UNFILTERED: Courageous Conversations about Anger and What your Fire is Trying to Tell You

John, welcome to our podcast series UNFILTERED. This

is where we have courageous conversations about topics that

are not always discussed in the mainstream or in the workplace.

Here we strip away the polished surface and

dive into the raw, messy and deeply human topics that we

don't think it talked about often enough.

We are your unfiltered hosts. I'm Amy from

the Courage of a Leader podcast,

and I'm Daphna from Leadership Live podcast

with two coaches from two sides of the world who believe that

real growth happens in the uncomfortable, unspoken moments

from

Workplace trauma to dealing with major life changes

and taboo topics like grief, imposter syndrome and menopause.

This is the space where nothing is off limits.

So if you're ready for honest, bold and

sometimes messy conversations, let's get into it. We've all

been there that moment when something happens at work or at

home and you feel the heat rise inside you, you tell yourself to

stay calm, stay professional, don't let it show, but you

didn't manage to keep it all under wraps.

Yes, and we have been taught that this emotion, this

anger, is bad, that it's unprofessional, that it's

unproductive, that we have to keep that under wraps. But what

if anger isn't the problem,

exactly, and that's what we're going to be

talking about today. Why does anger get such a bad rap, how it

shows up in leadership and in life, and what do we do with it?

Yes, Daphna, it's time to get unfiltered. So,

Daphna, why are we talking about anger today?

Yeah, right. It's a bit of a strange topic,

because I can imagine that maybe some people will be listening

and going, Well, I'm actually a pretty calm person. I don't

really get angry, and so maybe I don't listen. Don't need to

listen to this. But I'm saying, Hold on, hold on. I think

there'll be value for everyone. And for me, it really comes down

to the fact that it's completely natural to get angry, and under

the label of angry can come irritation, annoyed, upset,

frustrated, frustrated, exactly. There are so many things. Are

the little things that start to bubble up. But we dare not say

the word anger, because that somehow has got such a bad

reputation. We are not allowed to feel angry. And I think

it's too much. It's too much. We can feel irritated,

we can feel slightly disappointed, we can express

that. But for some reason, anger has that taboo Exactly. You're

not supposed to be angry because then you're a hot head, you're

out of control.

Yeah, we've been brought up with the fact

that we aren't allowed to get angry. And I think why we wanted

to talk about it today is because anger isn't the bad

thing or the bad emotion or the bad person. Yeah, it's not

anger. Anger is a completely natural, normal emotion, and

we're going to go into it can even be a good emotion. But we

really want to separate right from the outset. We want to

separate between the emotion, feeling angry about something,

and how we behave. And I think our behaviors, as you said, the

aggression, throwing a chair, screaming at someone, going into

a tantrum, those behaviors are not great, those behaviors we

want to avoid, those we might not really be okay to express it

in that way, in public or even in private. I don't know. We

need to understand what anger is. What is it here to tell us,

and then how do you want to express it or channel it in a

more healthy way?

Yes, yes. So we are saying clearly that the emotion

of anger is not the enemy here, not something that we have to

immediately suppress like, Oh, this is bad. This is too much

coming up inside of my body, but instead letting that be there,

this is anger. This is an emotion. What is it telling me

in this moment? And I'm a human being, yeah, so

Okay, anger is okay. And I'm just thinking as

we talking, how many times does it happen that someone says, are

you angry? And immediately, no, no, I'm not angry. I'm not

angry, you know, yeah, and you can tell from the tone of voice,

so I'm just really wanting everyone listening to just take

a moment and think when we rush, I'm not angry. I'm not angry.

What is it in the tone? What happened there? What happens in

our body when we get angry? How do you recognize that?

Yes, and one more thing, Daphna, before we shift,

if you are. Human being who cares, to a degree, about

things, people, situations, phenomenons. In our world, you

are gonna feel strong emotions about that from time to time. So

you are gonna feel anger. It's okay. It's because you care.

It's because you have something at stake, and we'll talk more

about that.

Yeah, okay. Are we talking about it now? Is

there something more to say? No, I think that's good. I wanted

to, like, jump in there and say, yeah. The best part is linking

anger to passion and saying, when you have a strong emotion,

such as anger about something. It really means that you are

passionate about something. You're usually angry when you

see an injustice. You see something that's been unfair.

You see something that's just not working the way that you

think it should, or the way you you know out of alignment with

your values. Often the things that get us really angry means

that something's happened that is out of alignment with our

values, and it really directly links to what we are passionate

about. What are the things that mean the most to us? So if you

look at activists who are really out there to change the

injustices of the world, they come from an angry place of it

can't be that there is so much poverty, that there's so much

violence, that there's so much inequality. It can't be so what

are we going to do about it? And that's the beauty of anger, and

that's actually what I want to really say a little bit about

now,

the emotion can be a catalyst, right? And it can also

show us what is important to us, right? Those those moments where

you feel that emotion flare up, bubble up for you, what's the

value that's being compromised in that moment? Or there could

be a boundary that is being crossed for you or for a team

member or for someone that you love. I mean, Daphna. I know the

moments that I have been the most angry, someone has crossed

a boundary of someone that I care about,

absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, it has. It has had me shouting in French on the

street in defense of my dear friend,

no, it can be a friend. Can be your child. I

remember a situation, you know, my child and their friend were

in the middle of a heated argument, and then, you know,

the one child started just laying into my child, and I was

like, No, that's not then you become the fierce lioness,

right? Yeah. Also, I love that you've brought that in, because

it's, we get triggered. We get triggered and we get a strong

emotional response in return. That can be anger. And it's

important to understand, stop for a minute and say, what has

been triggered? Yeah, you

know, yeah. Well, I also noticed in this moment,

Daphna, you know, we both gave those examples of standing up

and not suppressing the aim anger, expressing something in

those moments, but we did it on behalf of others. Yeah, there,

there's something that I'm probably more automatically

repressing it when it comes to me that's right, right. Like,

like, should I do? I Right? And we've got that socialized

tendency to automatically repress. Don't share this. You

know, you'll look too emotional, you'll look too irrational,

you'll look proportionally too strong.

I love that distinction that you brought in,

because it's easy for us to go in defense of some someone that

we really care about, but when we are triggered for ourselves

and we get angry, all of a sudden, that red hot flash of,

you know, temper, or even, I'm gonna say, that slight annoyance

and irritation, because we're all different in our levels of

expressiveness of anger, or even being aware of what's going on

for us, but when we're defending, when we get angry

about something that's to do with us, we are taking a stand

for something that is important to us, as you said, whether it's

a value, a boundary, or something that is very

meaningful to us, we are going to get that emotional response,

and it's worthwhile noticing it. It's worthwhile noticing it and

changing the narrative around it, because it's not wrong. We

want to really change the narrative and say, What is this

coming to tell me, what is it pointing to that I'm really

passionate about or that I really care about in this

moment, and that's really important to understand. So stop

saying it's terrible to get angry, or that person was angry

because he, you know, road rage incident, and he came out and

started screaming at the next car that, yes, it's anger, but

it's actually aggression. It's the behavior that is so that

what's wrong is the aggression. Behavior, the behavior, not

emotion.

Yeah, so we're saying, be aware of it, right?

Learn from it, reframe it. We don't have to immediately feel

shame and repress it. I know we did some research Daphna, and I

really love what the University of Colorado studies found that

expressing anger in healthy ways improves communication problem

and problem solving, while suppression correlates with

higher stress and poorer decision Exactly.

So think about the meeting where you have

something really important to say, Well, someone has said

something that you know is wrong because you've done some

background research, or you've done some calculations or

whatever analysis, and you know that someone's just said

something that is incorrect, but maybe you don't understand or

remember the exact detail of it. So now you're not sure if you

should say something or not say something, and you kind of

battling with us because you don't want to rock the boat and

you don't want to, but there's something in you because you can

feel this, you know, frustration rise or irritation rise because

you know that this person is leading the meeting in the wrong

way. What are you going to do with that? And I want to say

that just noticing that moment of irritation or frustration or

what's actually going on here, I feel like this person's leading

me astray that is already pointing to something that is

important for you to whether maybe it's a truth or a

different perspective that is worth voicing in the room, and

just understand, okay, take that moment to say, why is this

coming up for me now? What am I feeling and what is it pointing

to? It's pointing to the fact that I have something that I

want to add to this conversation.

Yes, I love your passion around this subject, and

another thing I wanted to put into the conversation, as you

were saying that you're saying like, as we feel the emotion

coming up, as we're feeling that inside of our bodies, I think it

could be worth having everybody stop for a moment and think

about how those physical sensations manifest in each of

our bodies. Because sometimes we're like we're quick to anger,

right? And I know that I've had times where I haven't noticed it

consciously in time, my amygdala hijack is going right, but I

haven't noticed it consciously in that moment to be able to

take that intentional pause, right? And then I'm

automatically going to one side of the continuum or the other

I'm expressing without full processing, or I'm repressing

automatically. But if we can tune into those physical

sensations, it could give us another beat. It could give us

another moment to notice what's going on. So some people will

get red in the neck, right? Some people will feel, you know,

bubbles are turning in their stomach. You know, others

heartbeat faster, yeah, shortness of

breath. You know, you want to say something. For some people

not come very naturally. They can actually just express what

they want to say. Give a difference of opinion. I don't

agree with you, and they do it very elegantly. There's some

people who naturally can do that, but for some people, they,

you know, there's a bit of that, you know, fear of I don't know.

I want to say something. How am I gonna say it?

So, yeah, so if everybody can just think about

that right now, how does it manifest in your body? So that

that can be a signal to you, right? It's coming. I don't have

to repress it. Yeah, exactly. It's coming. I'm gonna, I'm

gonna notice what it's telling me here,

exactly, exactly. And then also, we

wanted to talk a little bit about gender differences.

Gender differences, yeah, yes,

but there's a little bit of a double standard

when it comes to anger and perhaps being a little bit more

assertive, you know, around stuff when it comes to men and

women.

Yes, I'd love to go right to what Yale study found.

Yale study found that men's anger increased their perceived

competence, while women's anger decreased theirs.

How crazy is that? Yeah,

it is, it is it is crazy. And if you're a female

out there who thinks, oh yeah, my immediate reaction is to

suppress exactly right. Some of that can much of that comes from

how society interprets and reacts to a female showing

emotion, showing passion. Right?

So when a woman shows emotion, then it's you're

getting emotional. When a woman is angry, you're getting

emotional, you're rational, yeah. And then I think there's

also something in women, and we generalizing here, and of

course, everyone's different, but in general, women will

maybe, if they have an outburst, I think they'll end up feeling

much worse about it afterwards than men, because for men, it's

showing dominance and control and power and okay, they can be

forgiven a little bit of a angry outburst, but women takes a lot

more to kind of smooth that over and becomes maybe a little bit

of the perception that follows this woman.

Yeah, I told I told you this Daphne, not too long

ago, I had an exchange, and I got assertive. And it was

actually, yeah, I actually intentionally decided to get

assertive in that moment, I had a message to share, and I shared

it right, and I had to stick with it to have myself be heard.

But then walking away, I probably had two steps of like,

okay, great, good for you, Amy. And then I turned into, Oh, was

it too much like, you know, like somebody observed that, what are

they thinking? Right? Did they think? You know, what is this

middle aged woman going on about? And immediately the

judgment came in there, and I thought, isn't this so

interesting? I intentionally decided to be assertive. I was,

I do not feel like I did not turn into too overly aggressive

in that moment, but I still was having that reaction of beration

and question and shame, and was it too much?

Yeah, I think because we've been conditioned,

we've been conditioned to not express too much. And I know

that women are culturally conditioned to stay likable,

while men are culturally conditioned to be in control,

you know. And I think there's a big difference there, and the

likable incompetence is very much linked as well, because the

more likable they've been, there's been research done about

that, as well as the more likable you come across, the

less competent people assume that you are. And that's also

something that kind of can get added into this mix. But then

when women try to reduce their likability factor and be more

assertive, they get kind of was criticized for that as well,

that it isn't fully accepted.

Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. I mean, I know we're gonna go

into you know, how do we shift this from reacting to having

that thoughtful response? I gotta say, overall for me,

often, what I need to tune into is, what is my commitment? What

is my commitment in the big picture, right? And setting

aside how likable, or because I want people to like me, right?

But setting aside how likable Am I in the moment. But here's

something I care about. Here's the commitment that's pulling me

forward. So I'm going to speak up. I'm going to say something,

even if I don't do it perfectly. Yeah.

And I think that this now really gets to

that place of the separation, which I think is so important.

What we were really alluding was saying before is that just the

separation between what is the emotion and what is the response

or behavior as a result, and then what is the impact of that

behavior and response. So when we have a certain emotion and we

want to have a certain impact, then we can't have that

automated, triggered response with our thinking, because we're

probably not going to have the impact that we want. And that's

something you know that, because I am a very expressive,

passionate person, you might speak about a topic that I'm

really passionate about, and people can think that I'm angry,

and then the impact is just not there. So that's also sometimes

a misinterpretation of Express expressiveness or passion, or,

you know, the tone that you use in how you speak, but bringing

it back to anger, it really is about understanding when I'm

angry, really noticing that, and saying, Well, how do I want to

express myself so that I have the impact that I want to have

in the situation and not how do you okay? I'm angry. We're not

saying anger is okay. Be angry. Do what you want, because co

chairs no in all that. Be good. You're not going to have the

impact that you want. Your message is not going to be

heard. It's not going to land in the way that you want. But

really, really, really important upfront is to recognize it first

and foremost.

Yes, yes, yes. Actually, we're going to share

five steps with you, from reacting to relating and

respond, giving yourself the best chance of having that

impact that you want to have in the moment, like you're talking

about Daphna. So step one is acknowledge it, and that's to

ourselves. First, it's

noticing, actually, just notice that this

is what's going on for you. Hey, oh my gosh, like you said, those

body responses. My heart starting to beat. My mouth is

going dry. My breath is short, something, you know, sweat

glands or pouring whatever it is. Yes, notice the response,

because when you can notice it for yourself, that's the first

first step. Step is being aware and acknowledging it.

I'm angry and it's okay. Yeah. Second step, yeah,

and that acknowledging it is like letting

us noticing, oh, what's going on for me,

what's going on for me right now. My breath is short. Oh, I'm

feeling a little bit tense, or whatever it is, noticing,

observing,

it's it's neutral, yeah, I'm angry, not the Bad.

Bad. Anger is here without I don't want to be here. Yeah,

acknowledge without judgment is the perfect way to say it. And

then step two, name, what protecting? Okay, right? What's

the value that's at stake, what's the boundary that has

been crossed, what's being threatened? Is it my time? Is it

the team's time? Is it my integrity?

Is it okay, okay, okay, sorry. So I think

I'm I'm like a step behind, because I think for me, there's

two elements there, sorry, in your first step of the

acknowledging. I have notice and name. So I think that noticing

it is notice that this is happening for me in my body.

Naming it is naming it I am angry, or I am frustrated, or I

am annoyed. That is the second naming it. And then you bring it

into name what it's protecting, which is already another layer.

It's that deep.

We are shifting to six steps in this moment.

Added a step in there. Okay, I'm actually, and I

actually this is going to be easier to remember

if we have all the ends,

name it right,

and then name what it's protecting

exactly what value is it pointing to, what is

it pointing to that is important to you, that is meaningful to

you, that is a boundary that's being crossed, or that's a

person that you care about, whatever it is, understand what

is the thing you really, really care about in there. That's the

second naming. Got it.

Notice name, name, and then pause. When you need to

pause. We need to create some space here before the response,

because we still have that flood of cortisol, and we still have

the emotive part of our brain that is lit up and going Fight,

fight or freeze, it's time to protect the human So pause. I

mean, this doesn't have to be for 10 minutes. It can be for a

few seconds, or even

a breath. Take a deep breath. Back a couple of

deep breaths. Yeah. But it can also be, I do say to my clients,

sometimes, if something's happened and you understand

something's going on for you, that you need a little bit of

space. Create that space for yourself. Say, I need a few

minutes to just go to the bathroom. Go to the bathroom,

take some breaths. Throw water on splash water on your face, or

whatever it is, just that walk and you know, walk to the

bathroom, walk back. That can help you to take that pause, to

regain composure and calm down the amygdala and get your

cognitive brain thinking again.

If you can do that, that's ideal. Now definitely. I

also want to acknowledge that someone might be in the middle

of a meeting, yeah, right, if something's been brought up,

this is, this is the space like it's not right. You want to say

something in that moment, those few deep breaths, tell your

brain that the human is not running from a tiger. You know,

you don't have to be in survival mode. Let the brain activity go

to the prefrontal cortex. And I actually just picked up my pen,

right? And do that. I'm angry. Here's what it's protecting,

right? Like, take that moment to make a few notes, yeah, so that

you can do the next step, which is communicate from clarity, not

from charge, right? I'm just like charged and I'm reacting,

but instead, communicate from clarity. And I think it could be

good to get some go to statements. Here. Daphna, I'm

frustrated because this matters to me, or I'd like to time out.

I think we need to reset expectations. Or I care about

this too much to stay silent, right? I think this is going to

have an impact on our customers that we haven't thought through

thoroughly, right? Or I think, I think we just trampled on

somebody's feelings there. Let's pause for a moment, right? And

what's that? That statement that you use to open up the

conversation you want to open up in that moment.

And I do think it's a really good idea for you

to have a statement that you can go to. It's kind of like

something that you practice or hold on a sec. I need a moment

to think through this, or even, even if it's just a statement,

because I think that when we're going through this emotional

journey, and it's happening in the moment, and you want to

address it, sometimes it's hard to name what is going on in the

room. It takes a lot of courage to say, you know, we need to

reset expectations, or I'm frustrated because it matters to

me, those words may not come off the tongue so easily. So I do

think even saying hold it a sec, I need a moment to think about

it. Or if someone's asking you to do something just that kind

of even that can be a go to statement of I need to think

about this. I'll get back to you because you can't respond in the

moment. And you do need, it doesn't have to be in the moment

at that time. I think if you've noticed it, you've named it,

you've been able to see what's underneath it. What is it that

matters to you so much? And then you can actually say, I need, I

need to think about this, or I need to, yeah, take a few

breaths, give yourself the pause and decide that you will handle

it later. I think that's also

yep, yep, yep, yeah. I actually love that you can

have a go to statement for, I'm going to open up a conversation

in this moment. And you can have a go to statement for, I need to

buy my son. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, that, yeah, yeah. And then I

don't know if we need step six. Step Six was going to be

Channel, Channel, the energy into movement.

That's good, I think, yeah, good. Because truth

is that emotion, any emotion, and especially when it's a

strong emotion, it's energy in motion, emotion. So what

actually happens with emotions? It's an energy inside of us, and

it's got to go somewhere. So if we can notice it and actually

get up and get yourself a cup of coffee, make some kind of

movement that allows the energy to flow. Yeah, actually also

helps in releasing that pent up emotion. So I'm saying even if

you're in a meeting, you can just get up and stand. Sometimes

people get up and stand and kind of shake their legs a little bit

because they've been sitting for too long. Or there's a coffee

bar in the corner, and you can go over there and just make

yourself a cup of coffee. There are ways that you can find that

you can go into motion without anybody necessarily noticing

that this is what you're doing. Excellent.

Okay, I actually was thinking about it differently.

Daphna, so I love that you went to physical movement. I was also

thinking energetically like, like, how much the anger charge

has on us. So if we notice it, if we name the emotion, if we

name what it's protecting, we take that pause, and then we

communicate from clarity, right? Like, in that communication,

we've taken some of the charge out of what we're going to say

in that moment, but then, like, the emotion is still there,

right? We Still Care. So then I've seen like, as the

conversation continues, or when you come back to the

conversation, like, allow that emotional energy into the

exchange. We can. We can't express our emotion like we

said, not by throwing chairs, not by getting forcefully

aggressive in a moment. But why can't we have some emotion get

into our voice? Why can't we show that passion like channel

that energy for positive you are? I've already given us

examples of how we can use that strong emotion as a catalyst to

reform things in our world.

Yeah, it's true. I love what she's saying,

because it can really be an opportunity to say this matters.

This matters to me, this matters to us, or even an exploration of

this is really what matters to me, what matters to you, you

know, and as as if I understand you correctly, you're saying,

Bring that emotion into the conversation. What really

matters here for us? Why are we getting so heated up? Because we

both really passionate about something, something matters to

us. And often I find especially. In working with people in

conflict situations where there is a heated argument about, say,

the way to do something, what matters to them? That is the

same thing. What's important? Often, yeah, often the same

thing. They both want the success of the project or the

goal or the team or the person, whatever it is, the success of

the situation is equally important to both those people.

They just have a difference of opinion about how they should go

about resolving it or doing it, or what the next step should be.

And if you can for a moment, say, what is it that matters to

clearly, we passionate. Yeah, when you see anger in the room,

rename it say, clearly, we're passionate Yeah, what are we

passionate? What are we each passionate about? I'm willing to

bet 70% of the time or 70% of what they are passionate about

will be exactly the same.

Yes, yes. So Daphna, I mean, I'm hearing, can we be

with people expressing their opinions with an with emotion,

emotional charge to that. And also it can be a really useful

strategy in those exchanges to also acknowledge what's the

common ground? Yeah, what's the common goal? I mean, even if you

have to go pretty far up, right, we both care about providing a

good service to our customer, right, we may have fundamentally

different thoughts about how we're right and and can we, can

we both express what we care about and why we care about it

in that moment?

Yeah, yeah, I think that's really I love.

Where this conversation is has gone, and where it started and

where it's led to. Because I think that the whole thing

around anger and I guess any other strong emotion that we

feel is that there is to always know, that there is validity to

it, that it is okay, there is there are no bad emotions,

really? No, it's very human. How do we want to actually give

expression to our anger in a way that is healthy and lands well

and has the impact that we wanted to have? And I think that

the six step, seven step, five step, it was, I think we had

steps with offshoots. Yes, the tips that we gave here are

really, really helpful in terms of really understanding and

acknowledging what it is that's going on. What is it pointing

to? Because that is really the main thing for me here, is, what

is it pointing to? What is the message that it's trying to tell

us? What is it that we really care about, and then taking that

pause, moving finding that sentence, finding that

statement, taking the break, and then coming back to it in a much

cleaner space where you're not emotionally charged and you can

actually land your message with impact.

So don't immediately suppress that anger. The goal

isn't to calm down. The goal is to get clear.

Yeah, yeah. And, and actually, just another

thing to add to that is the whole idea of a calm and

composed leader. I think that's something that's really

important, and we value that. But sometimes these people might

be suppressing a whole lot of emotions that could be creating

artificial harmony rather than real harmony. So that's also

something we really want to be real. That's what we're talking

about, right? We want to be real?

Yes, let's leave listeners with an inquiry before

we wrap Daphna stillness, our moment of stillness, yeah, you

have some options here.

Maybe, yeah. Shall we take a breath first of

all, yeah, and really land that moment of stillness. And I think

the question I want to leave our listeners with is, where does my

anger actually show me what I care about the most

love that question, and it shows us that our anger

is rooted in great intentions. Folks, if you know anyone else

who needs to hear this? This episode about anger, and how are

all humans who care and we all all experience anger at some

point? Please share it. Please leave a comment. Let us know

what you thought about this topic. Let us know other topics

that you might want us to discuss in an unfiltered way.

Yeah, and until next time, stay connected, and

I'm saying connected to whatever emotion you're feeling with stay

courageous and stay unfiltered. That's a wrap on this episode of

unfiltered, where we have courageous conversations about

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