, as opposed to powerlessness and lack loss of control. In what ways does each of these things represent success, you know, people who are rich and have big houses. Typically we think of as being more successful as than people who live in small houses and don't have a lot of money. But that depends on how you define success. But does it represent success to you versus failure. You see each one of these is the opposite of a threat. And does it represent having something you lost. Maybe you envy someone because they married your first love. So you might be angry at them because they have something that you once had. Notice and encourage people to really focus on how each of these is the opposite of a threat theme. And then brainstorm, you know, why might people envy you? A lot of times people don't stop to think, you know what, I've got it pretty good. There are people out there who are doing less well who might envy me. So encourage people to think why might other people envy me. Because then, you know, whether it's the right thing to do or not, you know, it builds up their self-esteem. And a lot of times they start letting go of those other things because they're like, you know what? I'm enviable to when you look at why might people envy you go through the same things? What things do you have or what about you represents acceptance? In what ways are you accepted in your work, in your family, among your friends? In what ways do you have control and power in your life? What do you have control over? What things give you power? How are you successful? Let's talk about all your successes. And in what ways does, do people envy you? Because, you know, you have something that someone else lost. And that may be a little cruel, but, you know, it helps people take stock of all the things they do have. But if they can't come up with anything, then the question arises, what does it mean if people don't envy you? And to some clients, it means that they're rejected, that they don't have any power or control, and that they failed in life because people should envy them. We all know people who need to be the center of attention and almost need to be envied. And a lot of that, you know, when you look at it, often is a cover, is a show for low self-esteem. They want people to tell them that they're worthwhile, that they're successful. So we want to look back at, you know, if you need to be envied, why? Why do you need other people to tell you that you are awesome and they want to be like you, instead of being able to look in the mirror and go, you know what? I'm pretty awesome anyway. There's a song that was popular a while back called The Middle, and I encourage you to listen to it. And it's especially applicable to like teenagers and 20-somethings. It's kind of poppy sort of music. But it's called The Middle, and it's a really good song that helps people focus on being appreciative for what they have and recognizing that, you know, you're only partly on the way, things are going to change, things can get better. Identify three people you respect and or love, but don't envy. So, you know, there are people in your life that you may not envy, you know, and that's a paradigm shift to help people see that you can be lovable, but you don't have to be enviable. Is it possible to respect and love someone and not want to be like them or have what they have? And this is another one of those philosophical questions that I like to end group with, philosophical questions sometimes, and then we talk about it when they come back. Guilt and regret are anger directed at yourself for things you either did and shouldn't have or didn't do and should have, like, you know, keeping in touch with a friend or I don't know. Anger represents your mind's way of identifying a threat and getting you to do something. So, in what way is holding on to guilt and regret and effective response to the threat? If you feel guilty that you didn't make your kids band recital. Alright, so you're angry at yourself for something you should have done that you didn't do. How is holding on to guilt and regret about that an effective response? How is it going to help your relationship? Preventing you from effectively responding to the threat. So instead of saying, okay, how can I make sure this doesn't happen again? Just being angry at yourself for not showing up and not being at the recital can often distract you and keep you from cognitively being able to get into your wise mind and say, what do I need to do so this doesn't happen again? Encourage people to take 30 minutes and identify as many regrets as they can. So, you know, you've got a lot of resentments and regrets here. Over the course of multiple groups is generally when I do these activities. Review the finished list and mark off all the guilt and regret over things which you have no control. You know, we keep coming back to that theme. Making sure people realize what they do and don't have control over. For example, feeling guilty because the house was destroyed in a fire. That is a devastating loss. No doubt. However, feeling guilty about it, you probably didn't cause it. So what do you do about it? Is holding on to guilt? Going to do you any good? Did you have control over it? Now you can look at it and go, what can I do to prevent this from happening in the future? You know, there may be some things, but there may not be. So, marking off anything that you didn't have control over. Cross off anything that have no effect on your ability to live a rich and meaningful life. I feel guilty sometimes or regretful that I didn't follow certain advice that my parents gave me. And I think we all have those. We look back and go, yeah, my you were actually pretty smart. We can't change that, but does it affect your ability in the present to live a rich and meaningful life? If not, cross it off. So can stop feeling regretful about that. Explore how you can accept these things and let go of the anger at yourself for not doing whatever it was. Or for doing whatever it was. And of the things that are left, these guilt and regret triggers that you still have that you have control over and that impact your ability to live a rich and meaningful life. How can you start addressing them? What can you do and consider addressing one each day? I usually have clients write them on index cards. It's a little wasteful, but then put them in a bucket or in a basket and draw out one each day and work on it. And sometimes it's one each week. It depends on the client. But that can help them start whittling away at their guilt, regret and resentments and start lightning the load, lightning what they carry with them. Forgiveness is a power move. And this is a really interesting concept for a lot of people. It allows people to choose to stop giving their power to something or someone else. If I am angry at Sam and every time I see Sam, I get angry. I'm letting him control me. I'm letting him trigger me. I'm giving him my power. I'm saying here, you can make me angry. Now forgiveness is my ability to accept what happened. I don't have to like it. I don't have to say it was okay, but I accept it happened and choose not to give Sam my power every time I see him. And I say, you know what? I forgive you for that. I'm going to learn from it. I'm not going to make that mistake again with you, but I am not going to let you have my power and drain all my energy, muck up my happy chemicals. Forgiveness means accepting reality as it is and choosing to learn from the experience and use your energy for things that are more meaningful. So now when I see Sam, you know, again, I learned from that mistake, not going to trust that again. However, instead of getting all upset over something that happened in the past that I can't control, I have that energy left because I've forgiven him. I've forgiven the situation. I have that energy left to nurture another relationship or do something positive anger exists on a continuum. It's a response to a real or perceived threat designed to get you to do something. And one of the first things we need to have clients do is differentiate real threats from perceived threats. If it's not a threat in the present moment, if it's something that you're reacting to from your past, it reminds you of a situation from your past. Okay, that's a perceived threat. Are you in danger? Is your self-esteem in danger? Is your self-concept in danger right now? The intensity of the response often represents the level of the threat. So irritation is going to be, you know, it was a little threatening. It was mildly irritating to rageful. Many times threats are perceived based on prior learning experiences that trigger memories or critical self-talk. So when you're getting constructive feedback from your boss and you hear that critical voice in the back of your head coming from your past saying, see, I told you you couldn't do this right. It can trigger anger. It can trigger you to start reacting defensively in the current situation. So encouraging people to remember that their past does affect them. It doesn't have to negatively impact them. They can say, you know, that's the past, but they do need to be aware of when their past is kind of poking at them. By knowing what is important and meaningful in your life, you can more effectively identify what things actually present a threat and respond more effectively. So if this is a huge big deal and will prevent you from living what you define as a rich and meaningful life, then it's probably worth your energy. And we've talked before about how, you know, the way I just define success is very, very different than the way my best friend defines success. So the things that he perceives as a threat are very different than the things that I perceive as a threat. And, you know, I'm just like some of the things that get him all riled up. I'm just like, you know, let it roll off my back like water off a duck. Are there any questions? And while you're thinking, one of you says that your spouse always talks about Catholic confession is poor man's therapy, and there's a piece of truth there and that the process is a way of throwing out those index cards that you that you talk of. And yeah, if you are a spiritual person, being able to accept, you know, especially guilt and regret. Being able to accept forgiveness from your higher power is definitely a way of getting over that. And, you know, for some of those things that you have no control over in substance abuse treatment, we use something called a God box. And if people don't want to call it that they can call it whatever, whatever else they want to. But we encourage people to take things they have no control over and write them down and put them in that box, their God box. And if they believe in a higher power, they're got a God of their understanding, then cool. But it can also represent good orderly direction. And if you take something that you have no control over and you put it in that box and, you know, it's there now, you're not going to deal with it anymore. That helps you free up your energy so you can move towards those goals that are most important to you. So confession can be good writing in a diary can be good any way you can find to give yourself, you know, acceptance forgiveness and if you will absolution. Let's see. Okay, so the song the middle is by Jimmy eat world. It is. Yeah, it's a really upbeat song so I encourage you it's on Amazon Prime I listen to it when I run but exploring envy can help foster gratitude awareness without accusing without accessing shame for some of the more sensitive clients and encouraging people to recognize that envy is an anger emotion and anger is a natural emotion is again what you do with it so if you feel that anger for a moment that somebody has something that you want. That's okay. Check yourself and instead of beating yourself up going I shouldn't envy is one of the seven deadly sins or whatever just check it and figure out. Why do you feel threatened and what can you do about it. Thank you for that suggestion about futures which is another song by Jimmy eats world. I will look into it. Thank you. Alrighty everybody have an awesome day and I will see you on Thursday. If you enjoy this podcast please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. snipes by subscribing at all see us.com slash counselor toolbox. It has been brought to you in part by all see us dot com providing 24 seven multimedia continuing education and pre certification training to counselors therapists and nurses since 2006. Use coupon code counselor toolbox to get a 20% discount off your order this month.