Hey there folks, welcome to episode 18 of a pebble in a pond podcast
Now I'm not gonna lie
This will be the fourth time that I've tried recording this podcast
And I'll make a video and put it on tick-tock to explain this there as well
But I wanted to make sure that everybody that didn't hear it there heard it here
The reason for the delay and the reason for this
This episode taking me longer than I normally would is
Kind of a complex one and we're gonna get into it a little bit more deeply because it became
Really something that I had to talk about
But
For now, let me say this
The episode was done in time and was being uploaded
During the process of the upload I lost my internet connectivity
they're they're laying fiber in my area and so
For whatever reason it just happened that at that time our internet went down
it was down for I don't know probably for four or five hours and
It was overnight so I had started the upload and had planned on
Finishing it up and doing the final touches in the morning
So I had started it and that went out and when I came back to try to load it again
There had been some sort of corruption of the file. So
Me being who I am. I hadn't made a backup. I hadn't really thought about it because I've never had a problem with it. So I
Lost the entire episode
And it was pretty demoralizing because I you know, I the past few episodes before that I had been pretty late
But by a few days to get the episode out and this one
I had made a concerted effort to get out on time and I had just missed the mark because of technical issues essentially
so I I was pretty frustrated and I
Decided that I was gonna just take a day since it was already gonna be late
I was gonna take a day and just let it go and
Then I would come back and rerecord it
well, the problem with that is that I
Came back to rerecord it and I I just couldn't do it. I just could not get
Into this the right mindset
Now let me be really clear, you know, this episode is about anger and
this is a topic that I felt very comfortable making an entire podcast about because
Anger is something that I have lived with for a good portion of my life
It is something that I have learned to manage it is something that I've learned to
Essentially take in as a part of my everyday existence
My my children are are angry as well
We have learned they have learned through me and and and I learned
Really just through life
That anger isn't always a bad thing and that I could focus it I could I could channel it in a way and
so
It was striking to me when I sat down to record this episode for the second time
That I wasn't able to really talk about it effectively. I had a difficult time. I finished it and
I didn't I didn't feel great about it. And so I went back and I listened. Normally I'm not doing that anymore
I'm not going back and listening. I'm I'm just kind of recording and if I feel good, I put it out
and
The reason for that is as I've said before is the whole point would be to be able to do this live
that would be the the the goal is to
To record live so that people can watch me do it live
Maybe I can have some interaction that way
but
I'm just not comfortable with that yet since this is really I'm still learning this all so
So I went back and I listened to the episode this was the second try and
I just was not at all happy with it. I
Didn't feel like I could really capture it at all. I didn't feel like I had
Conveyed the ideas that I wanted to convey
so I took another day and
Probably a day and a half and I just kind of
You know sat back and tried to think about it a little bit tried to do a little bit more reading
I couldn't really I was I was I was frustrated, but I was I was more puzzled at this point in time
So I was just trying to kind of find answers within myself. I took some time to you know, just lay down
I sat and I meditated I did all these things that I've been doing and
I just couldn't I couldn't figure it out. And so I was like, well, I gotta get this episode out
So I sat down and I went to go record it again
and when I did I
Couldn't do it. I just I could not get the
The episode that I had in my head going into it
I just could not get it to come out the way I wanted it to and
I was I was genuinely like
Like nervous at that point in time like I wasn't just puzzling. It was like what what has happened to me?
I can't talk like I'm not able to talk about this
This topic the way that I had I had intended to
and so then I had to take some time and I did I took a few days and I I
I really had to kind of go into the tank and really try to figure this out and and this is what I've come up with
As many of you know, I I had an emotional breakdown back in October of 2023 and
so it was six months ago and I was I
was in a really really bad place and
When I came out of that bad place, I had an entirely different
emotional
Base I guess you could say I was not operating from the same place that I had been before
The depression that had consumed so much of my life and had kind of overwhelmed me and had been speaking for me for
years at that point in time
No longer had the same control over me. It no longer had the same power over me and because of that I
Just I don't know. I guess I guess you could say
And this is the way that I have said it already. I'm just not
I'm just not feeling it the way that I used to emotions are not hitting me the way they used to not now
Not all emotions are that way
but the more that I sat and the more I thought about it the more I realized that I
haven't really been angry I
haven't truly been angry and
I
Haven't truly been angry in almost six months. Well really
Yeah, I mean, I've been I've been excited. I've been disappointed. I've been frustrated. I've been
Sad I've been really sad a lot
I have been I've felt my feelings get hurt
I've I've experienced
You know
The full range of emotions I've felt
You know true wonderful love
from so many different people and in so many different ways and I've
I've really found
Happy
Like a happiness, I guess you could say that I really didn't even know I I could experience
In a way that that I I never I never
Expected it. I never I never really knew that this was possible for me
but in in all of these changes and in all of the ways that I've kind of I
guess
morphed my worldview
The one I certainly was not expecting and the one that has been
Really eye-opening to kind of realize is that I
Haven't really been angry. I
haven't
I haven't lost my temper. I haven't I haven't been out of control
but once
one time
and
Since October of 2023 have I been angry and in that moment when I was
my most angry
Probably that I've been in
20 years
20 years I think that that changed everything in me now. I'm going to go into what happened
It's going to be uncomfortable
But I'm going to I'm going to talk about it and I'm not going to give all the details because I plan on telling this story
In its entirety at another time. So I'll just give some you know, some little details
in this episode
but uh
I have told the story on
My tik tok channel in pieces because I couldn't tell the whole thing at once
But I'll try to tell the whole story here and give everybody an exact
Point at which I think I just lost my ability to really truly feel anger at least
I don't think that I can feel anger anymore unless it is in defense
of somebody or something
And I don't know maybe i'm just completely wrong
I i'd have to find a situation where I can feel that again, but to go from feeling anger every single day of my life
To go from it being a driving force to be really an energy source for me
to all of a sudden being completely disconnected from it as an emotion to being
It almost being foreign to me
It is a really
really strange
uh realization to make and one that i'm not entirely sure i'm comfortable with
So hopefully we can get into it here a little bit in this episode and I know that this this
This intro piece is already 10 minutes long. So i'm gonna cut this off now. We're gonna listen to the song
And we're gonna go ahead and uh get into
episode 18
anger
So anger that's uh, it's a pretty easy one right like everybody pretty much knows what it is
I don't need to describe it or go into it too deeply, right?
everybody everybody's
able to uh
reach their own
No, okay. Well, uh the dictionary definition of anger
is a strong feeling of displeasure
and usually of antagonism
It could also mean
a
threatening or violent appearance or state
strong feeling of displeasure
You know, I don't feel I think this is one of those times where
the dictionary definition of something it just falls so
drastically short of the actual feeling
That it's it's it's almost maddening
It makes it it almost makes you angry to read the dictionary definition of anger
Because those of us that know anger that feel anger that for the lack of better word kind of have lived in anger
We know that it is way more than just a strong feeling of displeasure
Right, like we know we understand
It can be all encompassing it can be overwhelming it can take control of every aspect of you
emotionally mentally
And even physically in the worst case scenarios
So it's important that we understand
Just how powerful of a force this is
There are there are emotions the that humans have that
Some would call prime emotions now. This is not a
Emotions now. This is not necessarily something that is thrown around too often
But this is something that i've read a little bit about and i'm finding that I kind of I kind of tend to believe it
There are certain emotions love obviously is a prime emotion
Um anger in my opinion is a prime emotion
These are the emotions that that can
For lack of a better word drive you
Entirely these are the emotions that
All of that can literally nudge all of the emotions other emotions that you may feel out of the way
And just take over your body take over your mind take over everything for you
Now what's interesting about that is and this is
This is a great uh
Lead in to when I do an episode on love
Um love is really one of two positive emotions, but there are multiple negative emotions jealousy
Jealousy is a big big one
Jealousy can can corrupt you quickly
Anger that's that's the jealousy and anger now some people would say well jealousy leads to anger but jealousy leads to a lot more than just anger
It's a prime emotion
Um there is sadness sorrow
But you know i'm not really doing there's another word that I i'm not really thinking of right now that's deeper than that
a malaise that is that is um so deep and so
Like soul crushing to a certain degree
That that's all you can feel is sadness
And the one that really kind of trumps all of them
Which I guess let's let's let's talk about the other happy one which is happiness, right? That's the other good one
We have we people feel happy and it can really
Control your body it can it can take over every part of you and it can make you it can lift you up and it can make you feel
Things that you can't control
And it can make you it can lift you up and it can make you feel things that you
You know don't normally feel now. Once again. This is another one where happiness is often tied to love
Well, if you're in love you and then you're happy, but you don't have to be in love to be happy
That's a that's a very you know common fallacy
but more so than anger or um
or sadness or
Happiness or love
The the one that drives all of those to a certain degree or that has control over all of those the prime emotion as a human
is fear
and it's something that
At some point in time, we're going to do this episode. We're going to do the episode about fear
And when we do
I think that many of you are going to come out of that episode
And with what I have to say about it
feeling
better
Than you did going into it
And I I say this now
There is no shame
in fear
It is one of the strongest forces on this planet
It is one of the things that has
literally
Moved history in the direction that it has been moving for as long as we've been able to feel fear
It is a primal
Uh emotion it is what drives us as animals
um
And it is so important to understand but this episode isn't about fear. This episode is about anger
so
I wanted to make sure that I I talked about these kind of prime emotions because
They really are kind of the driving force behind things and once you understand that these kind of emotions can
Take over your body take over your responses take over the way your way of thinking
it does really
Put you in a position to understand just how powerful they are
I want to be clear though about this list of prime emotions
love is actually not considered by some psychologists to be on that list and
I just think that's an oversight because I know from personal experience that
love
while being complex is
one of these emotions that
Is all encompassing and I think that those that would take it off of a list of a prime emotion of prime emotions
um
Perhaps don't truly understand it
they they they tried to intellectualize it instead of feel it and
When you feel love, especially the way that I have felt love over the past few months
um
It changes everything it changes it changes everything in your life in a way that
You really don't even feel like you necessarily control anything anymore. You just let that love
That's coming into you and that's coming out of you control
So much of your life and sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes that's a bad thing
but
It does it truly does control you and it makes you do things that maybe you wouldn't normally do
but
You just cross your fingers you say i'm doing it out of love
And hope the hope that it's for the best. That's all you really can do
Now i'm not going to lie about this everybody knows if you've listened to any episode of the podcast
That I love to use quotes
the problem with
using quotes for anger is that
There's just too many
There's like every single person that has ever existed has a quote about anger
And so I I had a hard time
Boiling down
to like any that that necessarily
were representative in my mind of what anger really was because
it just seems like
There's just so many different takes on it. So i'm gonna i'm gonna approach it from this point of view
And I want to make sure this is clear
I'm gonna talk about this in this episode. I'm gonna talk about the fact that anger isn't always a bad thing
But it's really hard to capture that in quotes because almost every single person that has ever quoted about anger talks about it being a bad thing
So it may seem like i'm being a little contradictory with these quotes and I wanted to make sure that was clear
but
I I feel like
because of my experience and because of my understanding of it that um
I
I don't know. Maybe I hate to say i'm going against some of the greatest minds to have ever existed
but I just don't feel like maybe they really
They really understood what it meant to live with anger as as a force in your life
They look at it anger and they see it as
as fleeting they see it as a moment and they they tried to live their life
In a way that I think that and you know, many of us are generation xers
Um, I I don't think that they really understand
anger in the way that we do and um
You know, there's a reason why
Generation x was called angsty
There's a reason why a lot of our music was angry and filled with
disgust towards things that
you know the world that we were essentially being handed and
Uh, the anger of our generation shows up time and time again
And it shows up even now in the way that we have kind of stayed out of a lot of situations
and we've stayed away from a lot of the bullshit that happens in the real world
But I digress
Let me give you the first quote of the episode
Marcus Aurelius once said
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it?
I think that this is a great quote because it does kind of paint the picture that a lot of people
Some people well, I wouldn't say a lot of people I have read many people with this with the take of this
Anger is one of these things that um, it it it can be defining for a person
but
More often than not
Is kind of a magnifying glass for people
you
Oftentimes people that are angry
Will will show themselves in a way that
um
It's like it's almost like when you get somebody and you get them drunk, right?
Like they get they get they start to get tipsy
And you start to see a little bit more of them of who they really are
Because you know the walls come down and they start to behave the way they are
And there are people out there that are fun drunks and there's people out there that are sad drunks
And there's people out there that are violent drunks
And you know every different kind
But
Anger kind of works that same way now, obviously people
Aren't really they're not really fun angry, but um
When somebody starts to get angry, you can really start to see who they are at a level that
Really nothing else does
I was once told and and I I do believe this that you never really know yourself until you get into a fight
Like an actual fist fight. You never really know what you're capable of. You really don't know what you're you know who you are
But but adjacent to that is you never really know who you are until you've been so angry
That you weren't sure if you were in control anymore
And then what did you do?
Now there are people out there that you know, everybody responds to anger a different way
But usually the way that you respond when you're at your angriest is a good
Indicator of who you are deep inside
There are people that get angry and they just you know, they they start to clench their fists and their jaws and they're
You know
They kind of keep it to themselves there are people who get angry and they start to scream and they start to
Carry on and they look to blame other people for their anger
There's people that just get angry and start punching holes and walls and you know breaking stuff and throwing tantrums
And there are people that just stand there
They stand there
quiet
calm
You wouldn't know they were angry
Unless you heard it the the quiver in their voice when they talked about it
You wouldn't know that there was a seething
Going on under their skin. You would never ever know
And at any point in time
Somebody's reaction to this emotion is such that you really do get a good handle on
You know, not just them but
Maybe some of their unresolved traumas some of their
You know some of their past like how they handle anger is a really really good indicator
And I hate to get too therapy-ish here, but it's a really good indicator of
You know the the things that they've gone through in their life and how they've been taught to handle anger
And once again anger is a primal emotion. It's something that everybody will
feel and
They'll feel it when they're angry
They'll feel it whether they've been taught how to handle it or not
but it's
It's telling sometimes
Now i'm going to just give you a piece of advice here as part of this
All of those different ways of
You know exhibiting anger
are
natural
and
Understandable to a certain degree. They're not all good, you know breaking shit and throwing things around and hurting people
These are not acceptable ways of handling anger
And if you're somebody that does those things then you need to figure out
You know how to manage your shit and and we'll talk about that for a moment
But if you are in the presence of or you are one of these people
If you are one of the ones that just sit there
resigned
quiet
And just allow yourself to sit in your anger and you don't lash out and you don't hurt others and you don't say things
Those are the people that you need to stay the fuck away from when they're angry
Those are the people that you do not want to piss off
Those are the people
That are the most dangerous and I don't mean that in like a you know, there's some sort of psycho killer type thing
I mean that in the
these are the people who
Will process the emotion
But does not let that emotion control them. There are times when I am in this mind state mindset
I I it doesn't happen as often as I
Would like
And really honestly, it hasn't happened. I'm not in that mindset anymore
But for a good portion of my life, that's how I was
I would just be so angry all the time and people would kind of pick up on it
But it wasn't you know, you'd have to know me to know how angry I really was a lot of people
Would never know because I had the ability to kind of smile through my anger. I had the ability to kind of
You know make people believe that I wasn't angry but the people that knew me they knew
And they knew not to fuck with me. They knew that you know at any point in time
That quiet reserved
kind of constantly
Bubbling anger could explode they knew that
I you know, I I was a powder keg and they they understood to
uh tread lightly
And that's why I say, you know, you need to be
You need to be wary of these folks
Because as somebody who's been one of those folks
We
Are not handling our anchor in the best way
It seems like we are it seems like we're just
You know, we're good, but we are not
We we are not good and it is not productive and it is not necessarily the best way to do it
Anger is something that needs to be released in a in a healthy way
it's some it's a it's an emotion that comes and
It needs to have a way of getting out of you and if you just
Stuff it down or if you just let it boil
The pressure that builds up that stress that builds up it will explode
And you're going to hurt somebody you're going to hurt something you're going to hurt yourself
You're going to make horrible horrible life decisions
While you're angry and it's so important to remember that
So when marcus aurelia says how much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it
That's what he's talking about
The cause of your anger is almost never as bad as what you are going to do
When you're angry
The damage you cause the things you say
Sometimes they can't be taken back. Sometimes you won't be able to fix it
So it's really important to understand that when you let your anger control you
When you let your anger
Be the driving force in your life
You will regret it you will live with regret
And we already have an episode on regret so you can go back and listen to that
So moving on we're going to go right into another quote and this is maybe one of the more famous quotes on anger
It's one that i've read over and over and over again
It's one that i've been seeing my entire life and this is a quote by aristotle rightfully so
He said
Anybody can become angry that is easy but to be angry with the right person
To the right degree at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way
That is not within everybody's power and is not easy
Now the reason I wanted to use that quote is because i'm going to sit here and i'm going to tell you about this
The story of my life
The last time I was angry and I kind of failed the aristotle test i'm not going to lie to you
So let me get into it and I want to preface this by saying
There is much much more to this story as I said in the in the intro piece there's much much more
I'm just giving a snippet of it. I will give a little bit of context here
Just so that it's easier to understand
but for the the just
For now i'm going to leave it a little i'm not going to fill in all the blanks. Let's put it that way
We're going to stay a little ambiguous
so
As I said in october, I had a situation where I had reached
The end I was done. I was ready to check out. I was ready to
shuffle off this mortal coil and um I
The reason for that sudden and steep decline into
ultimate depression and
Really to a certain degree a level of madness. Um came from
a
I guess you could say some revelations
That the ultimate depression was
the I guess you could say some revelations that um
I had I had attained from somebody who was very important to me. This is a friend that I've talked about over and over again
On tiktok most people that follow me on tiktok don't even want to hear about her anymore
Because i've talked so much about her. This is someone who at this point in time is really not no longer in my life
I still try to reach out to her. I still try to get her to talk to me. It does not work
but I make the attempt
The reason I make the attempt is because
in the past
we we were in a relationship of sorts for 16 years and um
This october moment um
Was a situation where I had found out that she had been lying to me
about many many many things for about 15 of those 16 years
and
It broke me it broke me because this is someone who was
I mean as close to me and as important to me as as it as it can get
and somebody who I relied on and I believed in and I trusted
with so much of my life
someone that I
I genuinely
truly cared for very deeply
and uh to know that they were capable of that kind of deception and those kind of lies
Hurt me in a way that really very few people ever can
or could have um and you know, i'm somebody who's been in multiple fights and multiple scrapes and multiple
Situations where people have wanted genuinely to hurt me
So it's kind of funny that the person that I care the most about is the one that does the most damage
at any rate that was in october and um
That was kind of the end of our
uh amicable friendship you could say through
most of november basically leading up until thanksgiving, um her and I would have
A few other meetings with each other to try to work things out to try to understand how things had happened
and
in that
Uh, some things had come to light and some you know, there were some some things said
some pretty hurtful things
but um
at the end of the day, uh
Really it was I think it was november 22nd. I'm not entirely sure of the date but um
I think it was the yeah, because I think the I think thanksgiving was the 24th
So it could be the 23rd. I'm not sure anyway, um, it was the day before
It was the day before the day before thanksgiving her and I had gone for a long walk and we had uh
talked about the idea of giving
ourselves
uh this extended period of time
where we would give
We would we would make a genuine attempt at reconciliation and understanding not in the not necessarily to
You know bring our friendship back together or whatever our relationship was
um, but in an attempt to
Really kind of
Give ourselves time to unravel the lives that we had built together because we had been together for 16 years
And this was this was more than just your average everyday friendship
So it was you know, we this was somebody that I saw every day of my life
This is somebody who knew my children very well
This is somebody who had been integral in the the building of my business and you know
there our lives were intertwined in a way that um, you know, they become
And so it was going to take time for that that kind of unraveled. There were a lot of financial concerns
There were a lot of there's a lot in play
and so I
Being the one that had basically been betrayed and being the one that had been
You know, all of this had been dropped in my lap. I was still reeling from the emotion of it all
I I hadn't I wasn't ready for this. I didn't know this was coming and um
She had basically dropped it all in my lap and then said, you know, that's it. We're done. We're not doing anything
We're not friends anymore
and I
You know, she basically for lack of better word she broke up with me and uh
so I
was dealing with both of those things at once and
recognizing that and understanding that
I was going to have to go through this betrayal trauma while at the same time
Dealing with not having this person in my life anymore
I basically appealed to
her sense of decency, I guess which I don't know
Maybe that was not the best way to go about it
But we went for this walk and I I put forward the idea that we
Give each other three months. We don't have to you know, talk all the time or anything like that
But we try to we try to see each other. We try to spend time together
We try to give each other time
And with as much compassion and grace and love we can conjure
We would try to give each other this time to be
you know to to to un-pair to
Break each other apart in a in a in a less hurtful way
So that as we moved into our lives we could into our next phase of our lives, I should say
We could do it wishing each other well and having you know that warmth that you'd like to have in your heart
For somebody that you'd spent so much of your time with so much of your life with
I was I was idealistic and I was hoping that that idealism would be enough
She wasn't excited about the idea but after talking and
Her saying some things that were wholly devastating to me truly
Which I won't go into that right now
We we drove back and I was getting ready to get out of the car and
She said okay three months. That's what she said. We'll agree on three months and I said, okay, so
Understanding that
The idea was for those three months we weren't going to lie to each other
We weren't going to deceive each other
We were going to do everything we could to keep everything above the table
I went into the the the next day feeling pretty good feeling like we had reached an understanding
So the next day comes and she is at work or whatever and I'm doing stuff around the house security for thanksgiving
And we had texted a few times throughout the day and
After the day was over. It was almost I want to say
1 30 in the morning, um, she
Is texting me to say she's going home and that she's had a really bad day
But one of the one of the things that we had discussed in that walk the day before was
How I had neglected to be there for her when she needed me many times
And she had been very upset by that and so
Seeing this as an opportunity to kind of show that you know things were going well
Things could be different if if there was communication. I I said, okay. Well, you've had a bad day. Do you mind if I stop by?
Now my intention was was to go, you know, she was going to knock on the door
I was going to knock on the door. She was going to open it
I was just going to give her a hug tell her it was okay, you know ask her if she needed anything
You know, maybe sit down talk for a few minutes if she wanted
Have a drink whatever, you know, not I don't drink alcohol
But you know sit down have a have a soda or some water and just sit and talk for a few minutes
And then let her go to bed. That was my intention
Have it be a 20 minute visit just to show her my support and show her that I cared
But she said okay, she said yeah, come on over
So when I got there, I knocked on the door, but I didn't knock too loudly because she has two dogs and
Every time I knock they alert her
So I just kind of tapped on the door, but when I did that
The dogs didn't respond so I kind of leaned in a little bit and I heard her on the phone
And she was talking to someone now. This is important
She had told me that she wasn't in a relationship with anyone. She had told me that she was
Going to take some time to herself. She she had lied to me and now here I am standing outside of her house
Hearing her on the phone with a man and the man says
Or he says something I hear his voice. I didn't I couldn't make it out and then she says yeah
He's on his way over
I don't know what he wants
And then I hear you know, whatever his voice is
and
She's like, yeah, no
Yeah, yeah, and then he says do you need me to come over?
And at that point in time the person that I was was quickly being replaced by a sheer being of anger
Yeah, the first thing I thought was yeah, come on over
and
That's when I realized I was I was really starting to get angry
So the conversation goes on and you know, what was said doesn't matter at that point in time
At least not for this story, but I was angry so
I knock again. The dogs hear me. They start to bark. She's like I gotta go
He's like, I'm gonna go
He's like, okay, let me know let me know how it how it ends when he leaves
and
She comes to the door and she immediately knew she knew immediately she looked at my face and she knew immediately
that I had overheard it and
her face turned white and
She you know her demeanor completely changed her shoulders dropped
She knew that the the jig was up. She knew that she couldn't do it
The the jig was up. She knew that she couldn't lie to me. She she was caught in this lie
so we go and we sit at her kitchen table and
Come to find out that she was in the relationship with a man that had had a girlfriend
My friend had entered into the relationship knowing that this man had a girlfriend and had done it anyway
and
The girl obviously had no idea that this was happening behind her back
and
I was so disappointed. I
was so so disappointed in in in somebody that I cared that much about that I looked at as being such a good person
Making that decision and what's interesting about this is that this was the second time she had done this with it was a different guy, but
the second time
In these years and and I had just recently found out about the other one
So she had been in and this is twice that she had been in a relationship with someone
she had entered into a
Physical relationship with someone knowing that they had a significant other
Knowing that they were you know that she was going to hurt
a woman or a girl, whatever
With her actions if it was found out and if it wasn't found out
She was empowering and enabling this shitty shitty behavior from these men
She was allowing herself to be used in that way
And I was just I was just so taken aback and I was so angry and so hurt by
this moment of really just seeing her for
Her absolute worst seeing who she was at her absolute worst and something that I hadn't
I hadn't seen I had never really believed her capable of something like that
and so in that moment
And this is
Me being as honest as I can be here
My one true thought wasn't about my feelings. It wasn't about me at all
I just couldn't get over the fact that she would do this to this girl
This girlfriend of this man, whoever he was
You know, he was he was having a sexual physical relationship with someone side pieces as they call them
They had entered into this knowing that he had a
He had a girlfriend
Like he knew it and and and she knew it and and nobody nobody thought about this poor girl
Nobody cared about her
And that that was when I I lost my temper. That was when I my my true anger
hit the ceiling
Now for those of you that follow me on tik tok and those of you that know my story
You know that I am somebody who has put
my
my life
On the line to protect women. It's something that I've done
My whole life. I've always protected women
I have never ever been somebody who would ever hurt somebody physically not not a woman at least
And I have actively hurt men physically for doing that
I'm not proud of that, but it is a truth that I live with
And it's something that when I look back on it and I understand the choices that I made
And the the lives that I have affected I am proud of who I am. I'm proud of the fact that
I was able to protect people and I was able to help them when they needed it the most
Now I want to be really clear about this
Up until that point up until that night
There were entire swaths
of my life
That I was
I wouldn't say I didn't remember them at all
But they were difficult to recall
And in that moment
I had a rush of memories
Of things that I had done of fights that I'd been in of moments
Gruesome to a certain degree
It was almost like my mind telling me
This is what you're capable of
To protect this is what you can this is what you've done to protect women
How is this different? And I really that's how I felt in that moment. I felt
I felt this drive this this this
Necessity to protect this girl
I I couldn't stand the idea that somebody that I cared about that I loved that I held up on a pedestal
Could do this to somebody and the fact that you know, this this guy was essentially getting away with it
Um, but I was able to protect this girl
and do a different thing with it
Um and at the same time in my mind, you know
I I know that I know that the difference is now that this isn't really the case
but at the time I felt like he was he was taking advantage of my friend that he was you know
he was this kind of
You know
Snake that was just kind of whispering in her ear and getting her to do these things and and that's really how
I felt now
But at the time that's how I felt and I wanted this guy punished and I can't say that any other way like truly punished
I wanted him to feel the pain that he was
That he was dishing out so readily I
Couldn't stand the idea and so in that moment in that moment of anger
I told her I said you have to break this off you have to end this you are better than this if you do not
End this I'm going to end it for you. I'm gonna tell everybody in the world about this guy
I don't know his name, but I'll find out I'll find out who he is. I'm gonna find out who he is
I'm gonna tell his girlfriend. I'm gonna tell every single person in his life exactly who he is
I'm going to show the world the quality of this this man's character and I can do that because I
Am a higher character person. I can do that because I don't have anything to hide I can do that because I
know that I would never do this to someone and
It's my job and it has always been my job to defend people when things like this happen
And I'm gonna defend this girl. So either you tell her you break it off and you take responsibility for it or I will
and
That's what I said to her and it's important to understand that in this moment of anger
I didn't punch a wall. I didn't I didn't do any of these things
What I did do
Is when she opened that door, I said you have no idea how angry I am. I could have kicked in this door
Now I didn't kick in the door
But I was that angry I could have I
Was angry enough that I could have done many things
But I didn't
Keep in mind. Like I said
The people that remain calm the people that you just kind of get this feeling of a seething under their skin
This the people that are able to communicate effectively despite their anger
those are the people that are the most dangerous and
That's where I was
That's exactly where I was. I talked to this friend of mine. I held her hands
And I I spoke sternly I spoke
judgmentally
But I spoke truthfully
there was nothing that I said in that moment that was wrong and
When I go back and I think about it, I
I don't know if I could necessarily have changed anything
but
in that moment I
Did scare the hell out of her
She had never seen me like that. She had never experienced me that angry
she had never seen that side of me and
To a certain degree. I'm very very proud of the fact that she had spent 16 years in my life
I'd have never seen me like that. But at the same time
it is a failure that
after 16 years I
I allowed that part of me to come out
I'm not proud of that. It's not something that I'm I
necessarily wanted to do
But at that point in time all I thought about was I got to help this girl
now the the postscript to that is I never found out who this man was because I didn't I
Didn't feel safe knowing having that information. I didn't do the things that I said I was going to do
In in my empty threats to her because she told me that she was going to handle it and that she was going to
work through it
But in the time since then
this friend of mine has used that moment as ammunition to
Say that you know
She I'm not safe to be around and I'm not you know
her real friends wouldn't force her to do these things and her real friends would have stood behind her while she
Did this with this guy? I guess which just tells me that her real friends really suck, but more important is I
I did scare her and
She'll never hear this she doesn't listen to these podcasts
but if she ever does and for those of you that do listen I
Want it to be known that I do apologize for losing my anger or losing my temper in that anger I?
I it's not something that I would like to do
But like I said before I think now my anger tends to be focusing around
Protecting people tends to be focusing around trying to
Make a difference
I'm not feeling anger like I used to it's just not hitting me in any way. I'm not I
Don't get angry in traffic. I don't like this. There's no real buildup of stress
I don't there's none of the effects of anger that I've lived with for so long in my life
Are having any effect on me? I I used to get angry when like
If somebody said something stupid online, I would get angry
I would get like legitimately angry
And I wouldn't be somebody who would like go into like punch-up mode and start, you know hammering out a
Strongly worded email or anything like that
I was just somebody who I would see that would go in the other room and I tell my kids and I'd you know
I would just be so angry about it and now I
Just let stuff go. I just don't care anymore. And I really do believe that it was that moment in
November of
2023 that changed me
Because I had so many memories
Rush back in that moment. I had so many things that I had
either repressed or
Just I don't know. I guess repressed is the best word. I had so many things that
Came back to my head
so many memories of that I had really kind of forgotten about who I was and about
The history that I had and about how and I really hate to use this word, but how righteous I had felt in my anger
for so many different occasions how so many men I
Had I had really hurt them to save women and
All I could think about in that moment was saving this girl from the fate that she had no idea and
And I'll be honest I regret not finding out who she was because as far as I know and I don't know anything about it
But I could only assume
That this guy went back to his girlfriend and they carried on and she was never the wiser
and I don't know maybe maybe that's for the best, but I
just I
Just can't help but feel like somehow her life would be better if
I had found out who she was and if I could have told her the truth
Because you know damn well that man isn't going to you know damn well
He's gonna cheat on her again, and you know damn well that he doesn't value her
He didn't value my friend that he was sleeping with he definitely didn't value
his girlfriend and
There's so many men like that out there that I've had to fight and I've had to deal with and I've had to punish
for their way of just taking and
Robbing women of their
Sovereignty for the lack of better word and I just I
Just can't stand by and let that happen anymore, so there's my story, and we're gonna move on now
I know that that story isn't always about anger isn't all about anger
But it is about the last time I felt true anger, and I'm not gonna lie to you
That was probably the most angry I've been in like I said before 20 years at least
So I felt like it was an important thing to discuss because in an episode about anger
I can't think of anything that made me more angry than that moment
so I'm gonna go into a next quote, and and I want to talk about this quote a little bit because
It bothers me a little bit, and this is a quote by Joel Osteen now
I'm not a Joel Osteen hater, but I would say that I disagree with a lot of what Joel Osteen has said
And this is one that I'm gonna nitpick on a little bit. He said
Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry stressed or offended
But what you're doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside of yourself power over your happiness
You can choose to not let little things upset you
Okay
I'll give you a second think about what I just said there think about that quote
And then I want you to just if you've if you've listened to my podcast or you've listened to the tik-toks
I want you to just imagine what I would say about those just I'll give you a second
What do you think anything okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna break it down for you
Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry stressed and offended yes
Absolutely, that's true. We absolutely do
Um you what you are doing when you indulge in these negative emotions is giving something outside of yourself power over your happiness
To a certain degree. Yes, I agree with that. Um
That a lot of these emotions come from outside stressors outside situations outside things
So when you give in to those negative thoughts those negative emotions, yes, you are certainly giving those things power over you this next part though
this next part, um, you can choose to not let little things upset you
No, you can't
Um, no, you can't no you can choose how you respond to those little things, but you cannot choose
Whether or not these things upset you now all of us have different things that upset us, right?
When somebody chews ice, I want to bludgeon them with a stilson wrench now a lot of people out there chew ice
That's not that those are not the same thing right like I can chew sure I could choose to not have a violent reaction to people
Destroying their teeth with with ice cubes, but I also
Um can it's gonna annoy me. It's gonna i'm gonna get angry. I'm gonna get i'm gonna have that response, right? Like i'm gonna feel it i'm
There I can control the fact that I I don't grab something and hit them across the face with it. Yes
I can control that but the fact that it bothers me the fact that the sound itself
Makes me want to curl up in a ball and and and not even move for like a half hour after I hear it
That there's nothing I can't control that I can't control
That it's coming in and I respond and then that I feel it the way I do
I can control my response so the idea that you can choose to not let these little things upset you
Is a little bit nonsensical in my mind because you absolutely
You absolutely cannot control whether things upset you or not. What you do control is how you react
if you let that
Emotion if you let that anger control you you can control that
But you can't control whether something upsets you or not. It's what you do with that upset
It's what you do with those negative emotions that matters and so
I know this seems a little nitpicky and I know that it seems like i'm kind of
You know just kind of picking on this guy, but it really is like this is a man that's got you know
Millions and millions and millions of people following him and to say something like that
Really makes me want to be like, oh my god, I'm gonna be like, oh my god
Something like that
really does kind of
Like is everybody supposed to be this like superhuman robot like where they just don't let things
Like all of a sudden you get to control
uh
The stimuli that comes in into your senses. That's not really how it works
But it does lead to this next part of the of the episode
How do you control those those emotions? How do you?
Allow yourself. How do you give yourself that control? How do you learn to do that?
Now those of you that listen to the podcast know that every episode I try to give something like this if the topic gives
The opportunity for me to teach
Some methods or some ideas on on you know, how to bolster or control certain things
Then that's what i'm going to do. And so i'm going to do that here, but I want you to understand
Before I do that that
Once again, i'm in a position now in my life where
I'm not really feeling anger the way that I used to
So all I can do is speak to
The way that I used to handle it the way that I used to manage it
Now there's a lot of different things you can get I mean obviously anger management is something that
Is a very very very popular topic. It's something that
You know every therapist will go into every person will look at it
Anger issues and all the like it's
it's there is a
massive amount of content out there that you can
You know put into your eye sockets and jumble around and see what sticks
So i'm just going to go through some of the stuff that I know has worked for me
Now I I encourage you if you're listening to this
To just you know google some stuff just look up some stuff if you believe that you have a problem
Controlling your anger and it's something that you want to address
It's really not that hard. It's really genuinely not that hard to find all sorts of resources. It is a
Like 0.2 second google search
To find any of this information. It's at your fingertips at all times and I promise you
That anything you read there will be just as helpful as anything you get from this podcast from this point on
at least for this this section because
This is something anger management is something that literally every single
generation since the dawn of time has
Tried to address
not effectively
Not not effectively by any
Any metric but it's something that everybody has tried to address
So what do we do?
The first thing you need to do and this is once again, this is just how I approach it is to understand
how
you experience anger
And the reason why this is important is because
Unless your anger is sudden
Which makes it more impulsive
anger tends to build and
You'll start to once you really get into it. You'll start to understand like your
your kind of predictors on how angry you're getting some people get like
Their hands will shake some people will get their ears will get hot some people's eyes will start to hurt
Some people's lips will quiver
And you know, obviously once you get to these physical indicators, you're already angry
But if you start to really look at it and you start to understand how anger is affecting you physically
Some people get you know, not so nice
Some people get you know knots in their stomach
Some people start to kind of get not pains in their legs, but they'll start to feel imbalance in their legs
They'll start to kind of sway back and forth
There's all sorts of physical indicators
and
Another good reason to look at this and this is kind of an aside here, but another good reason to look at this is
It's really important to be able to read this on other people as well
now as somebody who
Kind of specialized for a long time in reading other people's emotional states and trying to manipulate those states as
Somebody who was playing games and things like that and needing to know
Reading reading whether or not people were frustrated or angry
Especially angry was was was very very important for me
you know as as things turned against somebody and as they
Started to understand that they weren't in a winning position
If I understood that they you know were angry about it
I could then play off of that and and so it became really important for me to start to study
Some of the different tells that people had about their emotional state
And so it's really important when you think about it from that point of view to understand that
You know if you if you understand that these kind of things like I said like, you know, the way that people
blink the
Their lips quivering the way that they maybe sneer a little bit
The the the the lines in their foreheads will start to become some people get a really big vein in their forehead that'll start to
protrude
You know all of these different things and the color especially color around the ear is very common
Are are indicators that people are starting to get stressed or starting to get angry. They're starting to get whatever it may be
So once you start to be able to key in and understand those things in yourself
As well as maybe even learn how to see them in others. You can start to communicate a little bit more effectively or
If you just are walking down the street and you see those things on somebody especially like, you know
You see a guy walking down the street holding a gun and his ears are bright red
You know, he's probably pretty angry and to stay away from him just saying
So what do you do? How do you how do you approach it?
What do you do from that point on once you start to feel the anger once you start to understand that the anger is
Building inside of you. How do you control it?
well
really
The most important part here is to understand the anger builds and it builds rapidly
Oftentimes you don't just go from zero to you know rage you you you have there's a period of build there
And so that is that is the key point. That is where you learn to control it
And you don't let it get out of control by just letting it continue to build so
There's another quote here i'll use thomas jefferson said when angry
Counts to 10 before you speak if very angry count to 100
And that's probably the best advice of any quote that you're ever going to see ever
It's it's exceedingly important to understand that the
almost
Almost as primal as anger itself
The innate desire to respond in anger
Is part of anger the the the desire to lash out the desire to you know, just jump to
Defense or jump to whatever it may be that is part of your anger
That is that is how you're you're dealing with it in anger. It's a quick. It's a quick thing
You're not thinking anymore. You're just you're just reacting and so to combat that
We need to understand that anger is
that we need to understand that the patience that moment of patience that moment of pause
That moment of breathing that moment of calm
Is very very very important
It is so difficult when you first start that you may even give up trying before you even get started
It is so difficult when you've when you've lived a life where anger is
Is there all the time to really be able to see it and understand it?
And and even want to control it
but it is so important and
The best way to do it is to count
You count and with each each number you count you count to ten you go one take a deep breath
Into the in through the nose out through the mouth
one
two
Three
When you do that
You go to ten you every every every single number you count and while you're counting you're not just you're not just empty-headed doing this
You you're thinking about your response you're trying to not let that anger
Consume you you're trying to not
you
how many times in your life have you had that moment where
You say something or you do something and then you get in the car or you go home or whatever it may be
And you're like, oh man, I should have said this
Whether it be an anger or be funny or whatever it may be this is your opportunity for that
This is your opportunity to really think about it
Now once again, I'm not somebody who believes the Joel Osteen line of thought that you can choose to not let these things upset you
You can't really do that, but you can choose how you respond. You can choose the nature of your response and sometimes
Anger is
An important thing to convey
But you want to do it the right way as Aristotle said
Be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose
And in the right way
And that is what you are counting for that is what you're pausing for you want to make sure
That your anger is going towards the right person
you want to make sure that you're
You're as angry as you need to be in that moment
You want to make sure that this is the right time to convey that
Sometimes sometimes it's not the best time
And you want to make sure that there is purpose behind your anger
Anger is so powerful. It can literally destroy your life. It can destroy the lives of others. It can make people
See you in ways that
You can't undo
So it's important that you understand that all of these things
If I were you I would memorize the aristolo quote
Be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way
And when you start to do that countdown, that is the mantra that you recite to yourself
Be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way
You just say it over and over and over again. If you want to go back a second and listen to it again
I'm gonna say it one more time
Be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way
If you can master that if you can understand that and you're able to do that
If you can understand that and master it, you will have accomplished something that 99.9% of the world that have ever existed on this planet have not been able to do.
It is not an easy feat. It is not something to take lightly. It is not something that you can just do on your off time. This is something that requires concentrated effort.
But if you do it, it changes everything. Now, am I a perfect example of this? No.
But I can tell you this, and the reason why I told you this story, and the reason why I am sharing this quote over and over again, this is the reason.
I was angry with the right person. Could I have been angry with more people? Yes.
I was angry to the right degree, and I was angry at the right time, and I was angry for the right purpose.
But, I wasn't angry in the right way. And that is how, and that is why, I caused damage to my friendship, or at that point in time, whatever it was,
I caused damage to a relationship that I cared about, and that I wanted to try to find a way through, because I wasn't angry in the right way.
I was threatening, and I was judgmental, and I was speaking from a place of not just anger, but of hurt.
So, I was not angry in the right way, but I was angry to the right degree, and with the right person, and at the right time, and with the right purpose.
I know that I was, and so I don't regret it, but I also know that I could have done it better.
And so it's important to understand, as you start to try to really control your anger, and start to have a grasp of it,
this moment that you give yourself, to recite this quote, to count to ten, to breathe, to understand that whatever you do, after you're done with this ten second count, is going to last forever.
One of the great moments in my life was when I was still very, very young, and this was formative for me.
I don't remember the name of the family, and I don't remember the name of the friends that I had, they were just other kids that I went to school with.
This is when I lived in Utah.
I went over to one of my friend's houses, and I remember vividly there being a giant hole in the wall, right by the front door.
And I asked him, like, what happened to your wall? And he said, oh, my brother punched it.
And I remember, in that moment, thinking, why? Why would you do that?
And it wasn't until many years later, when I was watching the movie Goodfellas for the first time, that I had somebody echo my sentiment.
Because there's a scene where Karen, Henry Hill's wife in the movie, she's talking about how FBI agents or cops would come to the house of all the different mob wives,
and that some of the other mob wives would spit on their own floor, spit at the cops on their own floor.
And she's like, why would you do that? Why would you spit on your own floor? That just made no sense to me.
And that moment, when I first heard that, I thought, somebody gets me. There you go. There's my representation.
Because why? What could ever make you that angry that you attack an innocent wall?
I've never in my life, ever, and I have been so angry, I have been so angry that I have literally put people in hospitals before.
All of them deserved it, and all of them I'm fine with, but I have never, ever attacked a wall.
And so I bring this up, because like I said, that moment after you breathe, whatever you do, whatever action you take, whatever words you say,
those are going to live forever from that point on.
You don't want to be the guy that when people walk into the house, or they walk wherever, and they go, oh what happened here? You don't want to be the guy that somebody says, oh, so and so hit the wall.
Nobody wants to be that guy. Control that shit. This is the point. Control your anger. If I have to shame you into it, then that's what I'll do.
So I'm going to touch on a few more things. I know I'm kind of running along here, so we're going to touch on a few more things.
And this is more for, I want to make it clear, the breathing exercises, and this is for the moment, the situation, whatever it may be,
in a moment where you start to feel that anger and you need to calm yourself down.
But like I said, I've lived a life where I was angry every day. I woke up angry. I never stopped being angry.
And so you have to, for those of you out there that kind of live in that world, that really do understand that,
there are ways to mitigate and to diminish your anger a little bit to kind of make it easier to carry that load.
One of the best ways, and this is something that I've done for years now, is exercise. Now I'm not, I was never, you know,
I'm not somebody that goes to the gym all the time and things like that, but I do play basketball. I try to play basketball at least once a week.
And in that, I'll find a good release from anger. I don't get angry when I'm playing basketball, but that exercise, getting out, getting the heart going, you know, some blood pumping,
that is a great way to diminish exercise. If you go to the gym, you know this is true. People that go to the gym, unless they're, you know,
really roided up kind of guys, they don't tend to have a lot of anger. Now, once again, there are certain, there is a certain like subsection of men
that they go to the gym because they're angry. They leave the gym angry. They're just always angry. But there are a lot of people out there that, you know,
when you're feeling angry, you go get on a treadmill, you go lift some weights, you go do whatever, and it's going to help make you feel better.
All of the hormones that kick in will help reduce cortisol levels. It'll help in general you deal with and manage your anger.
That's probably one of the best, I guess you could say, long term fixes. But, and this is really, really hard for me to give this advice because I know I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here.
One of the things that you can do that will help mitigate your anger is when you go into a situation, and like I said, this is kind of hard for me.
When you go into a situation where you feel slighted, where you feel disrespected, where you feel like somebody's actively hurting you,
first of all, try to let go of the grudge that you feel towards them. When you go into this thought exercise, try to let go of who they are for just a second while you do it.
Think of what the situation is. This person did this, you reacted this way. This person reacted this way, so now, you know, whatever it may be.
However this has set up a situation where now you're angry, try to stick to yourself. Don't think about them as much and think about yourself.
Put yourself first. And when I say that, that sounds, that sounds, it's not really the way that I would like to say it.
The way I'd like to say it, I think, is think in phrases that start with I. Don't say you, don't say we, say I.
And what you want to find there is accountability. You want to find a reason.
Now, often times, and this goes to the right time, right purpose type thing in the Aristotle quote, a lot of times we get angry and we start to project.
We start to kind of point to other people. We start to say, oh, you did this to me. You did that. You, and we often don't look at what we did.
We don't, we don't really understand what we did. Now, in the example that I gave earlier in my life, there wasn't much that I could have done there.
It wasn't about me. Now, what I could have done is that I could have not shown up. I could have said, you know what, she has disrespected me.
She has treated me this way. She has, she has been a bad person to me. I don't need to show up for her. I'm done with her. I could have left.
I could have not shown up. I could have not been part of her life anymore. And that would have been by some people's account, taking my own power, being stronger.
That would have been me being accountable for myself. But I'm just not that kind of person. I wanted to show up. I wanted to be there for her.
I wanted to be somebody that she could rely on. I wanted to be somebody that was strong for her. And so I did put myself in that position.
And because I believed in her and I trusted her and I, you know, wanted a better outcome, I did put myself in that position.
I did. It was my fault that I was there. And unfortunately, one of the problems with this line of thinking is in situations like this,
it really is just one person was being kind of shitty and the other person was trying to be, you know, not really the good guy,
but was trying to be just trying to be kind and compassionate. And then one person took advantage of that.
So it's really difficult for me to sit here and say, oh, I, oh, I did this. I have to take responsibility for it.
I have to take accountability for it because at the end of the day, I was doing what I felt was right.
I felt like I was trying to give somebody understanding, compassion, kindness and love.
And so it's hard for me to take that and say, well, I did it and that'll help me diminish the anger.
But there are a lot of situations where that does come in handy, where sometimes if you if you look at, you know, oh, well, I didn't have to say it like this.
I could have responded this way. I could have to just to understand how tensions have been raised,
to understand how emotions have gotten high and imagine and really understand how you got to this point.
That's that's almost as important as anything else is understanding how you got to the point that you're at.
If you understand it and you can really take a step back.
And like I said, you do this kind of understanding you breathing, you're taking a moment to to recite the quote in your head.
You really can control the outcome in a way that most people that allow their anger to just, you know, they just respond in anger.
They allow their anger to control them. They can't do that.
And that gives you a leg up.
That gives you the opportunity to do the right thing and to be a better person and to make a difference in this world.
And that's what we're here to do.
And so as I move into the end of this this episode, that's what I want to focus on.
Like I said, I'm not here to give you the playbook on how to control your anger, because each person's anger is their own demon that they have to conquer.
It is easy to find resources. It is easy to understand.
It is it is a powerful, powerful emotion.
And I cannot in an hour or hour and a half long podcast give you the answer to that question.
All I can do is tell you the answers are out there.
And I can tell you from my own experience that anger doesn't have to control you.
It doesn't have to define you.
But it isn't always bad.
It isn't always something that you should be ashamed of.
Despite what seemingly every great mind in history would tell you, there is plenty of righteous anger.
There is plenty of good situations where it's OK to be angry because you're angry for the right reason.
That's why I focused on this Aristotle quote.
That's why I think it's important, because Aristotle, unlike all these other thinkers, and I really genuinely I could read for another 30 minutes different quotes,
and I promise you he's the only one that understood that it's not bad to be angry.
It's not bad to be angry.
Everybody's angry. It's easy to be angry.
But to be angry, I'm going to say it again, at the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is what is important.
If you can start to control that, if you can start to manage that, if you can control it inside of yourself, and you can start to preach that to other people,
you can start to affect this world in a way that is truly, truly magnificent and beautiful.
Think about it.
Think about how much better this world would be if just a few more people around you didn't respond in anger the way that you've seen them.
If your father didn't respond in anger and beat you that one time.
If your sister didn't respond in anger and say something horrible to her friend or her mother or your mother, I guess.
All of these situations, if you were able to control yourself and not say something that hurt somebody, or in my case, scared somebody,
if you're able to control these things, just a little bit more and understand that there is a reason for anger to exist.
It is a positive thing if used correctly, if understood and focused.
And given the respect that the emotion deserves, it can be a powerful force for good.
Your anger, your wildness, can turn into a righteousness.
It can turn into something that you can really honestly use it for so much good.
Think about the students that are doing protests.
Think about the way the people are responding to the situation in Palestine.
Think about the anger and the true, I guess, upset, upset is the way you would say it, that people feel over these things.
And think about the other side as well.
Don't just think about it from one side and say, well, this is the side I'm on.
Think about it from every side and understand the anger, understand it.
Really, truly take a moment and understand these emotions, the fear and the anger, all of these negative things that are controlling and people are responding with.
Love is the answer.
But you can't deny how powerful anger is.
And if you truly love someone, if you love them with all of your heart, if you love a people with all of your heart,
if you love a country, whatever it may be, whatever it is that you truly love, anger in its defense, anger in its protection,
anger even in its understanding is important.
It is so important.
It is not to be diminished, but it is to be controlled.
I want you all to know that that moment that I described to you is a moment that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
The fear that I saw in my friend's eyes and the shame that I feel because of that fear will be with me forever.
And I was right on so many levels for so many reasons to be angry in that moment.
And I know I was and there is not a person out there that I've talked to about it that disagrees with me other than her.
But at the end of the day, I know that that anger in that moment doesn't represent who I am.
I think that anybody that hears me, that hears my voice here and hears my voice through TikTok and understands me as an individual
knows that that moment of anger, no matter how scary I was, is not representative of who I am right now,
who I am in this world and what I want to bring into this world.
I use that, even though it's uncomfortable to tell the story, I use that as an example because it's so important to understand that
no matter how much love you have, no matter how well-intentioned you are, no matter how you may be the good guy in the story,
we still fall prey, we still fall prey to those moments where anger takes over, where fear takes over.
It's what we do from that point on that matters.
I will never be able to make amends for what I did that night to my friend's sense of security and her ability to feel safe with me.
I'll never be able to fix that truly.
And until she gives me the opportunity to try to show her otherwise, I just have to assume that she thinks of me that way.
But that's her fear. Her fear is a response to my anger.
And so when I say, take a moment and do the I exercise and think about your own accountability, that's what I'm talking about.
My anger caused her fear. I have to know that. I have to understand that.
And at some point in time, I will make amends for it, or at least I hope I can.
Use my example. Use this moment. Use what I'm saying here to try to understand your own life.
Put it into your own situations. Put it into your own application and understand that anger is powerful
and will change your life for the worse or for the best if you allow it to, if you can harness it, if you can control it,
if you can use the energy that you get from it, it can be beautiful and it can change the world.
And that's what I'm about. And I hope if you're listening to this, that that is what you are about as well.
So now that we're moving on from anger, I'm going to go ahead and announce here. I will make it in the TikTok as well.
We're going to dive into a topic that I have for the next episode, episode 19.
We're going to dive into a topic that I've kind of avoided on purpose, but I want to start to get into it because I think that it's important.
It will be a multi-part topic, but I'm not going to do them all together.
So we're going to do a part one, not next week, the week after. And we're going to talk about parenting.
This is something that people have asked me to talk about. This is something that people have asked me to talk about in my TikTok lives.
This is something that people want me to make videos about. And we're going to go ahead and we're going to get into it.
We're going to get into it. And I'm going to talk about it from a lot of different angles and a lot of different perspectives.
As somebody who has parented three children to adulthood and more, I'm somebody who has a wealth of knowledge on this and something that I feel strongly about.
And I feel like I can help people with. But the reason I bring it up now is because, and the reason why it's important to bring up in the episode about anger is
you're going to disagree with some of the things I say. You're not going to like some of the things I say. And that's okay.
But do not come at me with anger because what that's going to show me right away. It sounds so bad to say this to my listening audience.
But if you respond to my episodes about parenting with anger, that shows me what kind of parent you are.
If you can't take constructive advice, if you can't take constructive criticism, how do you expect your child to?
I hope you heard my tone there. And I hope that you understand that I'm not going to pull any punches in these episodes about parenting.
I'm going to speak my mind and I'm going to say it in a way with an understanding of my background, which I will explain in those episodes.
I'm going to speak in a way that some folks are going to find dismissive. But I think I have a reason to and I think I have a right to.
So try to control your anger. Try to remember that this is my opinion. This is my outlook. You don't have to share it.
With that in mind, we're going to go out with one more quote and it's one of my favorite quotes and I certainly do agree with it.
You can ask anybody in my life. Phyllis Diller once said, never go to bed mad, stay up and fight.
I appreciate you all very much. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed the episode.
I'll see you on TikTok and we're going to start getting out more videos on Instagram and on YouTube very, very soon.
So I hopefully will see you there as well. Take care of yourselves. Take care of others. I'll talk to you very soon.
Bye.
You