Hi! I'm Paul Friedman from The Marriage Foundation. I founded it and I'm the one
who has discovered all of the principles and came up with systems and techniques
for helping marriages. I don't think there's anything better out there than
what I've come up with, honestly and I don't mean to be bragging about that. But
I used to be a divorce mediator and I've seen the crazy ways people try to help
marriages. This will help you and this this video is part two about Anger in
Marriage, and it's purposeful the reason for producing this video is so that you
have some tools so you have some understanding but I urge you if you
stopped here first go to part one because without part one part two -- it's
not as effective. So we talked about what anger is how it is the instinctive
reaction that is fear-based and it's in response to something that
the mind considers to be fearful. So, there are really two parts to this part
2. One part is dealing with the anger within yourself and the other is dealing
with the anger in your spouse, and what to do about it. So which one do you like
to deal with first? How about we deal with if your spouse is angry? So you have
to understand something when your spouse is angry
it doesn't matter what caused it. You will never get to the bottom of it and
if you do it's meaningless anyway. Why? Because the subconscious mind the
subconscious mind is filled with so many webs of interactions and
cause-and-effect that to isolate a particular reaction we'll call this a
reaction to isolate it in terms of why is beyond impossible a supercomputer
can't do it, you know it could be that the fear, cuz that's what causes the
anger, fear. That the fear is based on some trivial thing that occurred in as a
baby or who knows, maybe a past life we don't know. We don't know all of the
intricacies of the mind and why it perceives something as scary.
We don't know. All we can deal with is this, this anger reaction, Bam! and again
it comes up in so many different ways and I'm gonna tell you something. If
you've never dealt with anger within yourself you're lying to me
all of us do. We do because it is instinctive so when we see it in someone
else the number one rule, number one is do not
you know what I'm gonna say here. Do not take it personally.
Do not take it personally, it's not about you. Sure, something that you have done
maybe is triggering something in here or maybe not. Maybe it's just something you
did that reminded your spouse of something so do not take it personally.
Now, that's not always easy is it however, if you love your spouse and you do now
is the time for you as their best friend to shift your perspective from
the recipient of their anger even if it's triggering your anger, just stop
that and shift to compassion and understanding. And what are you
understanding? You don't have to understand all this nonsense because
it's nonsense to you, it's nonsense to them too. You have to understand this
that it's unintentional.
Anger is not intentional nobody wants to be angry because when you're angry it
shuts down everything else you don't think anymore
shuts down your ability to process, to analyze, to interact, shuts everything
down because it's your first parapet of defense. So you need to see that because
you're not going to be getting angry, if they get angry if you keep your cool so
keep your cool. Shift and go here, and then you have to be ultra
considerate. So number 2 is be considerate, what does that mean effectively?
So these are the two things, do not take it personally, and be considerate. So what
does that mean? So if somebody burned their finger and you're talking to them
and you want to shake hands and you see their fingers burnt, you don't do
anything even like that you don't shake their hands cuz you know it's gonna hurt
them. You're considerate of where they're at now, maybe they were stupid and they
burnt their finger and doing something really stupid. Don't take it personally
they can't shake your hand be considerate, be compassionate, be
understanding it's a weakness and you don't analyze them. You don't help them
figure out why, don't play Dr. Freud. You be a loving spouse who is merely
considerate and give them the space to deal with their own anger. Boom! That's it.
Now, we go to part two of part two which is what happens when you feel angry
because that's what I promised you and I like to keep my promises because I'm not
running for office so I get to keep my promises.
What do you do when you're angry? So this is tricky, in the 90's, I decided it was
1994 that I decided I'm gonna conquer anger. I thought I'd had enough. And so I
decided, this is my mind I can control it I'm not going to allow it to be angry
anymore. This is using will power
this is a way to conquer your anger is using will power
No, I won't. Yes, I will. It's one way, some people are able to use their will power
and stop being angry -- not me. Number two, you use the workaround. Now, I
didn't invent the term workaround but I think I invented the application so
what's the workaround? A workaround is you're triggered and you can look
into my stuff and you'll learn about what that means but basically, the mind
has all of these triggers, and triggers create a response in your mind due to
habit. So, a workaround is recognizing I'm getting angry, I'm going to instead make
my mind think about this, I'm gonna go here, I'm gonna do this. I'm going to
practice what we use before I'm gonna practice understanding rather than
getting angry at what is happening. I'm gonna practice understanding or I'm
gonna use an affirmation and that's what I'm gonna do. Workarounds are really good
but there's a better way. I found three ways, and this is call that
I didn't invent this one at all. This was actually invented by Patanjali
who was an indian saint and this one is holy indifference. And it's funny how
I discovered this because what I did was I came up with these two. I bumped into
an old monk friend of mine and I was so excited. I said, brother
look what I came up with. And he goes, hmm. He was... holy indifference. Wow! That
is very cool. What's holy indifference? Holy
indifference is that you don't take yourself seriously, that's a simple way
to put it. You don't care because you're a soul, remember we talked about the soul
in a previous video. You're a soul so it really doesn't
matter because a soul can't die, can't be burned drown,
anything a soul is the soul; it's a universal consciousness of love. So
holy indifference is kind of using the workaround to be indifferent to anything
that it might happen and what it does is it mitigates the impact on the triggers.
Now, that didn't work for me either. Things got better but I never conquered anger
what finally happened for me was very interesting. It's after, I was a
divorce mediator for a while and then I became a marriage healer. And I realized
that my clients, as well as they knew they shouldn't get angry but even like
smaller things they shouldn't say something, they shouldn't do something
and they couldn't, and they'd come to me and say, "Man, I know what's right and I
can't do what's right, and I can't stop myself from doing what's wrong." And I
thought, wow, this is a universal problem. So what I did was I dug into
this and I realized that what drives virtually all of our behavior is either
instinct or habit.
We're sort of, I mean if you look at it truly we're sort of automatons. We hardly
ever used freewill which is like one of the greatest gifts given to us as
individual souls. Now, we're driven by instinct and habit
and I thought, how do you deal with this? So it came to me and I invented this
thing called the SEW technique. Now, there's good news and bad news here. The
good news is it's really simple. The bad news is I'm gonna tell you about it
you're gonna try it, you're gonna be using it for a little while then it
can't use it anymore it won't work and I'll explain that. But
first let's get into what it is, SEW is stop, just stop the mind, just Bam! Just
stop the mind. As soon as you feel that charge because it's all electrical
our bodies are electrical, really. If you had a special microscope or you could
see that small, you wouldn't see any mess at all you would see protons electrons
and all these things whizzing around we're all electrical. And so the energy
moving that's hitting our triggers and all of that; it's all electrical so as
soon as you feel it it's distinct you feel the anger coming up. Stop, and you
have that power. Then evaluate,
what should I do? And act with wisdom, pretty simple, right? So cool. Now, the
problem is the mind is complex and I'm not gonna spend this whole video time
explaining to you why, but you could trust me on this.
You tell your mind, whoa, we're gonna use because you can talk to your mind, I talk
to my mind all the time and you wouldn't want to be around sometimes I swear had
it and I go look mine we're gonna do use this SEW technique from now on. This is
brilliant and it's effective, and the minds gonna
go, sure, but it won't. It'll do it for a little while and then it'll quit. So the
simple antidote for this and I put it in my course. I have these
courses on books but the course is so powerful. I created this anatomy
of a fight class about three videos long and it explains the mind in
so much detail, and when you watch it over and over it sinks in. And now the
mind knows how the mind works then it could do the SEW until then it can't so
I'm sure there's some people who will use the SEW from now on. Great, I couldn't
so I couldn't conquer this anger for 10 years. Then I did the SEW, Bam! Just took
care of it it is like the solution and who knows someday we'll do anger
management courses for people and this is how we'll achieve it because managing
anger forget about it. You can't manage it, it's like managing a shark it's too
powerful, it's too powerful. It's either out of your control or under your
control. This puts it under your control so this is what you do for yourself.
Got it? So now you know what to do when your spouse, right? You don't take it
personally, and you'd be considerate and now you know what to do when it's your
anger. You stop, evaluate, and act with wisdom and that's it. See how simple life
is no big deal, and see how well it will impact your marriage in such a positive
loving way. So if you like what I'm talking about let people know share it,
subscribe to more of my videos I love sharing this stuff with you and
that's it. Thank you very much for staying tuned and remember, The Marriage
Foundation is here for one purpose and that's to serve you and your marriage.
Take care.