A new way to look at your anger

0:07Welcome to this episode of the Motherkind podcast. We are sponsored by Stalker. I am so happy you are here. Thank you for pressing that little play button. Today is a solo episode with me, your host Zoe, and this is such an important episode because we are talking about something that does not get talked about enough and that is anger. And when I think about anger for us mothers, I think about two things. The first is shame reduction because anger is still a taboo, isn't it? Mothers are meant to be endlessly grateful and calm and happy and everything else is to be swept under the carpet and that's just not the reality.

0:49So we need to know that anger is a normal reaction to stress and we need to know how to quickly forgive ourselves and repair with ourselves and our children. And the second thing I think about is tools because we are not taught how to manage our anger. I certainly wasn't. This is a new skill I've had to learn. And we need two things. We need in the moment strategies and we need to look deeper at our anger because anger can also be an incredible force for change. And if you are thinking, huh, I hear you, I'm going to explain in the episode. So in the next 20 minutes, this is going to be the best 20 minutes that you will invest today because I am going to share ideas and tools that is going to help you think about your anger differently.

1:45It is going to help you respond to your anger differently and I'm going to give you some incredible in the moment strategies to reduce that reactivity and that rage. Let's get into it.

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4:36So let me start with a story that happened to me just a couple of nights ago. I had a deadline on the podcast. There was an episode that needed sign off. It needed to go out the next morning. It was quite late. It was about 9pm. I was knackered from the day and both my girls, they're four and eight, they were still messing around and I put them to bed two hours before. I had probably done hundreds of times up and down the stairs and they just would not settle. I did quite well for about 20 minutes of when I could feel that anger bubbling up. I was regulating myself. I was able to breathe and I kept quite calm.

5:14I was reminding myself, this isn't an emergency. Everyone's okay. I don't need to react as if it's an emergency. I can do my work in the morning if I needed. So I did about 20 minutes of sort of, I would call it like regulating myself, soothing myself, even though I could feel that anger was bubbling right under the surface. And then I had this thought. I remember that it was swimming at school the next morning, which tires them out. And I suddenly thought they need to get to sleep because otherwise tomorrow night is going to be even worse after school. It's going to be an absolute nightmare. And at the point I had that pressured thought, I heard a giggle from one of them.

5:54And that was it. I flipped my lid. I stormed down the corridor and screamed at my four-year-old, will you just go to sleep? And in that moment, I'm going to be honest with you, I had totally lost control. I had flipped my lid, which is where my rational brain had gone offline. I was completely hijacked by my fear centre in my brain. And here's what I did next. Everyone cried, me included, because it's actually quite rare for me to shout in that much anger. So I felt instantly guilty. The first thing that I did right away was regulate myself. We can't regulate or help our kids or do any sort of repair or sorting out if we're still dysregulated.

6:41So the first thing that I did was I took some deep breaths, stood in the room with my little one crying, almost shaking. She was so afraid of me. And I forgave myself really quickly. I reminded myself that that is a completely normal response to a really stressful situation. There was a lot going on that made it really stressful. I reminded myself that it was the end of a long day. I had nothing else left to give. And by that point, I think they were kind of afraid of me and they both went to sleep and it shook me up. Like, I'm not going to lie. It shakes you up, doesn't it? I have feeling that explosion and that guilt and seeing those little faces, but I need you to know that it's completely normal.

7:24And it's so important that we talk about it because if we know it's something that's normal, then we can give ourselves some tools to help ourselves both go there less, get angry less, and make amends and repair quicker afterwards. So of course I did say sorry, I did repair, I explained that it wasn't them, that mummy was under pressure, that it had been a long day, and of course in the morning it was all fine. So the first thing I really want you to remember about anger is that it's a normal reaction to stress and pressure. And if you remember the Rick Hansen episode, you'll remember that he said based on cortisol levels, parenting is more stressful than most paid jobs.

8:04So there is nothing wrong with you for exploding in anger. And I'm going to talk you through now three things that I want you to know and I think can help. The first thing is that we really need to understand this drip, drip, drip effect. So had my girls been messing around in their rooms and it wasn't bedtime and it wasn't the end of the day, there is no way I would have reacted in that way. It's everything that went before it that caused me to react like that. And this is what is known as the drip, drip, drip effect. It always happens or often happens at bedtime because it's cumulative. So each of us have a tolerance for how much stress we can handle.

8:42Psychologists call it the window of tolerance. And we can handle quite a lot, can't we? We can handle, you know, multiple meltdowns, negotiations, a day at work, a day wrangling bedtime, a day of food thrown on the floor. We can handle it. We can handle it. We can handle it until we can't. And then something flips our lid, which is again, when that rational brain goes offline and we just lose it.

9:11I need you to remember this. It is the cumulative effect that is causing that outburst in anger. It's not the thing. It is not the thing alone. So I want you to use that to have some compassion for yourself. And what we do about it is that we need to regulate more throughout the day. What does that mean? That means taking little micro moments between school pickup and making the tea or between your work commute and the next thing that you've got to do that day. Take a few moments and it can literally be a moment, a minute or two, just to do some deep breaths, maybe just shaking it off, which I know sounds bonkers, but the science and the research behind doing that is unbelievably compelling.

9:54Anything we can do to regulate throughout the day is going to stop that cumulative drip, drip, drip effect. What we're doing when we do that effectively is we're widening that window of tolerance as we go throughout our day. So that's really important. The second thing about anger is that it can signal unmet needs. Yes. So we know what we want to do in the moment. We talked about regulating ourselves. We talk about breathing, but also we need to look at the bigger picture. Anger can signal unmet needs in tiny ways, like you have a need for your child to put their shoes on when you ask, but actually, and more importantly, in much bigger ways.

10:29So if you are continually pushing your needs down, I want you to imagine some water and a beach ball and the needs are your beach ball. And if you keep pushing your needs down and down and down and down and down and ignoring, ignoring, ignoring. What will happen is that when you let go, it will explode. We all know that when we try and push a ball underwater, it explodes. And that is what happens when we push our needs down, when we ignore our basic needs for food, for water, for rest, for connection, for fun, for purpose. What will happen is that it will explode outwards. And that is often, I think, what is happening with our anger.

11:07So the answer here is to think about what needs might you be ignoring? Do you somehow need to get some more time for yourself? Do you need to build in some more time to speak to your friends? Or do you have deeper needs? Maybe you need more connection in your life. Maybe you need a greater sense of purpose. Maybe you are living in the wrong area or doing the wrong job. And all of this will contribute to our anger and our explosion and how short that fuse is. And the third thing that I want to talk about anger is it can be useful. And you might be thinking, what the hell, Zoe? I hate my anger. How on earth can it be useful?

11:48Well, you are talking about there's a difference between dysregulated anger, which often comes out of rage, like that example that I gave, and regulated anger. and actually anger is a really positive when it's regulated it's a really positive and powerful emotion one of the podcast guests said to me anger was her favorite emotion because it was the emotion of self-esteem there's something about if someone crosses your boundary or you see something that's unfair or you want more for your life or more for your kid's life that can bring up this feeling of anger and actually when I think about it it was anger that led me to start this podcast led me to start Motherkind, I felt so angry at the lack of conversation, the lack of support and practical tools for mothers that I decided to do something about it.

12:31So anger is often the first step in beginning to advocate for ourselves at work, in our partnerships, in our parenting, at home, in our families. Often it's that feeling of, I deserve more than this. You deserve more than this. We deserve more than this. That is that feeling of anger and it can be incredibly powerful. So have a think about that too. What do you feel angry about? Is there any changes that you want to make as a result of that? So those are the three things I really wanted you to hear about anger. I need you to know about the cumulative drip, drip, drip effect and remember to regulate throughout the day.

13:08Two is that anger is often about not being able to meet our needs and it comes out sideways in anger. And the third thing is that anger when regulated can actually be a really positive and powerful emotion. I hope that was helpful. Please do let me know as ever over on Instagram, zoe.blasky and come back next week for another episode.