Taming Anger W/ Behavioral Neuroscience W/ Dr. Judson Brewer

Are you a little angrier,

Irritable,

Or quick to lash out these days?

Anger is a challenging emotion,

And according to Dr.

Judd,

It can become a habit.

What is fueling your anger,

And how can you break the habit loop of resentment?

What can we learn from behavioral neuroscience and ancient wisdom to respond differently when we're triggered?

That's what I'm going to explore today with Dr.

Judd on your life in process.

I am so excited to bring Judd on as a frequent contributor.

I've had the opportunity to interview him a couple of times,

And he was incredible on my From Striving to Thriving Summit.

He has the skill of breaking complex concepts down like Buddhism and neuroscience and really making them relatable.

And these conversations are going to be off the cuff.

They're going to be raw and hopefully super applied.

We'll talk about the concepts in terms of our personal lives and then also give you strategies to apply to yours.

So here's a little bio on Dr.

Judd,

If you don't already know him.

He's the Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center and Associate Professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences at the School of Public Health and Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University.

He's also a research affiliate at MIT.

And before that,

He held research and teaching positions at Yale University and University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness.

He's a New York Times bestselling author of The Craving Mind and Unwinding Anxiety and really is a thought leader in the field of habit change and the science of self-mastery.

As an addiction psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for treating addictions,

Dr.

Judd has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for habit change,

Including both in-person and app-based treatments for smoking,

Emotional eating,

And anxiety.

You'll want to check out his apps,

Eat Right Now,

Unwinding Anxiety,

And Craving to Quit.

I use them a lot with my clients and they're like having Dr.

Judd in your pocket.

Dr.

Judd is also a really great human and super fun to talk to.

He's here to help us and I can't wait for you to hear this conversation about anger.

Stay tuned to the end where I will give you some daily practices to try out.

And remember,

If you go to the episode on yourlifeinprocess.

Com,

You can download a PDF of the home practice so that you can start applying these concepts in your life right away.

So here we are.

You're a frequent contributor.

I kind of roped you into this,

Dr.

Judd.

I wanted you to be my cohost.

Well,

Think of me as your occasional cohost.

That you're having a conversation with.

Yeah,

That I'm having a conversation with and I hope it is a conversation.

And I hope it's actually more of a chance for you just to explore ideas,

Whatever's on your mind,

Whatever you're interested in,

And I'll go there.

I'm interested in what you're interested in.

And you said you wanted to talk about anger.

So that was a surprise.

Actually,

It made me get out the craving mind.

And one of the things that actually,

I actually had it,

I had this little sticky thing already in the craving mind on the section where you talk about self-righteous anger.

No kidding.

Yes.

There it is.

So this is clearly something that you've actually been interested in for a while.

You've been interested in personally for you.

And you said that you're also concerned about sort of systemically that people are struggling with.

Yes.

And the reason I suggested it as a topic was that I'm seeing a lot more,

Let's call it unforced anger.

So in sports,

Somebody made an unforced error and we can talk about whether anger is ever justified.

I think that's also an important topic,

But it just seems like there's a lot more unforced anger right now.

And so it just felt like it would be a good topic to talk about and not just to highlight it because I'm guessing everybody's seen it,

But also to deeply explore where it comes from and what we can do so that we can all live better lives.

So if it's helpful to start,

I can just talk about,

And I wrote a little bit about this in the craving mind,

My own struggles with anger and how I really had to see very,

Very deeply how unhelpful it was for me to actually be motivated to work with it.

And I could give,

What is it,

The Malcolm Gladwell 10,

000 hours,

Which is actually not that scientifically sound,

But it's a nice number and he writes great books.

So I could say I'm an expert in anger because I've certainly racked up the hours.

And I start with that because I think you've got to know what it is that you're working with to really,

Really see how to work with it.

And I think,

So just examples,

For example,

I was on a month-long silent meditation retreat trying to develop concentration and my mind kept going and going and going back to the situation I had with a colleague at work where I was angry at this person.

And the anger was getting in the way of my concentration practice.

And it really helped me see a couple of things really clearly.

One was I was on retreat.

I wasn't near this person.

So me getting angry was a huge waste of energy where it's kind of like if you want to drive somewhere,

You don't put your car in,

You turn the car on,

Put it in neutral and slam on the gas.

It doesn't get you very far.

And in fact,

It uses up all your fuel.

Well,

That's basically what I was doing on retreat was that I wanted to go somewhere.

I wanted to develop concentration.

And so my mind was like,

Well,

We're driving in neutral and guess what?

We're going to make sure you don't go anywhere.

And that's exactly what was happening.

So that maybe gives a little context in terms of one of the places where I was seeing anger very clearly because I wasn't distracted by anything else.

And I don't know if it'd be helpful maybe to color that or add to that.

How do you,

When I asked the question anger,

Are there stories that you can think of for you personally where you've just been really stuck in it?

Anger shows up in a couple of different ways for me.

There's that resentment,

The sort of chewing on the resentment going over and over in my head around something.

But more often now,

I experience anger as flashes of outward anger.

So there's the inner anger of the resentment and the rumination and the storytelling.

But then there's also the outward expression of anger.

And I often tell my children that I was never an angry person until I had kids.

And so for me,

Anger is when I don't get enough sleep,

When I haven't eaten enough.

And there's a lot of,

I talk about this sort of the three S's,

When I'm stressed,

When I'm sleep deprived,

And when substances are involved.

So not getting enough food or if you drink too much.

And I have these moments of losing it and kind of lashing out over little things.

And that's the type of anger I don't really like.

The rumination stuff,

I feel like I have a better handle on now than I don't get caught in that as much.

I get more sort of the flashes of emotion regulation really.

And those just,

It feels different to me.

And I think people are,

What I hear in my practice is people are a little bit more on edge and expressing their anger outwardly more.

And also people are a little more entrenched in the divisive rumination,

That sort of inner anger as well.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so I think you're highlighting some of the things that I see as well in terms of these,

If anger is this fire,

What's fueling that fire?

So I don't know if it would be helpful then,

I'd be curious to hear how you have been kind of exploring the origins.

Where does that fire come from?

I can start,

But it'd be,

Maybe we could start there.

And I think of this from putting on my science hat.

I want to understand a mechanism before I can actually develop a treatment to test that and see if we can work with the mechanism.

It's kind of like a cancer treatment where in the old days they used to have these chemotherapeutics that was basically like throwing a hand grenade in your body.

And you'd try to kill all the cancer cells before you kill yourself with the medicine.

And so they had tremendous side effects.

The cure rates were much lower than they are today where you can find a molecular mechanism.

You can do a whole genome sequence.

And my friend who's an oncologist does this with all these patients where you can sequence their entire genome and figure out exactly where the mutations are and then target those pathways so they can get much better remission and cure rates with many fewer side effects.

So I think behaviorally we can approach life in the same way.

And mechanistically I think of what are the causes,

What fuels anger.

And I think two places that I've seen pretty clearly in my own outpatient clinic practice has been basically two flavors of the same thing.

One is when we don't get what we want.

So let's say somebody cuts in front of us at the grocery store.

We didn't,

You know,

Well that's actually getting something that we don't want is the other one.

So somebody cuts in front of us at the grocery store,

We get something that we didn't want.

We didn't want somebody to cut in front of us or somebody cuts us off in traffic or somebody does something on the road that we are not expecting.

We don't want that.

And we can get anger,

Road rage,

Things like that.

Not getting what we want can also make us angry.

And I think that also comes in this spectrum of,

You know,

We can get if we're trying to solve a problem,

Get something done,

Get somebody to come along with us.

You know,

It's like,

Hey,

I want you to,

Let's say we're having a discussion with somebody and we want them to see our point of view or we have a strong sense that we want them to believe what we have to say or trust it.

And I think that's a,

One of the conversations that I've seen too much,

Unfortunately,

Is,

You know,

The vaccine conversations where somebody says,

Somebody's really,

Two sides are very entrenched.

One is,

You know,

I really think vaccines are helpful.

And as a public health servant,

That's the side that I tend to belong to.

And then there are others that are like,

Hey,

You know,

I don't know if I,

You know,

I don't know if the risk of the long-term effects of the vaccines have not been studied.

So I'm just going to wait this one out,

You know,

And whatever.

So those two sides,

Regardless of where somebody is on either side,

Doesn't even matter when it comes to anger.

If one side says,

Hey,

I want you to believe me and the other side is not buying it,

Then they didn't get something that they wanted.

And so it can start with irritation and frustration.

And it kind of,

It's like the thermometer gets higher and higher as that heat heats up because we're not getting what we want.

And that can be fed by the other side doing the same thing,

Saying,

Well,

I want you to believe me.

So those two flavors,

Not getting what we want and getting something that we didn't want tend to have pretty good explanatory power for a lot of anger that I see.

What's your sense?

I think I would add on to that,

That one of the ways that I see anger playing a role and in a positive way as well.

Again,

It's about,

I think a lot of it also has to do with how you express it,

Is around protecting something that you value or something that you care about,

Which is kind of linked to that not getting something that you want,

But maybe it moves us from toddlers,

Having a tantrum,

I didn't get what I want,

Into actually,

This is something I really care about.

And because I care so much about it,

It makes me angry.

And then I end up acting in a way that's actually out of alignment with my values,

Trying to protect my values,

Which is the discrepancy that I think shows up and that doesn't feel good.

And for me,

When I'm working with folks,

I also look at anger as energy.

And actually,

I had a conversation with Larry Ward,

Who's a good family friend.

He was a lay minister for Thich Nhat Hanh and very close with Thay,

Traveled with him all over the world,

Doing Days of Mindfulness with him.

And he actually,

His house was firebombed.

He's a black man in an interracial relationship.

And in the 90s,

His house was firebombed.

And so I talked to him about anger.

I mean,

If anyone has a right to be angry,

Right?

He talked about anger as being energy.

And then how did he manage that energy when that happened?

And what he did with it was he actually went to Plum Village.

He spent a lot of time with Thich Nhat Hanh sitting in silence.

He went into nature.

And then he dedicated much of his life to social justice through mindfulness.

So that's a way of taking the energy and transforming it.

But really what's underneath it is something that he cared about.

And so that's another aspect of the getting what I want and not getting what I want and something being taken from me,

I guess.

Yeah.

And I think you're highlighting some nuance and something I'd love to get into more deeply,

Which is if you look at the biblical references.

So my wife is a Bible scholar.

And it's this well-known story of Jesus turning the tables in the synagogue and often interpreted as righteous anger.

And often,

I think as you're highlighting,

That can be self-righteous anger because it's usually something that we care deeply about.

And the big question in this really fun and interesting ongoing conversation that my wife and I have had is around,

Is there such a thing as righteous anger?

And as you're pointing out,

This piece with the conversation you've had with your friend is if there's energy that comes up that is born out of these conditions,

Somebody's house is fire-bombed,

For example,

How do they channel that energy?

And does righteous or self-righteous anger,

Does it just feed more anger or is that the best way to help heal?

And it reminds me of this saying from the polycanon from the Buddhist teachings where there's a phrase in there that's anger with its honeyed tip and poisoned root.

Honeyed tip and poisoned root because it can feel so… It makes us feel so alive and powerful.

I am doing something.

And there's that honey tipper's like,

Yes,

This is right.

But then they also talk about the poison root where it just feeds and fuels more anger.

And so,

That's one thing that it would be really fun to explore,

This honey tip and poisoned root.

There are many ways I think we could touch on this.

One is like how does anger actually fuel itself?

So we could look at that from even how behaviors are formed,

How habits are formed.

But there are probably many other ways that we can explore that as well.

So what do you think would be the best place to start?

Let's look at how it fuels itself.

And of course,

Because we have you here as Mr.

Neuroscientist,

Not just Mr.

Buddhist,

I think that there's very much… Our brains evolved to respond to the honey tip of anger for a reason.

There's got to be some kind of activation in the brain that makes us want to keep on getting angry and evolutionarily probably beneficial for us to enjoy anger to some degree.

We need to stay in the fight to win the fight.

But then now in the modern world,

It's not so helpful to always to stay in the fight.

But yeah,

Let's talk about that cycle.

And I'm imagining that you have some kind of habit loop in your back pocket around anger as well of how habitual… Yeah,

So looking at some of the… Think of it as the behavioral neuroscience because I'm not sure that the neuroimaging studies aren't always… It's like,

Oh,

There's this blob in the brain that lights up.

Now we know exactly what's happening.

Well,

It's really,

Oh,

There's this blob that lights up and we can make inferences and we hope that they're somewhat helpful.

So I think the science that I've seen that I've been most convinced by has been kind of this evolutionary question like what's the adaptive advantage of anger?

And there have been some pretty convincing studies suggesting that it helps people in basically when there's a social status thing where they need to basically convince people to give them resources.

And so anger has been shown to help people gather resources in literal and figurative ways.

We can think about this in our own lives.

Let's say that I'm on a call with customer service for something and I want something and it's not happening and then suddenly I just explode in anger.

Sometimes that helps or at least it's correlated.

Oh my gosh.

I did a corporate training for a customer service team and those poor folks are getting lashed.

They were talking about how it's never been worse to be in customer service and I was coaching them on skills like how to validate your customer.

Because it's terrible right now but yes,

We take it out on our customer service folks and maybe sometimes it actually works.

We just kind of get what we want by getting angry.

Yes.

So just using that,

We can just use that example.

I don't know about you but when I boil over into anger,

I feel terrible afterwards.

And the thing is I don't know that it was actually the anger that helped or if it just happened to be correlative with finally getting the thing taken care of because I didn't do the parallel experiment and do the kindness piece or really try to understand and work with the customer service person to figure out exactly what we needed to do which typically is the most efficient route where it's like,

Okay,

If I'm not understanding something,

Help me understand it.

If you're not understanding something,

Let's make sure that we're on the same page and then let's work together collaboratively because it feels much better to work with somebody than and fight with somebody.

And I think that even kind of highlights how these habit loops around anger can form.

So any habits formed a trigger,

A behavior and a result.

And so if we think of the customer service piece,

So I'm trying to get something replaced that broke and it's under warranty.

So there's the trigger and the trigger is that it's not working with the customer service rep.

And so the behavior is that I get angry and then the result is it finally gets resolved and I get the thing replaced or whatever.

Now that can set up a loop that says,

Oh,

Next time you don't get what you want,

Get angry.

And so that can happen.

It can groove that habit to the point where it's like suddenly we're exploding at more than just the customer service rep,

But the poor grocery clerk at the grocery store because the line is too long,

Not their fault.

Or the person that happened to drift into our line on the freeway because they didn't see us and we just like,

Why,

You idiot,

What are you doing?

We get angry at them.

So that's how that can get perpetuated.

And our brains can make these associations,

Oh,

Anger is the way to get what I want.

That's what I have to do.

That's the behavior that helps me get things done.

The problem here is that there isn't a causal connection in most of those situations because we haven't established that that was it.

And let's say that there even is a causal connection for play devil's advocate.

Say,

Oh,

When somebody gets angry,

Then they tend to get what they want.

We haven't looked to see is one,

What are all the results of that?

So it's not just,

Okay,

I got my whatever,

My widget replaced that was broken,

But what are the emotional costs on me?

What are the emotional costs like you're pointing out on the customer service person?

And what are the costs societally of anger?

We're seeing all sorts of societal costs of anger.

We know as a society,

That's not the way to heal divisions and heal our planet.

It's only driving divisions to be deeper.

So we know that it's not helpful.

And if you take a neuroscience perspective,

The only way to change a habit is to see how unrewarding it is and also find,

We've talked about this before,

Find that bigger,

Better offer.

What's more rewarding than getting angry?

So I'll pause there.

Does that make sense?

And then we can dive into those specific pieces.

Yes.

It makes a lot of sense and just to add on part of the learning of that habit loop,

You learned without knowing you were learning it as a kid.

How did your parents model some of their anger towards you?

And then what are,

For me,

I'm always thinking about this as a parent,

Those moments where I lash out at my kid for,

Yesterday we were making cookies and they spilled the vanilla all over the place.

I'm like,

Ah,

I'm teaching that to them.

And so that's part of that cost,

Right?

The cost of how we are passing on this contagion to one another when we're engaging in our angry habit loop.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's an important piece because whether it's children or coworkers or friends or even random person on the street,

We're modeling behavior that people are going to pick up on through social contagion.

And that's,

We know through,

We've seen a lot about contagion.

The more contagious something is,

The more problematic it is.

So here,

I can imagine your child looks you in the eye and then they pour the vanilla on the floor.

It's like it was probably a mistake,

Right?

And so it comes out of those conditions and it's really different just to be able to,

So let's talk about how can we work with that?

How can we work with anger?

So in the ideal situation,

We stop.

Let's say that the kid spills the vanilla,

We stop and we remind ourselves that we're human and they're human,

Remind ourselves of all the times that we've spilled things accidentally.

And even just doing that,

Let me ask you,

What does that feel like when you just feel into that right now yourself?

Well,

Gosh,

There's the pro-social shame right there.

Oh my gosh,

The mother.

But I think for me,

It's going back to values.

What am I trying to do by having experience of making cookies with my kids is I want to engage with them in connection and joy,

It's sort of the holidays,

All those things.

And when I'm losing it about vanilla on the floor,

I'm missing out on that.

And I'm not,

As you talked about,

Anger is such a tunnel vision experience where I miss out on all the other things that are important to me or just the context itself and I become inflexible in my anger.

So that's what it was like for me.

And so I would just add,

Imagining that situation for myself,

It's like,

Oh,

Oh,

They spilled the vanilla.

And it's like my heart goes out to them because I'm sure it's not something that they wanted to do.

It was an accident.

And so when I think of all the times basically of being human,

Whether it's my own humanity or anybody else's humanity,

And I see something happen that they didn't expect to happen,

They didn't plan,

It was an accident.

It's like,

Oh,

My heart leaps.

But it's easier to do that with an eight-year-old spilling vanilla than it is with something that you actually feel like there's injustice around.

You actually feel like there's something that's unfair,

That's being done wrong,

And it has bigger stakes than vanilla on the kitchen floor.

So let's take that to the big stakes one.

Let's say racism.

Let's say there's somebody that's overtly being racist.

And I think,

Oh,

Wow,

I can't – it's like the anger could bubble up.

It's like,

How could this person be so mean?

And then I try to feel into,

Okay,

What were the conditions that led to this person being racist?

And societal conditioning,

Family conditioning,

Poverty,

There are all sorts of things that can perpetuate racism.

And it's not just poverty.

It could be somebody that's extremely rich.

And they're raised in a very racist culture,

A very racist family.

And that's just what they've been born with.

And then I can ask,

Oh,

Wow,

How did their parents become racist?

And try to trace back the conditioning and then ask,

Well,

Whose fault is it that this person is racist?

Whose fault is it?

You can't point your finger to any one particular condition that led to that person doing that racist act.

They did.

They did it.

And so,

There's something – just speak personally.

That's something I strongly feel is just really racism.

I would love if somebody could flip a switch and end racism right now.

I would do anything I could to help them flip that switch.

So here's a cause I think that many of us feel very strongly about.

And so,

I could get angry at them.

And then I can look at those conditions and say,

Well,

What am I putting out in the world?

By getting angry at that person,

Does that solve any of the problems?

No.

Me getting angry,

If I got angry at them,

Probably just entrench them,

Maybe even make them feel self-righteous so they get angry again.

And not to say that I know how to end racism,

But I'm just using this one example.

So I could say,

Okay,

Getting angry at them may not be the best way to use that energy.

Back to what your friend said,

What's the way to go?

How can I help?

And here,

So going back to the example,

Sure,

Feeling into a child's mistake of spilling vanilla and empathizing or having that compassion arise there.

How is that different than compassion arising when I look at all the conditions that led to this person doing a racist act?

How do you see those as being different?

Well,

I actually think they're quite similar as you're pointing to.

And in preparation for this conversation with you,

I was like Googling compassion anger.

What's the research out there?

And I actually came across this really interesting study by a group.

I think it was in 2014 or 2016,

I can't remember which,

But they were talking about,

They did one of those gamified experiments where they had in a game,

There's a dictator that's passing out rewards unfairly.

And they were comparing folks that had done had 40,

000 hours plus of meditation practice versus people that were novices.

And the folks that had 40,

000 hours plus of meditation practice,

Not only did they redistribute the funds when things were unfairly distributed,

They'd redistribute them more fairly than the folks that didn't have the practice.

They also didn't have as much anger.

So they were able to do that pro-social justice work,

But do it without anger being what was driving it.

And I think that's what you're alluding to here.

It's not about passivity,

But it's actually about still taking action,

But how that not be driven by this state of anger or blame or self-righteousness.

Yeah,

100%.

So here,

If we can see the injustice really,

Really clearly,

We could get really angry or we could take that energy.

When we see injustice,

We are moved to help.

That's what compassion is all about.

In the face of suffering,

Especially if we're not taking it personally,

We are able to commit 100% to helping and end whatever the cause of the suffering is.

So that energy gets,

Let's say,

Think of it as renewable energy as compared to fossil fuel.

Think of anger as burning that fossil fuel.

It just makes the environment toxic.

Whereas whatever solar,

Wind,

Whatever,

It helps us move in a way that is endless.

It's like,

Well,

Sun will burn out eventually,

But not in our lifetimes.

So that type of thing.

So how do we do that?

Let's concretize this because that sounds like high level goal that makes a lot of sense.

But then actually,

What does that look like in terms of changing our habit loops around it?

Yeah.

So this follows,

And when I've done this clinically,

I've done a lot of work with people with addictions who work with anger a lot in their lives.

So one way to look at this is by,

We have this three-step process of helping people identify what are their habit loops.

Help them see how unhelpful they are.

That's the first step.

The second step is helping them see how unhelpful they are.

And then the third step is finding that bigger,

Better offer.

So if we concretize this,

Mapping out an anger habit loop,

So it could be anything.

The vanilla,

Let's just use that as an example or we could start using- My poor son.

Yeah.

I'll give you another one.

I'll give you another one.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Let's use a different one.

I have plenty in my Rolodex of experience being angry at my kids.

Okay,

So it's before bed and no one's got their pajamas on and kids are throwing basketballs instead and mom's exhausted and I need you to be in your pajamas toothbrushed and you're not and I'm getting angry.

So mom's exhausted and it's bedtime and the pajamas aren't on.

There's the trigger.

The behavior,

The old behavior,

Ancient because it's such a long time ago,

Is that she gets irritated or angry or raises her voice.

And then the result is the kids finally get in bed.

And mom feels guilty.

And mom feels guilty.

Mom gets in bed feeling guilty.

So it's good that we have to see all the results of everything and mapping that out leads to the second step.

You know,

And I simplify this to ask ourselves,

What am I getting from this?

So you can ask,

What am I getting from this?

They got in bed,

I feel guilty.

Maybe I have trouble sleeping and then I'm more sleep deprived and then I'm more tired tomorrow and then,

Oh,

They still have to put their pajamas on.

So seeing that very clearly can help us become disenchanted with the anger reaction.

It's not that it's going to make it magically disappear,

But it just can help us see,

Oh,

That's not helpful.

So for my own life,

When I can see very clearly that the anger is not helping and it's only harming,

So if I get angry at the customer service rep,

Oh God,

It's not their fault that my widget broke.

If I get angry,

Any of those,

It helps motivate me to work with my anger.

And then the third step is to find that bigger,

Better offer where,

Okay,

The customer service rep,

Last time I got angry or here's a real world example that just happened where the insurance company denied medication for my patient and I got on the phone and was hung up on and transferred like seven – literally,

I'm not making this up.

I was hung up on at least twice,

Hopefully accidentally because I was on hold so long and transferred seven times always to the wrong person.

Basically getting to where they said,

Oh,

You can't appeal your denial by phone.

You have to send us a fax.

Oh gosh.

Yes.

A fax.

Who has that machine?

So I was like,

Oh,

This system is clearly set up to cut costs because the insurance companies,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

So I was angry.

I think I ended by saying,

How do you sleep at night?

This person is not the CEO.

The CEO is the one making more money than this person and they didn't set the rules.

They just are hired to do this job.

That's my final word.

How do you sleep at night?

You hang up on them because I was so angry at the system.

And so I felt terrible.

It's like,

It's not this person's fault,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

And I can become disenchanted.

So next time when I have a patient that's denied their medication,

I can remember the last time and try to learn from that and direct that energy in a positive way.

And the other thing I can do is remember all the times when I've collaborated with the person on the other end of the phone to see what actually needs to be done.

So I could figure out very quickly,

For example,

Like,

Okay,

Does this need to be a fax,

Whatever that thing is,

Or are you the person that can help so that we can be efficient?

I don't waste their time.

I don't waste my time.

I don't get angry.

And I also can notice what it feels like to connect with somebody.

It's like,

Oh,

It always feels better.

Every single time it feels better to connect with somebody than to distance myself through anger.

So that's the three steps.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it feels really good to connect with someone in a place that you don't usually do that because it actually takes the dreaded insurance phone call or the dreaded United Airlines phone call or whatever it is that we're on the phone with into a different,

Like it just has more of a positive experience during and after and it benefits everybody.

So breaking it down into that habit loop,

Knowing your triggers,

Knowing sort of your tendency towards anger,

Doing something different that gives you a better offer and remembering the consequences when they weren't,

The consequences that you don't want is part of what motivates the behavior shift.

And I would add to that,

Working behaviorally with folks,

I have a tendency to also just look at vulnerabilities and also pay attention to your own body.

And that's where mindfulness comes in,

In terms of noticing when you're going from green to orange to red and catching yourself more in the yellow orange zone before you're in red.

Yeah.

As compared to red hot and melting.

Yeah.

And melting,

It's hard to turn it around.

I mean,

I do think it is harder to turn around anger when it's in full force.

And in DBT,

Dialectical behavior therapy,

There's something called opposite to emotion action where sometimes it is very helpful to just do the opposite of what anger is telling you to do.

So if anger is telling you to lash out,

Gently avoid.

If anger is telling you to yell,

Tone your voice down.

If anger is making you speed up,

Slow your breath down.

And that can help kind of get the wheel turning in the other direction as well.

Yeah.

Very pragmatic.

I like that.

So just bringing this back to that quote from the polycanon that I mentioned at the beginning,

Let's see how this honey tip and poison root comes in.

So one,

For that first step,

If we don't know how our minds work and we haven't mapped out these habit loops around anger,

We don't even know that anger has a honey tip and a poison root.

We're just acting automatically.

We're not even ourselves.

We don't have control.

The second step I think is beautifully portrayed in that simple saying honey tip and poison root.

It can feel rewarding at first,

Yet when we really look at it,

We can see all of the negative consequences that come both immediately,

Guilty,

That type of thing,

But also that come as a result of it that are even longer.

So it perpetuates habits around anger.

It doesn't help spread connection and joy in the world,

All those things.

Then the third step is if anger has a honey tip and poison root,

Is there something that has only honey and no poison root?

This is where compassionate action comes in.

This is why I love to reflect on,

Okay,

Conditioning.

What's leading to this?

If somebody is angry at me,

What's leading to this?

What are the conditions so I don't just lash back out at them?

If I'm angry,

Can I remember the conditioning that leads to that?

That can help me bring compassion to myself.

It can help me bring compassion to others so that I'm not perpetuating cycles of anger and violence,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

Just honey tip and poison roots.

Can we even just take a moment to pause and ask ourselves,

I'm angry again.

Can I map it out?

What am I getting from this?

Is there a better way to move forward?

Great.

Okay.

We're going to close this segment because I think this is helpful for folks to think about,

Work on,

Let us know your questions for Dr.

Jed because he is not my cohost,

But my frequent contributor.

You're going to get me eventually.

At least for now.

I hope so.

But whatever you want him to talk about,

Let us know.

We're going to be talking about distraction,

I think,

Next.

Stay tuned for that.

And for those of you that have questions for Dr.

Jed,

Send them in to podcast at your life and process.

Com and I'll bring them to him here.

Thank you.

Okay.

So you've got to love Dr.

Jed,

And I really appreciate him taking the time from his busy schedule to have these conversations with me.

There's so much in this episode and I want to boil it down to a few skills for you to try out at home.

As Dr.

Jed and I discussed,

Anger is energy and it's up to us to use our compassionate mind to channel that energy effectively.

So the first thing I want you to try this week is to become a mind and body watcher.

Pay attention to your body's alarm system.

Notice when you're moving from green to yellow to orange to red,

What factors are making you more vulnerable to getting into that red zone?

And think about those three S's,

Sleep,

Substances,

And stress.

They're going to make you more vulnerable.

And then second,

Map out your habit loop with anger.

What triggers you?

How do you tend to express your anger?

What does it look like behaviorally?

And what are its consequences?

As Dr.

Jed mentioned,

It's important to focus on negative and positive consequences.

And then finally,

What are the values that are driving your anger?

What's really underneath it for you?

What do you care about that you fear is going to be taken away or that you want to protect?

And how can you act on those values directly?

Dr.

Jed calls this the bigger,

Better offer because the consequences of acting on your values and acting from a place of compassion are really intrinsically rewarding.

They keep growing over time and you'll never habituate to that positive feeling of living out your values.

So try these three steps out.

Let me know how it works for you.

Remember,

You can download these tips from the episode page on yourlifeinprocess.

Com and can also let me know by emailing me at podcast at your lifeinprocess.

Com or contacting me through Instagram.

I can't wait to hear from you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Your Life in Process.

When you enter your life process,

When you become psychologically flexible,

You become free.

If you like this episode or think it would be helpful to somebody,

Please leave a review over at podchaser.

Com.

If you have any questions,

You can leave them for me by phone at 805-457-2776 or by email at podcast at yourlifeinprocess.

Com.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not meant to be a substitute for mental health treatment.