Top 3 Tips to Manage Anger Plus Live Q and A - With Nick Wignall

Anger is probably one of the most misunderstood emotions. But you can learn to work through it and resolve it, you've got to learn some essential skills.

Nick’s 3:
Anger vs Aggression. You can feel angry without acting out your anger in the form of aggression—either mental or physical.
Anger is a positive emotion. Important to acknowledge because it explains why we have so many bad habits around anger that perpetuate it (ruminating, criticizing, complaining, etc.)
Anger as procrastination. Being angry feels productive, so we end up using it as an excuse for not acting assertively.

Emma's 3:
1. Anger serves a function, it's not a "Bad emotion" it can help us be alerted to threats and injustice and it can motivate us to take action
2. But, anger lies to us all the time. sometimes it's a secondary emotion, and sometimes it's based on a cognitive distortion.
3. You can process anger using the emotion processing model:
Emotion Processing OWECAN

Therapy in a Nutshell and the information provided by Emma McAdam are solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and are not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health.
In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life's direction.

Copyright Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC

[johannafelico]

Love the punt illustration, come back later. difference from Anger and frustration. Totally different.

[skeptik-cixo]

I would love to see the two of you do a video on vulnerable narcissistic abuse. My sister has vulnerable narcissistic personality style, and she has been viciously emotionally abusive toward me my whole life. Everything is a double standard, projection and gaslighting attack, and I become so apoplectic that I end up in a panicky rage and I can't breathe or calm down. And the rumination!!! I have a screaming matches with her in my head, because I can't have them out loud. You cannot confront or try to reason with a narcissist, because they lack empathy and the ability to self-reflect. It is extremely challenging to process these emotions, because they can be unrelenting and unresolvable in this context. I really wish that I could find a therapist that specializes in narcissistic abuse, because it has had a significant impact on my mental health; and I already suffer from chronic depression and generalized anxiety disorder. My anger scares me sometimes.

[viridianasanchez]

Thank you for this good live video!! Please do more and live workshops!❤

[peachBloom]

Wow, Emma! Thanks for this livestream. More please. This was great with both of you.

[dee]

Thank you Emma and Nick! You two are always great together. Yes more live streams please Emma!

[peachBloom]

We can't control our emotions? This surprises me, at age 64. If I cry, my siblings think I'm weak. When they're sad or upset, they mostly internalize these emotions to maintain a stiff upper lip.

[tacychristensen]

I like what you said here about not focusing too much on childhood to resolve present issues.

[lisaatp]

This was SO fabulous! I especially loved Nick’s perspective that if you scratch anger you will find anxiety. I’m not usually an angry person but I’ve been struggling with it about a particular situation the past few weeks. I’ve been accepting it, sitting with it, being curious about it… but still it’s been puzzling me. I mulled that over a bit… under anger is anxiety? Huh? And, then it hit me… yup… I do have anxiety sitting under this anger. Boom! Makes it so much easier to then move forward getting this 😊

[xdcbtgo]

Thank you so much for this beautiful and insightful guidance. Proper and wholesome viewpoints. I love it ❤

[PaigeYesLee]

Love the livestreams. Please consider doing more 😊

[laurenl]

Thanks for this video. ❤ growing up, I always heard, and still hear sometimes, not to let something bother me, annoy me, etc. it’s a relief to hear y’all say we can’t control our emotions. With my therapist’s help, I’m learning how to feel my feelings and not shut down and bottle them up. A work in progress.

[nicksyb]

Love you two working together. Your knowledge and perspectives complement each other beautifully and you both bring great energy.

[MulrooneyE]

You guys have such good combo podcasts. There is a lot of great information here and I will have to listen again for a third time. I like the Y chart exercise, nipping minor anger in the bud by writing things down and the notion that the underlying issue with anger is always anxiety. So good thank-you guys!

[pauletteispassingiton]

love your channel..Thank you…I stopped sugar..huge difference with my mood

[stinie]

Thank you! I've been waiting for this for a while. Found it challenging to find good information on Anger.
I've started thinking of Anger as the protector emotion. Mama bear syndrome or when all the boys jump into a fight because their friend is getting picked on. We had a chicken with a little chick. A cat started showing too much interest in that chick. The mom chicken flew into a rage and attacked the cat till it ran tail between its legs. Funny enough months later the chick had grown up and gone to live somewhere else. The cat came back. This time our chicken was running around in fear. I think anger turns off our rational mind in order to make us do dumb stuff to protect ourselves or the group.

[snowpunk]

I have been struggling with angry rumination lately. This helped me understand how to better handle that.

[ps]

I’m loving your podcasts, really helpful. Could you do one on overcoming guilt and shame ..

[joycemasterson]

Your emotion processing is not too complicated; its really useful

[BiancaH-kmql]

Maybe healthy anger is that "amount" that my nervous system is able to process in the moment, and immediately show me, in clarity, the needs and boundaries I can address and make change? And maybe the anger I feel that's "taking over", is residual anger? Anger that I carry in my body, well stress? due to unprocessed anger maybe, that is all coming up triggered by an event hence lack of clarity? It is just my inner experience. I experience both and I am working with ways to process somatically what's "left over". In my experience, anger exists, in the moment, to show me exactly where my boundary is, and that is extremely valuable. I also feel the action I take from here is very clear and powerful I think maybe this is where the idea that we can listen but not act on anger comes from. I disagree with that, I think these 2 "types: of anger have different energetic charges maybe? And we can distinguish as we experience it. One can lead to aggression and this is where we need to learn to manage because it can be overwhelming, the other "healthy" one is very clear and the action rising from here is the same...

[Canyonwalker]

How fortuitous. I've shut myself in my room today because I'm angry and don't want to spread it. I cry everyday for years. It's disappointment. At 72 I expected something different out of life. Married 53 years, my husband is perfectly content (except for me. He chooses not to engage) The 3 aggressions define me. Life at my home is grand, except for me...