The Hidden Reason You’re Still Angry

Welcome to This Daring Adventure podcast where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life. In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills you need to make your life the adventure you want it to be. Here's your host, mindset mentor, and life coach, Tri

Hey everybody. Welcome back to This Daring Adventure. Today I wanted to talk about something that might hit close to home. It is when anger isn't really about what you think it is. Oftentimes we think we're so angry about a situation, something somebody did, something that happened. But I want to walk you through a recent coaching session I had with a client. And it's emotional and it's layered, and I think it's something so many of us do without even realizing it. And I know. I've done it myself, and there was an example, and of course now I can't think about what that example was, but I know that I just wanted to hold onto that anger and that that feeling that, intense emotion. And it's always challenging to get myself to sit down and process the emotion because sometimes I feel like I really just wanna hold onto it. And it's more of a physical thing, like my body just wants to hold onto that. And I will tell you what I do in that situation. Definitely wanted to go through processing it, but let's dive into the story and then we'll get into how we can address it. So my client had just buried her grandmother. And what made it a little bit more complicated is that this grandmother had buried all four of her children, and my client's dad was the first to pass 20 years ago, and then the others had followed. So when her grandmother died, there were no surviving children, just the grandchildren. And naturally they were the ones responsible for the arrangements. And one of her cousins who lived locally took charge of the details, made the arrangements, handling the logistics, and speaking at the service. And after everything was said and done, the cousin called my client to let her know that they decided to put their grandmother's ashes in the same plot as my client's father's Ashes. She said it was because it was a family plot. And my client said okay at the time, but inside it triggered something pretty intense. And she came to me and she was angry. She said, it's my dad's ashes, shouldn't have been consulted. I'm his next of kin. And so that's where we started. Now, from the outside, this looks like a logistics problem. Who gave permission? Who should have been asked? Who gets to decide what happens with ashes? But when I started to ask her questions, It became clear that this wasn't really about ashes or cemeteries or next of Kin rights. This was about old anger that hadn't been processed, anger that had been sitting there since her father had died 20 years ago. Back then, her aunt, her dad's sister, took care of everything. And my client was just 20 years old at the time, so legally an adult, but young grieving, probably overwhelmed. And so her aunt had managed the estate, made the decisions, and even controlled how the money from her dad's estate was distributed. And my client didn't question it at the time. She just said, fine, let her handle it. But now, 20 years later, when her cousin handled things again. It stirred up all of the emotion and it reignited or uncovered a wound that had never really healed. And this is what happens when we don't process our emotions. They don't go away. They just wait. They wait for a future version of the same pattern to reappear, and then suddenly we're furious, but not about the thing that's in front of us. So I asked her to step back. And I said, why is this so important to you? Why does this matter right now? And at first she said, because it's my dad's ashes, and I should have been asked. But when we slowed it down, she realized she wasn't just mad about being left out. She was mad that 20 years ago she hadn't stepped in. And she was mad that she let other people take over something that felt sacred. She was mad that she didn't speak up then, and now it felt like history repeating itself. And here's what's so fascinating. Her brain thought the problem was her cousin, but the real pain was self-directed. It was regret. It was the sense of lost power. Her mind dressed that up as anger at someone else because it's so much easier to deal with than sadness or regret, right? The, the anger is uncomfortable, but our brain sees it as more comfortable than some of these other emotions, and This matters because this is what we all do. We think we're angry at someone for what they did, but what we're really angry about is something unresolved inside of us. We want justice. We want control. We want to feel like we matter. And when someone's action or inaction brushes up against an old emotional wound, Our brain lights up like a wildfire. It says, see, there it is again. I don't matter, but it's not happening again actually. It's just that we never cleaned up the first time, and so what happens when we don't deal with it? We carry that emotional residue forward. We replay it with new people, new situations, new versions of the same story. We become the common denominator in our own frustration loops, and this is how we stay stuck. We stay angry about something we could have processed and released years ago, except it keeps coming back. We have thought loops about it. We don't let it go. We ruminate and then we bring up all of that emotional charge again. And we get upset and we lose time and energy and focus on, working on what we actually want to create, what we wanna do, and where we wanna focus our energy. Instead, we're stuck and old patterns and old stories. So I told her, I don't want to help you negotiate with your cousin because that's surface. I want to help you understand what's really going on. Because see, if we just solve the external situation, we never evolve. But if we use the situation as a mirror, we grow and we looked at her options. She could view this through two lenses. Lens number one was, why didn't they ask me? I should have been consulted. They were inconsiderate. This perspective fuels anger, blame, and disconnection. Lens two is I appreciate that my cousin handled everything. I didn't have to manage it, and she even called to keep me informed. this perspective doesn't mean ignoring your feelings. It means consciously choosing a thought that gives you peace. Both lenses are available. The question is, what do you want to wear? And I told her, you think your cousin caused your anger? But the truth is you're causing your anger by the way you're thinking about your cousin. And that's the most powerful truth in coaching. You are not at the mercy of what happens. You are at the mercy of what you make it mean. And as we talked, she admitted something powerful. She said, I don't even know why I want to be mad, but the anger feels more compelling. I'm telling you, I've experienced this myself. And that's the thing. Anger often feels productive. It gives us energy. It feels like movement, but it's a false sense of power. True power doesn't come from reacting, it comes from understanding. And so when we slowed everything down, I asked her, if you weren't mad, what would you say to your cousin? And she said, I'd probably just say, thank you for organizing everything, and next time, maybe let's decide together exactly right the truth. Calm, clean, direct. But when we're full of unprocessed emotion. That calm truth gets buried under a pile of justification, resentment, and overthinking. And that's why we don't speak from clarity. We speak from hurt. And so by the end of the session, she saw it clearly. This wasn't just about ashes, it wasn't about her cousin. It was about unfinished emotion from losing her dad. And she saw that her anger was her brain's way of trying to protect her from feeling powerless again. And when she realized that, that the anger started to lose its grip. It can also help to sit and process the emotion to allow it, and that looks like just a mini meditation sitting down, closing your eyes, taking a few deep breaths, identifying where you are, experiencing that anger in your body, and then just sitting within it and allow it and feel it. Breathe into it. Take a few minutes. Sometimes it just takes two or three minutes to just allow it and it will start to dissipate and move through you. But the anger starts to lose its grip, and that's the work we do in coaching. And certainly this month in my coaching membership you redefined. We are working on releasing and rewriting the past. Processing some of these old emotional charges and then reframing the way we think about them and the story we tell about them is some of the most powerful work we can do. You don't need to fix other people. It's about freeing yourself from the patterns that keep you suffering. And so take a moment and turn this story inward. What's the situation in your life that's triggering an outsized emotional response? Maybe it's something small, a text not returned, a decision made without you. A family dynamic that keeps repeating and ask yourself, what is this really about? What old story might this be touching? What feeling am I avoiding by staying angry? Because until you answer those questions, you'll keep thinking you're angry at someone. When really you're angry at your own unprocessed pain, and that's not a life you wanna keep living. You want to spend that time and that energy on creating something that's gonna move you forward, that's gonna keep you evolving. And so as I said, this is the work that we're doing in my coaching membership. You redefined, we take all of this knowledge and all of these tools and skills, and we apply it directly to your life, These moments that make you spin, we slow them down, we clean up the thinking, we process the emotion, and we learn how to create peace on purpose. This isn't just about becoming a better person, it's becoming a freer person, someone who isn't at the mercy of what everyone else says or does. Someone who can feel anger, process it, and then decide consciously what to think and how to act. And that's how you build self-trust, and that's what redefining yourself looks like. I want to invite you to come join us inside you redefined. It is where we take everything here and actually apply it to your life. So you will learn how to stop spinning, how to handle your emotions cleanly, how to build self-trust, and how to create a calm, powerful relationship with yourself. And you can try it free for seven days and right now. When you join, you lock in the founding members price of just $19 a month for as long as you stay. So the link will be in the show notes, come and join us. We're doing the real work, the kind that changes how you experience your entire life. You don't need to control everyone else to have peace, you just need to redefine your relationship with yourself, and that is some of the most powerful work you can do. Alright, my friends, that's what I have for you today. Take care and I'll see you next week. Bye-bye.