Bronwyn Schweigerdt: There's No Such Thing As An Angry Person

Can you truly understand and manage your anger?

This week on Life, Health, and the Universe, we promise to unravel the complexities of anger with the help of our expert guest, Bronwyn Schweigerdt.
A seasoned psychotherapist , Bronwyn offers deep insights into how anger often masks deeper emotions like pain and rejection.
Learn how your past experiences shape your current reactions, particularly in relationships, and gain valuable strategies on how to express anger assertively to improve your emotional and mental well-being.

We explore anger's critical role as a signal for underlying issues and discuss practical ways to manage and express this emotion healthily.
Bronwyn and I differentiate between aggressive and assertive communication, stressing the importance of taking responsibility for our emotions to foster healthier interactions and prevent explosive outbursts or disassociation leading to depression and anxiety.

Parenting also takes the spotlight as we discuss how attuning to a child's emotions can foster emotional resilience and healthier relationships. Practical strategies on validating and understanding children's feelings, non-verbal communication, and addressing root causes of emotional issues are shared to help parents cultivate a supportive environment.

We conclude with a heartfelt discussion on healing strained mother-daughter relationships, offering personal insights and broader implications for family dynamics.

Don't miss this enriching episode filled with actionable advice and profound insights into the power of anger and emotional healing.

Bronwyn has a great podcast, Angry at The Right Things, where she delves into controversial and thought provoking topics on human behaviour.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, hello. It's Nadine here, and I'm here with this week's episode of Life, health and the Universe, and this week I'm joined by Bronwyn Swaggart. Got it right? Yep, welcome Bronwyn. We did have a kind of little quick joke about how us Aussies probably want to call you Bronny us.

Speaker 2: 0:22

Aussies probably want to call you Bronnie. I mean I love it because in the United States people are like, oh, that's such a unique name Really, so I love it that anyone's even heard my name, much less have a nickname already for me.

Speaker 1: 0:39

I love that, I love it, I love it. The Aussies have this special knack of giving everyone a nickname. So, yeah, you're not alone. So, welcome Bronwyn. I want to say Bronnie again, just because Quick intro from me You're a psychotherapist and anger expert, uh, you're the, you're an author and a podcaster and uh, you specialize, I believe, in marriage and family therapy. Um, and you have, um, well, you, you work in helping people break free of depression, anxiety disorder and even psychosis by reconnecting them with their anger. That's in a nutshell, you and your specialization. No doubt we're going to get into a whole bunch of really interesting stuff here and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. So welcome, let me hand over to you.

Speaker 1: 1:44

You can fill in any gaps um, and then we'll tease out all of the things well, no, I mean, why don't you go ahead and dive in?

Speaker 1: 1:53

because I know you are chomping at the bit oh, okay, okay, well, um, so there was nothing else you wanted to add to that little intro no, because I think it'll get you know um, unrevealed as I go, cool yeah and um, you're adding a little bit of mystery, um, so what I'm gonna say, before we do get stuck in, is I listened to part of one of your podcasts this morning and it was an episode called the truth about love, health and freedom, and one thing that you just said about you said about yourself was that you're I can't remember the exact words, but you said something like I'm kind of intense, or people tell me I'm intense, or something like that.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Right, and I thought, well, that's interesting, but what I, what I gained from listening to your episode about you is that you have some hard truths that you're delivering and they can be difficult for people to swallow, but I actually love that. You have those hard truths and you're and you're not um, you don't express them in an unkind way. It's it's. It's actually a very generous way of expressing these, these nuggets of information you have because we're, because we're um, we can often be led down the wrong path or believe that there's something wrong with us that needs to be fixed and you're like no, we're just getting it, we're just getting it wrong, so, anyway that.

Speaker 1: 3:37

So let's warn the audience we might be sharing some hard truths today with this intense woman, um, but uh, really, the the information that we're going to unpack is invaluable, I believe. So let's dive in my yeah, yeah. So let's talk about anger. Let's just get straight in. I've got, I've got a whole bunch of notes written in, but one thing that you identify yourself as is as an anger expert. So, yeah, let's start high level. What is anger? What is anger?

Speaker 2: 4:18

Yeah, good, that's a great place to start. Good, that's a great place to start, yeah. So anger the reason why I'm an anger expert is because I believe it is the most misunderstood emotion thing like in the whole universe, and not just by the general public, like the therapeutic community, the psychology community, the experts, even they just don't seem to know what to do with anger or what anger can do, especially when we um disassociate from our anger, which most humans tend to do. Um. So, yeah, I could say more about that. But, um, what is anger?

Speaker 2: 5:03

Anger is a secondary emotion, meaning there is always a primary emotion under the anger, and that primary emotion is some kind of pain, some kind of hurt, and it's usually, if not almost always, some kind of feeling of rejection. And when I say rejection, I mean everything synonymous with rejection. So feeling excluded, feeling, um, some ways abandoned, and rejection can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. If we felt rejected as children, uh, chronically, by our parents, which a lot of us did, and we don't even, we don't even know, you know at a conscious level that we did, it's kind of unconscious, um, then we have this big trigger and whenever we perceive something to even feel, or you know something to even feel, or, you know, smell like rejection. We get triggered and we show anger or we feel anger. So let me give you an example Someone who is really hypersensitive to rejection because they, you know, felt it throughout their young childhood, early childhood. But they haven't done the work, they're not aware of it. They can feel rejected just when another person, especially a person close to them, like a partner, you know, a romantic partner, or a child, has their own unique set of thoughts and feelings and even ideologies, and and that feels like a rejection and they get angry. And so a lot of my clients that I work with, um, you know, I mainly work with I only work, I should say, with individuals now, but, um, you know, they grew up where they felt a lot of anger from the parent If they tried to differentiate, you know, go through that process that we're supposed to go through in our teenage years and become our own unique people.

Speaker 2: 7:12

And because the parent felt rejected when the child said, you know, turns out I don't ascribe to those same beliefs that you raised me to have, or it turns out I have a different sexual orientation, or it turns out I have my own unique set of thoughts and beliefs, whatever that means, and so it's not. Yeah, so it can hide under a lot of things, like we could. It could be hidden under, you know, fundamentalism, religion, belief systems of the parents, but what it really is it's anger, because the parent feels rejected and abandoned, because their trigger is so big, and so the child only knows, I don't know, it feels like my parent hates me, and so often the child won't differentiate well, or, if at all, because they can't tolerate the, the parent will abandon them back in some way and the child can't, you know, really do that and so, but that's one example. So anger, the anger that hurts us the most, that harms us, is rooted in feelings of rejection, betrayal, abandonment. The anger that I feel when someone cuts me off when I'm driving my car, that's not. I mean, yeah, I could lead to violence and it could physically hurt me, but that's not the anger that is going to make me psychologically sick or physiologically sick because I can just allow myself to go. You know what, what a jerk he cut me off.

Speaker 2: 8:45

But when I feel betrayed by my partner, by a parent, by my child, by a really close friend, I don't feel oftentimes entitled to feel those feelings. I want to disassociate from them. I don't want to be that vulnerable, um, so I disassociate from my, my anger, and then I I get depressed and that's actually how I ended up becoming a therapist. Is I dissociated from my anger at my spouse, uh, when, and I was in a very uh, severe depressive episode and, um, I went to multiple therapists at the time and I was hardly functioning and I sat there in the chair thinking, you know, I'm barely functional right now, but I'm pretty sure I would still make a better therapist to me than this person would. So part of that healing journey was me becoming a therapist. But anyway, my really severe depressive episodes in my life and I've had about three that have been very severe and even like debilitating Um, we're all from dissociated anger, you know, whether it's at my spouse, uh, at a boss, at a good friend, from feeling betrayed by them, and I just didn't feel entitled to really feel those feelings because we judge our feelings and we say you shouldn't feel that way, and so we dissociate.

Speaker 2: 10:12

And then the anger, you know I say anger is invisible, but it's more real than this chair I'm sitting on right now. It is so real and it doesn't just evaporate is so real and it doesn't just evaporate, it's stagnates in our bodies and it makes us sick. And so we get depressed, we get anxious, we develop mania, we develop psychosis. At times we get autoimmune disorders, we get chronic migraines, insomnia, gi problems. All those things, I believe, are absolutely rooted in disassociated anger that we have suppressed into our bodies and we haven't channeled out in healthy ways.

Speaker 1: 10:56

Wow, I wrote a whole bunch of things there. That was um, where do I start? Um, so when we feel so, you sort of said, when we feel rejected, we disassociate from that feeling. Would you say that then anger is the feeling that would usually come?

Speaker 2: 11:30

from that. It can Disassociation.

Speaker 1: 11:38

Or that we should use anger as a way of expressing that feeling.

Speaker 2: 11:41

Yeah, yeah, I mean really. So our anger. I see anger as like the um, the light on the dashboard of our car saying hey, hey, hey, let me get your attention. Like something's wrong, check under the hood. And so when we you know, and so we don't look at the dashboard light on our car and go, that's annoying, I'm just going to ignore that because it's so annoying. No, we say, oh, wow, there's something wrong that needs my attention, that needs resolution, and so that's what anger is.

Speaker 2: 12:12

And so if we can, you know, reorient our relationship with our anger and not see it as evil, wicked, bad, sinful, whatever shameful, um, and see it as you know, this is actually my body telling me something's wrong, and I don't have to explode, I can just say, you know, like what I could, what I really needed to say to my my spouse, steve, back then when that happened. So we had undergone a move and I was extremely lonely, like I was dying of loneliness because I knew no one, I had no job. I just put my daughter in school Like it was. It was horrific job. I just put my daughter in school Like it was. It was horrific. And what I needed to say to him. If I had been able to to connect to my anger and to channel it out of my body in a healthy way, it would have led me to say you know what, steve, I'm so lonely right now, and you can tell I'm really struggling. You can see how depressed I am, and what I need from you is just to look me in the eyes and validate how I'm feeling. Just say you know what, bronwyn, this looks so hard. I see how hard it is for you and it it's breaking my heart.

Speaker 2: 13:28

If he had just done that, I would have felt like a million dollars. I would have felt not less alone because I was feeling so, so lonely. And then when he looked at me, I felt like he kind of had this look in his eye like what's wrong with you, can you just get it together? And so now I felt more lonely. I felt like my you know, my attachment partner is now rejecting me too, or, you know, um estranging me in a way. And um, yeah, if I could have just said that, it would have been really helpful, cause I know he would have stepped up to the plate and done it, but I didn't do that and he didn't know what to do, and so the depression just kept spiraling. But you know. So, channeling our anger doesn't mean yelling and screaming. It just means saying something like you know what, nadine, that's not okay. When you say that, like that's not okay, yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1: 14:25

Yeah, that partly answered the next question I was going to ask and I um, so I kind of yeah, I guess talk um thinking about this idea of anger, um, because what we generally think of as anger is like that explosive right so it's like a reaction to a feeling, but it comes outward and it can often be like an attack and I guess when you say that, you know it's often can be a sign of rejection, for example.

Speaker 1: 15:01

That that's kind of like a defense mechanism Right, push, push away, defend and then the other side of it is that disassociation of it is that disassociation, and it's when we disassociate that that we can experience those feelings of, although we can experience depression, anxiety, yeah, those kind of things when there's outward anger, I would expect that there's still those, uh, the there's still the possibility of well, we're not getting to the bottom of it, right, we're not getting to the possibility of. Well, we're not getting to the bottom of it, right, we're not getting to the bottom of the root cause.

Speaker 1: 15:39

And so yes there's that explosive or there's that disassociation, but they both can lead to the same outcomes in terms of how our mental health is affected, which is that yeah, I mean the explosive people, um, they're the ones that everyone gives the attention to, for better, for worse.

Speaker 2: 16:04

they get all the attention and that. So it's kind of like, you know, when I talk to my clients, it's like all they think of is, oh, that's aggressive and the and the only other alternative is to be passive, or, I guess, passive, aggressive. But really there's this healthy place called being assertive, you know. And so no one, it's like no one thinks about that. No one thinks about, oh, I can just be assertive and say, hey, that really hurts my feelings when you make fun of me right now. I don't have to explode and I don't have to dissociate, I can just be assertive and and, yeah, so the explosive people do get all the attention. Everyone kind of caters to them, um, and so that we could talk more about that, that cause.

Speaker 2: 16:47

That's no good either, but we all just need to say you know what? I'm angry, these are my feelings. I'm only responsible for my feelings. I'm not responsible for your anger. You are, um, that's not a really responsible way to be responsible for your anger. Um, if you want to back up and you know, use your words and tell me what's going on. I'm willing to listen, I'm willing to work with you, but I'm not going to work with, like you know, temper tantrum throwing. I'm not going to do that because I'm going to expect you to be an adult and I'm going to be an adult as well wow, yeah, I was, um, still more questions.

Speaker 1: 17:50

Um, you mentioned the like driving in the car thing and, you know, telling someone that they're a douchebag or whatever, yeah, um, for cutting you off, um, and that that's not the same. But, like, when people are extremely angry or they take it out on other people, or if they do become violent, would you say that that's this a progression of the same thing, but at a more extreme level, or are you, are you kind of saying that that's a different?

Speaker 2: 18:28

I think. No, that's a great question. I think that people who are violent so you, we I live in the United States. We have a lot of violence here. We have a lot of gun violence. We have a lot of driving violence we talked about driving, um, but I really think that the people with the guns who are irresponsible, the people who are irresponsible drivers and there are many more irresponsible drivers than gun owners Um, they don't get all the media but, um, but I think they're all just taking out their anger because they can't. They feel like they can't take it out, they can't display it, they can't channel it out in a healthy way with their parents, with their spouse, which whoever it is, and so it's just, you know, going to come out somewhere. I think a lot of people, when they get behind the uh, the wheel, they just need to feel powerful and it's like oh, this is the one place I can feel powerful, because they don't feel that at their home.

Speaker 1: 19:34

Right.

Speaker 2: 19:36

So I'm not condoning that by any means, but I think it. I see it as symbolic.

Speaker 1: 19:43

It's another expression of that. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:46

Yeah, yeah, because if you're a healthy, functioning person and you're assertive and you're getting all your needs met, you don't need to feel powerful on the met, you don't need to feel powerful on the road, you don't need to feel powerful with a gun. You already feel powerful because you're you're not betraying yourself on a daily basis, you're being true to yourself. Yeah, yeah, and that's the good kind of power. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:12

Um so I guess that kind of. I guess that summarizes there's no such thing as an angry person.

Speaker 2: 20:23

Yeah, I don't like the term angry person because to me it's like, you know, if someone says, well, I'm not an angry person, I would say, well, are you a breathing person? Well, I'm not an angry person, I would say, well, are you a breathing person? Because we all have anger, like all humans have anger, and I really want to like help break down that, that stereotype that only some people have anger and some don't. You know cause? That's not true. All humans have anger and you know, really, anger it's not shameful, it's not bad, it's just a normal human experience and it's there for a good reason. It's there to say something's wrong. It's not there.

Speaker 2: 21:06

You know, if we can start to see it more as that warning light, then as something we need to judge, so we can judge our actions, we can judge our behaviors, but we don't judge our feelings. Feelings are not right or wrong. They're not good or bad in their essence. It's what we do with our feelings. So, again, if we only see anger as violence or verbal violence, then yeah, you know that. But that's how someone's channeling that their anger. That's not their actual feelings of anger. Um, so we really need to stop judging feelings. Feelings are involuntary and they're there for a reason.

Speaker 1: 21:50

Yeah, it's, it's really um. Well, obviously you work in the field so you know all about it. But I have two kids, eight and nine, and they have a whole range of feelings and it can be really hard right to not say settle down, like stop crying, like all of those things, or calm down or what's wrong with you. I try to be quite aware of those things and like not sending my kid to their room because they're behaving inappropriately with what they're feeling, it's like we're sort of trying to allow them that well, experience and not be rejected, when it's happening right, right, because, yes, so that's a good point.

Speaker 2: 22:45

When a kid gets sent to their room for being angry, we don't need to say that's shameful. We're teaching them that's shameful, yeah, and they're going to say that shameful. We're teaching them that shameful, yeah, and they're going to make that association and they're going to be the one who come to me when they're an adult and go. I'm not an angry person, but I just have panic attacks all the time and I'll say, oh, my God, okay, so you are angry but you're dissociating. That's why you feel the panic. But, um, that's why you feel the panic, but, um, so, yeah, so what we? What we need to do for one another, is a tune. That's what we need to do and that's set.

Speaker 2: 23:20

And that starts like what I teach with my um in my parenting classes is just saying you know, hey, johnny, you, you seem really angry. What, what do you think's going on? You know, and then maybe Johnny's like well, you know, my teacher made fun of me in front of the whole class. And then you say, wow, I bet that was humiliating. So you just name the feelings. You're angry, that felt humiliating. Um, you know, instead of dismissing, we name it, we validate, and what that does is it diminishes their feelings, their anger, those feelings diminish because what's shareable is bearable.

Speaker 2: 24:04

So when our kids or anyone adult or child in our life, when we can attune to them, when we can listen, when we can validate their anger, um, they're actually feeling better because they know we're sharing those feelings, those feelings are being shared now, um, and that's actually how we do, like de-escalation, that's what they teach people who are first responders, who engage in de-escalation techniques is just validating the people's feelings.

Speaker 1: 24:33

It, it's, it's that simple wow, and and I think that the kids can be our best teachers, if, if we uh choose to learn from them, because they, they also ride out those emotions right, they, they can be happy one minute, crying the next, and then happy again the next minute, and then like I've said to my daughter oh, ages ago I was like, oh sorry, I sorry, I was, uh, you know, angry with you or you know, I blew up or whatever it was.

Speaker 1: 25:06

And she'd be like when? Because? Because it's like it's done, it's over, and it's kind of like, yeah, it's interesting. Um, oh right, I'm just looking at my notes now. So well, let's, let's stay with the, the children, for a minute while we're there and talk about how we can raise truly resilient children.

Speaker 2: 25:40

I guess we've touched on that a bit, right. Yeah, so you know, I think as adults, we, as parents, we put way too much emphasis on words. Like you know, I'll have people say ask me, how can I teach my son that he matters or that he's important, like you know, how can I phrase it? And I'm like you don't need to say it, in fact you shouldn't say it because that's not going to mean anything. What you do is you, when he has a set of feelings which he will like you're saying, when he has a set of feelings which he will like you're saying, you show him his feelings matter by, like, making eye contact, giving him your full attention and just listening. If he's willing to talk or if he's not willing to talk, you just name.

Speaker 2: 26:26

Your face looks really sad right now. You know, johnny, I'd like to hear what's happening. Are you? You know, tell me, are you feeling sad? Are you feeling some other way? So, just showing that we care, that's attunement, the eye contact, the facial recognition, naming what we're seeing. Oh, your shoulders are kind of slumped. I'm noticing that. You know. You look kind of, you know, dejected.

Speaker 2: 26:54

Um, that that teaches our kids that they matter when we pay attention to them and their feelings. That's how they learn that they matter. So us saying, hey, johnny, you matter to me, that doesn't do anything, we have to do it. You know, talk is cheap and we have to and that's how they they realize they matter. And we give them like this template where, even just doing that every so often with them, it's this template for them and their brain and they're like, oh, I matter, I matter to my mom and I matter. And then they go out into the world and they have like this, this inner template that they matter and they're not going to put up with the abusive boss because they matter, they're not going to stay in the abusive relationship because they know they matter. So it's so powerful. What just attuning to them, validating their feelings, you know, does? We have no idea, but we are absolutely creating resiliency in them when we do that.

Speaker 1: 28:05

Yeah, Wow, cool. Sorry, I'm just going through my notes again. I don't want to miss out on any, on any of the good stuff. Um, do you? I think you said that you work mostly with individuals. Now do you work with children as as well, or more?

Speaker 2: 28:25

adults, teens. I do mainly work with teens, um, just because I do it remotely, so children's usually in person with toys and puppets and okay okay, yeah, um, how long have you been working in this field of work?

Speaker 2: 28:42

um, about 10 years now, so it's my second career. Uh, it took me falling into that depressive episode, um, but yeah, it's, you know. Again, I just want folks to know. You know, if you're seeking out therapy, it might take a lot of dating different therapists to find someone who can attune to you. I mean, they're horrible to me when I hear them about what experience they've had with other therapists before they came to me, where a lot of therapists will try to talk you out of your feelings so they'll be very invalidating. A lot of therapists have no idea what to do with anger and so they teach, like teach anger management. So let's just take some deep breaths and you know, count and go for a walk and it's like, well, that can manage my symptoms. But let's get to the root, kind of like you were saying. Like I'm an intense person, I want to get to the root. Let's resolve the root problem so we don't have to waste time managing symptoms.

Speaker 1: 29:55

Yeah, Okay, so I'm going to stick with that line of inquiry that we're going with now. I would like, I would be keen, to come back to the, the um, the teens, um, just to hear some of your insights with with those um, uh, that group of individuals. You mentioned um in some of the materials I've read of yours that where is it? Um something about medication and that?

Speaker 1: 30:29

and I don't think I've got it here, yeah oh, here it is why most types of therapies and medications don't work. So let's talk about um, some some of those things like what, what would what be traditional um therapies? Why do people get medicated like and and some of those things and and like why? Why you believe they don't work?

Speaker 2: 30:55

well, I mean, they can work to manage symptoms, but that's the best that, especially the drugs, that's. All they're doing is managing symptoms. So if that's what you want and you don't want to actually work on the root problem, I mean they, I guess they could have their place if your symptoms are out of control for a time, but that's not a solution, you know, just managing the symptoms, so yeah, yeah, let's get to the root.

Speaker 2: 31:22

Let's figure out what is going on and once we unroot it, once we bring resolution, then you should be able to wean off those meds. Um, and I've had, you know, clients who were heavily medicated for all kinds of things. Just wean off all their meds. It's really awesome. So so, yes, there's, there's hope. There's no need, in my belief, if we're getting to the root problem, to stay perpetually on any medication.

Speaker 2: 31:54

As far as traditional or different therapies, you know it's interesting. Um, as far as traditional or different therapies, you know it's interesting. Um, they kind of present in graduate school. Oh, there's all these different therapeutic modalities you can pick from what you know and they're all equal, more or less. You know, and they're not, and you know no one really.

Speaker 2: 32:15

Yeah, so it's hard because a lot of therapists you know we're only given about two years of graduate school. Psychologists have to get like a, they have to do a dissertation, but I imagine they do the same amount of actual classwork. So you know, we'd like to say we're experts. But you know, I remember too in grad school they say, oh, you're going to learn as you go, and I'm like, well, can you give me more than that? I don't want to learn on these clients. I don't want them to be my guinea pigs, and that's in essence what they are, because we have to get, you know, 3000 hours to get licensed anyway as interns, but anyway. So what I'm saying is there's not a lot of handholding for to show you really what works as a therapist, and so people go to different, you know, ideologies, different theoretical models.

Speaker 2: 33:08

Um, so some of the common ones right now one is called DBT, which stands for dialectical behavioral therapy. Um, it's I. I'm sorry, I, I'm just gonna say I have found it absolutely worthless. Um, yeah, it's it. They're like oh, it's evidence-based, short-term whatever. And I'm like, yeah, I actually did the research on that. Very, very short term, if at all, and only in some populations, does it show any improvement? So what?

Speaker 1: 33:37

that sorry before we go on. Could we go on? Could you give us an example of what that looks like in a session?

Speaker 2: 33:44

yeah, so sorry, yeah, no, no, so we call it dbt and and so a lot of insurance, um, they'll send you to like a group therapy and you're just doing dbt groups. Um, hopefully this is going to change soon, but they're just like okay, so when you have a difficult feeling, just imagine there's a stop sign in your head, just say stop. Just hold up a stop sign and it's like, wow, I'm all better. Thank you, that was like you know. So it's stuff like that or where. Like if you feel, if you're having difficult feelings, go into the freezer and hold a piece of ice until just focus on the ice until you feel better. And it's just like these things like that where I'm like well, okay, and breathing and mindfulness, and those things aren't bad in and of themselves, but are they really getting to the resolution? Oh no, they are definitely not getting giving anyone insight or self-awareness to what is bothering them in the first place.

Speaker 2: 34:48

And a lot of therapy treats the individual coming to therapy like, oh, you're the problem, and so it looks at the problem like it's intrapersonal, like as in Nadine, you're my client, so the problem is within you.

Speaker 2: 35:06

But see, anger is always interpersonal.

Speaker 2: 35:10

It's never an intra problem, it's interpersonal and so unless you have therapy that really looks at the relational aspect of you, know what's going on and harming you and hurting you in your mental health, your physical health, then it's not going to do any good, because it's always relational, it is always relational. I can just say that flat out. I can just say that flat out. So if, if I'm telling you, you know, just think some positive thoughts, nadine, and take some deep breaths, and you know, um, you know, get a, get a Jasmine scented pillow for when you go to sleep at night, like that's nice, but I could Google that, like you could Google that and like you don't. You need a person. You need a person your therapist, hopefully to be a person and to to listen and really understand, like, what is going on and to really give you a framework, a paradigm for why you're being affected the way you are by this relationship that you're in. And you need someone to help you have insight and understanding, and without that it's just not going to work.

Speaker 1: 36:25

Yeah right, because I guess, as you said, even with the like, if someone's not being prescribed medication, if they're being told strategies, you know like breathe through it or hold the piece of ice, whatever it might be, that's kind of like still looking at the symptom, right, it's like, oh, I sense anger coming. I'm just gonna do this for a minute. Um, right, rather than what you're doing, which is guiding your client to get down into that place that might be pretty well hidden, I would expect, where the where the seed of the anger comes from kind of yes and no, because people start talking immediately about the relationships immediately in therapy, but they don't really they need.

Speaker 2: 37:20

So we're all blind to ourselves. We are absolutely all blind to ourselves. So we need another person to be a mirror, and that's what a good therapist is. They are a mirror giving you a true reflection of yourself. Not, you know, people in our lives will mirror us, but they will give us a distorted reflection, and so a good therapist will give you a true reflection so you can start to learn to trust yourself. You can start learning. Okay, I'm not crazy. This person is gaslighting me. Okay, I'm starting to connect with my anger. Now I'm starting to learn about boundaries. I'm starting to be assertive. I'm going to channel this anger that I'm getting validated right now into boundaries, into assertiveness, into accountability Okay, cool.

Speaker 1: 38:20

So if you've had some, you've been working with people and sort of identified that these feelings of anger, when they are internalised they can lead to disease, dis-ease yes, physical and emotional depression, anxiety, bipolar psychosis, but you also mentioned gastrointestinal issues. Um, what have you seen happen with the some of the people that you've worked with when you have started to help them, to validate their experience, channel their feelings?

Speaker 2: 39:12

yeah, well, I can give you a lot of examples, but one of my favorites is a gal I've been working with for maybe a year and a half now, and she had severe psychosis. And when I say that she's so, that can mean delusional thoughts or hallucinations. She didn't have delusions, she had hallucinations. She had auditory, but I think more visual hallucinations, um, auditory, but I think more visual hallucinations, um, and she thought she was nuts. I mean, she thought she was absolutely insane and I was just like I think your mom's the insane.

Speaker 2: 39:48

One Sounds like she's evil and she's like oh, I think you might be right, and she's like think you might be right, and she's like. I've been in therapy since I was like a young teen and you're the first person who's actually like reflected the truth back to me my mom is evil and I just needed someone else to see that for me. And so, anyway, she worked to completely extricate herself from her mother, successfully, um, and she's had no psychosis, she's had no anything, she's gotten off all her meds all her meds yeah wow, yeah, do you see, um, that, like that's been a pretty she's.

Speaker 1: 40:34

You've both been pretty committed doing that for a year and a half to get to the point that you're at now. Do you do you, when you're working with someone and they've, you know, reached this point, do you set them free or do they? Yeah, does the relationship continue?

Speaker 2: 40:54

I always, um, you know we'll check in with them, but I, you know I'm here if you need me in a pinch, so you can just reach out. You know you're free to launch, but it's nice to know they could always come back to me for like a check in if something comes up. You know that they weren't planning, because those things do happen, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:16

This is on kind of a bit of a tangent, but not really so. The episode that I listened to of your podcast that I um about halfway through it was the truth about love, health and freedom, and you talked and the reason I wanted to talk to you about this because you were talking about your own relationship with your mum and almost what forgive me if I have misinterpreted this or said it the wrong way but almost a relief that you had when she passed away and that there was some kind of you know, people were surprised at how you expressed that. So I guess you know, know, and then talking about this client that you had who had a, you know, obviously had a dysfunctional relationship with her mum and like needing to um, separate herself from that, yes, yeah, in order to heal. You're a mum. So, like I think, and I'm a mum and I've got a daughter, have you got a daughter or son?

Speaker 1: 42:26

Yeah, yeah, daughter, yeah, exactly. So I don't know where this question is kind of going, but hopefully you'll just pick up on what I'm trying to get at. Had this questions kind of going, but hopefully you'll just pick up on what what I'm trying to get at the relationship between mother and daughter can be difficult yeah, I mean absolutely, I mean mine, so I have a whole episode, not whole.

Speaker 2: 42:54

A good chunk of one of mine is about my own very difficult relationship with my daughter we're good now, okay, but um, we, yeah. So what is that one called? Um? It's called how to get over betrayal, a betrayal in the best way, how to recover from betrayal this way, okay. So, um, oh yeah, so yes, so I'll just say we all screw up our children.

Speaker 1: 43:20

We all do it's like we know that imprinting, imprinting start is like from zero to seven, and it's not until you're about year eight you go. Oh shit, that's too. I was too deep. I was too deep in all of the things.

Speaker 2: 43:38

No, we absolutely all screw up our children, and I am, yeah. So I'm very open about how I hurt my daughter and she felt very betrayed by me. So the same move that I mentioned earlier where I fell into the depression. She felt very abandoned by me because, you know, if you've ever been in depression, it's like you've lost yourself. And so she was five at the time and she knew her mom was still alive physically, but there's no like smiles anymore, there's no eye contact, there's just like I'm just like dead inside. And also she'd gone through the same move as I had.

Speaker 2: 44:21

I think it was very difficult for her and I never asked her a question, I never attuned to her, I never, you know, showed any concern about, you know, her losing her friends and her community and her dog, which was like her sibling, that she had lost just before we moved. So she felt very rejected and abandoned by me at that time and she acted like she hated me. I became like her enemy, um, for the next 14 years and it was horrible. And I it took until the last year, year and a half, two years, that I even really understood where my rupture with her happened and what my contribution was. And so I've had to work very hard to win back her trust and apologize and say you know what, edie, I know that you felt absolutely rejected by me and I was in a depression. I know you understand that now because you're an adult. But I want to let little Edie know that she wasn't the problem, that the rejection she felt wasn't an Edie problem, it was a mom problem, and I just want you to know that and I'm so sorry. And you know we now have the best relationship I ever could have asked for.

Speaker 2: 45:46

She's 20, but it took that and so, um, but then we have other kinds of parents who won't ever admit they made a mistake, they won't ever own their failures and of course we're going to fail, we're going to fail all the time, and they won't do that because they're not healthy enough, they're not psychologically well or willing to do that, and so so I don't want you know, I don't advocate that all my clients or my listeners extricate themselves from their parents. But if you have someone who you know, I don't advocate that all my clients or my listeners extricate themselves from their parents. But if you have someone who you know, like my mother, who actually, you know is the problem, is the problem for your depression, your anxiety, because of just being, you know, evil. You know, I would say evil in a way where they're just chronically rejecting you or mean or cruel, or saying or doing cruel or mean things with the intent to hurt you.

Speaker 2: 46:48

Yeah, you have to separate yourself. You absolutely do, because that's not a healthy parent, and a healthy parent would want what's best for the child and for the child to flourish at all costs, and so you have to do that for yourself. You have to be the healthy parent for yourself.

Speaker 1: 47:06

Yeah that, um, so there's more uh, evidence I think I'm like I haven't read any papers on it or anything to sort of show that when we heal ourselves we can actually heal our lineage backwards and forwards, because one would only. You can only assume that if you've had a parent who is evil, as as you say you know, cruel, unattentive, that they've had their own wounding and that they're sort of carrying that down.

Speaker 1: 47:46

Yeah, how does that sit with you? Just in your own experience, like you've obviously come to some deep realizations about the relationship you have with your mom and some relief when she passed away. Do you still feel like there's been a healing between that relationship you have with her because you've kind of I don't know healed yourself, or yeah, I do, um, you know, yeah, so um, when I I'm doing better at age 53 now than I ever have in my adult life you know, I myself had very severe insomnia for about 30 years, off and on, but a lot of on during those 30 years.

Speaker 2: 48:35

Yeah, and I attribute that to you know. I think I was angry at myself and out of awareness of it, because I was betraying myself by maintaining that or trying to maintain a relationship with my parents. So when I finally woke up and said you know what? This is really wrong, and I'm okay to say that, like, um, this is a revelation, this is you guys are evil and unless you change, this is not going to work like having a relationship. Change this is not going to work like having a relationship. And the minute I was able to do that, I was able to sleep like a baby. I have been sleeping the last few years better than I ever have in my life. Like the insomnia for 30 years is a thing of the past. So I really believe my body was angry at me for betraying myself, overlooking, trying to kind of not see some things that at some level I did see, right, right.

Speaker 1: 49:51

Wow, thank you for that. Yeah, insight. So let's close up. Like I still have a whole page full of things that we could talk about, um, but if there is anything that you would kind of recommend that people can do, or, um, if they are experienced, if, if they are experiencing some of these things like how do we start to work with our own anger, is it about creating those, those boundaries?

Speaker 2: 50:19

Um like yeah. So I would say we start with healing our relationship with our anger. So, starting with you know what? My anger is here for a reason and it's here to help me. It's here to inform me and give me wisdom. I don't have to override it and I also don't have to explode. I can just say I'm feeling kind of annoyed right now and I can feel that. I can feel that and I can know it's valid. So we start with that and as we start to reconnect to our anger and validate it for ourselves, I believe that's how we heal our relationship with ourselves.

Speaker 2: 51:04

So I believe healing our relationship with anger is healing our relationship with ourselves, like our inner child I believe they're one in the same and as our inner child starts to trust us because we're validating her, we're attuning to her, we're advocating for her, with boundaries, with assertiveness, with accountability. You know we integrate and that's really the goal of good therapy is. Or, you know, just becoming a whole person is integrating and um, and that's really what, when we know we've healed and, like I said, now, at 53, I'm sleeping better than I ever have in my life, but I'm also just happier. I'm just happy all the time and I've been the opposite for a long time. So we, when you're whole, when you're integrated, you're not perfect, but you're whole, you're complete, you're integrated. And you're not perfect, but you're whole, you're complete, you're integrated, and and that is worth everything. So we do that by being true to ourselves.

Speaker 1: 52:04

Right, thank you, I really appreciate that. Close, if our listeners want to find you best, best ways to do that, would you want us to direct them? Well, we can give them website podcast you want us to direct them.

Speaker 2: 52:22

Well, we can give them website podcast title of your book. Well, let's start with my podcast. Yeah, that's why I have it. It's for people who will never be my clients, just to get all these things out to everyone else. And it's called Angry at the Right Things and it's found wherever you subscribe to your podcast.

Speaker 1: 52:38

Yeah right, we'll put a link to that in the notes and yeah, it's a great listen, so I'll be tapping into that myself. Thank you so much for joining us, bronnie. Thank you, nadine have a great rest of your day and, yeah, I appreciate the time you've taken with us today. Thanks a lot, yes.