hey everybody today we are going to talk
about anger
why it exists and how we can better
manage it and if you're new to my
channel welcome make sure you are
subscribed and have your notifications
turned on so that you don't miss out on
any new videos now today we have a very
special guest my friend and artist
Shayla Maddox is going to be painting
anger as I talk about it super cool
also maybe super heart but she uses art
as a way to process her emotions but
when preparing for this video she shared
it's kind of like me I don't really like
anger kind of scary
anger is scary and it's kind of ugly and
dark and weird and I really like to
paint things that make me happy so
having a face anger sometimes is really
kind of difficult for me and I thought
what a great way to learn about anger
together each of us using the tips and
tools that have helped us in the past
her using art neat overthinking it doing
some research so I can better understand
it so follow along with us as she paints
what I'm talking about and as I teach
you more about anger and why it has to
exist and hopefully we will all become a
little bit more friendly with our anger
because we all have it we just have to
get to know it better so that we can
have a healthy relationship with it and
I will link all of Shayla socials in the
description she has a patreon so you can
go check that out as well go check it
all out she's wonderful
and I love what she does now let's just
get into it as you know anger is often a
secondary emotion meaning it's used to
protect us from something else that
we're feeling things such as humiliation
hurt feeling scared rejected or honestly
anything that's really difficult for us
to admit that we feel anger can seem a
lot safer than those emotions like when
we're asked what's going on or how we're
feeling we can confidently say I feel
angry or even if we aren't actually
comfortable feeling angry or saying it
out loud we can stew in it instead of
admitting to ourselves that were
actually very hurt in other words
whether we express
anger outwardly or not it's still there
and more comfortable than the primary
emotion for the most part anger exists
as a way for us to get out of any
threatening situation and survive that's
why when we feel vulnerable hurt or
humiliated
for example anger pops up and distracts
us it senses the threat of more hurt or
upset and jumps out to protect us and if
you hadn't guessed this already anger is
triggered by our amygdala you know that
part of the brain that's responsible for
our fight flight or freeze response
that's why anger can often feel very out
of control to us when I asked you on
instagram what you wanted me to talk
about so many of you replied with how
can I better control my anger or how can
I healthfully express it and I'll be
honest I don't even have a very good
relationship with anger in fact a lot of
my current therapy is focused on this
very emotion
I know anger needs to exist but I don't
like it and in my mind the word anger is
like a kind of dirty word like I said to
Shayla I don't like it
I'm a people pleaser I hate conflict and
I have tried all sorts of things to
healthfully express it as my therapist
said like screaming in my car writing it
out talking about it with my therapist
and friends I've tried it all and I'm
gonna be honest with you it does help a
little bit
when it's something small that I'm angry
about but not when it's something big
that kind of big anger just feels really
scary and out of control to me the
reason anger can feel so out of control
is because our amygdala is like a
tantrum in toddler it doesn't care who
it upsets or if what it's doing is
embarrassing or how it should act like
what's appropriate it doesn't care about
that it only cares that it's up
set and it wants to express it and this
could be flipping someone off when they
cut us off on the road or screaming at a
loved one because they've done something
that was really hurtful we can't allow
the tantrum and toddler to run the show
obviously that would be chaos but we
also can't stuff it down and pretend
like it doesn't exist in order to not
let anger run and pretty much ruin our
lives we have to allow our wise mind
otherwise known as the prefrontal cortex
have a say in it the prefrontal cortex
is the part of our brain that considers
consequences thinks through our options
and thoughtfully decides on an action we
could call this the adult part of our
brain but we all know that just because
we're adults doesn't mean we make good
decisions so let's just call this the
healthy Control Center and in order to
activate this part of our brain we have
to pay more attention to how we are
feeling I know it's uncomfortable but
think about it how does anger feel to us
hmm
where does it start like for me I feel
anger in my face first I know that's
weird but this is just me I find myself
clenching my teeth and I won't want to
meet someone's gaze like if I'm mad at
like I just just don't even want to look
at them and I want to shout I'll feel it
in my throat like I want to shout but
instead I'll just find myself swallowing
hard and kind of waiting for that angry
feeling to pass remember just because
I'm a therapist doesn't mean I'm perfect
not at all it honestly just means that I
know when I'm screwing it up okay next
we have to be a detective you know how
much I love being a detective to find
out what it was that set us off and this
is the hardest part what's the primary
emotion that our anger is hiding
remember at the beginning I said it's
usually secondary it's hiding something
else and I know this can be really hard
and it can take a lot of thought and
journaling or even many therapy sessions
to figure it out
but in my experience the more that we do
it the easier it gets and finally once
we have done those things we have to try
out a new way of expressing what we felt
for example let's say we're hurt can we
tell that to the person who hurt us if
it's safe obviously but maybe we can let
them know that what they said hurt our
feelings or that that's why we shouted
at them and I know this is hard but
communicating this can only improve our
relationships because the people who
will listen and try to work with us are
the ones that are worth having in our
lives and the ones that blow up on us or
won't listen at all like they shouldn't
be in our lives anyways so it's really a
win-win
I also heard from a lot of you that you
stuff your anger down like I said I'm
very guilty of this too and so you
wanted to learn how to stop doing that
that stuff you remember I said I swallow
hard and I want to learn too so I did
some research and what I learned is that
when we stuff down our anger that not
only takes away our sense of self but it
also makes healthy boundaries impossible
and this was mind-blowing to me but if I
really take the time to think about it
and maybe you'll agree with this we know
that's true when we pretend we aren't
angry
we aren't allowing our true feelings and
self to be seen or heard therefore no
one in our lives really knows how to
treat us or what we want or don't want
and what's ok with us
anger is a great indicator of what's
okay and not okay and one of the ways
that we can know if our boundaries are
being crossed and I've talked about this
a lot in the past when trying to explain
you know how to set up healthy
boundaries cuz a lot of you have asked
about that over the years so if we
aren't even allowing anger into our
lives at all we can find ourselves
getting walked
all over we're always doing what other
people want and slowly losing our sense
of self and after reading about this and
just considering it I could even see
this leading to cognitive dissonance
meaning that the way we're acting isn't
in line with who we believe ourselves to
be it doesn't agree with it but what do
you think do you agree or disagree with
that why or why not do you think that
not allowing anger into our lives makes
boundaries more difficult or our true
sense of self like we kind of get lost
in it let me know in the comments and
just like we talked about earlier in
order to have anger in our lives in a
healthy way we have to start to get to
know it I know it's kind of scary but we
have to know how it feels in our body
and in our mind what sorts of things
tend to trigger it and most importantly
what emotions does it try to hide for us
because if I'm being honest after all of
my work and therapy on this particular
topic I've learned that my anger usually
comes from one of two places one being
if someone hurts someone that I love I'm
very protective and I definitely like
mamabear situations where if I don't
feel like someone's voice is being heard
I will make sure the other person hears
it so that one was kind of easy for me
to figure out that's just how I've
always been my whole life but the harder
one for me to to pinpoint was that I get
angry when I don't feel important or
valued like if someone doesn't show up
for me the way that they said they would
or isn't reliable I am triggered big
time and it can be hard for me to
express that in a real way without
either shouting or shutting down so I
journal about it and I do my best to
communicate my need for consistency with
those that I care about but trust me
it's still very much a work in progress
just like this painting but what are
some things that you are doing to better
understand and manage your anger oh and
I also
to mention that we can all work together
to change the way we talk about anger
instead of treating it like it's a dirty
or bad emotion how about we just talk
about it in the same way we would talk
about being excited or happy or whatever
because anger is really just another
emotion but it does have a very
important role in our lives and in our
mental health now let's go check out our
painting see how it's coming well I love
it this is okay I'm not very artistic
just that's spoilers so you don't have
to be very artistic to do my type of art
because it's all very intuitive it's
very emotional and as you can see while
you were talking I just took a lot of
words and emotions from what you were
saying and things that it made me feel
brokenhearted just a lot of when I feel
angry I feel like scratching out so much
of my life my journal you know my
drawings and so that's always very
important to me I like the idea of
starting a painting and I call it ugly I
even wrote the word ugly I kind of
utilize that I take the pressure off of
me and say you know what I'm just going
through some stuff and I'm gonna get it
all out there it doesn't really matter
what it looks like cuz this is just that
little hard part cuz I'm like a
perfectionist I'll be like scrap the
whole thing now I wouldn't be able to do
that and stop there if I continued to
want to like sell the painting and post
it online probably for me so it's good
to get all the emotion out but when I
want to show people and want to kind of
finish an artwork as an artist I can't
leave it like this it's really
uncomfortable for me to leave all of
these angry words and these negative
thoughts and in my mind though it was
intentional to kind of make it ugly and
then so then that makes me uncomfortable
so then at this point in my art I have
to make it pretty okay and how do we do
we're gonna use some blue we just have
blue paint and basically just paint
whatever you want there's some white
space left you can make little marks
because part of me is like what if we
make the heart pretty even though it's
broke you can do that too that's perfect
I start to make happy faces instead of
the unhappy faces it's just now about
kind of making pretty colors and this
kind of one of the things I was doing by
representing the the yellow and the blue
to have one it's very kind of empty
mixing them together like being able to
add the blue color yellow and blue makes
green now we've got a third beautiful
color that didn't exist before and
personally I don't think that that true
creativity can happen unless we are
exploring all of the emotions both the
beautiful ones and the ugly ones no I
love that it reminds me did you watch
inside out yes
when sadness touches all that stuff yeah
and she's like no no Joy's like you're
ruining it but then she sees that it's
like it's not actually just sadness it's
like nostalgia it's like missing things
and that's okay too because the same
things means that you had love or
excitement or enjoyment at this time
right yeah it's I love it we get so
caught up in ourselves like just being
cynical and and getting stuck with our
own anger then almost it feels better to
keep the anger even than to let it go I
think sometimes it's really hard for me
to I think like I feel entitled to be
angry sometimes and I don't let it go I
want to hold on to it for a little while
well it's fair to let you're letting
yourself process it because the goal
like of the video is not to feel like I
feel anger I understand it I let it go
it that this could take a few months
right or it could take a year if it's a
really deep wound that we're trying to
heal but that doesn't have to like run
our lives it can just be something
that's like I like to say percolating in
the back it's just hanging out right
we're trying to understand it right
trying to put more words to it layers
yes all about layers there's so much
beauty and I'm trying to just embrace
that yeah I love this
this makes art feel more accessible to
me
and then pretty much done I mean yeah
wonderful we can see what it looks like
in the dark
yeah I know all of her paintings glow in
blacklight that's an extra bonus it's
like a little gift inside the painting
that I give myself it's like you see
what happens so you don't know but it's
gonna come out here this I see it's in
all of your art has this extra added
layer of like how it reacts to light
yeah it reacts to all forms of light I
like to have a painting that not only
shows its colors in the daytime but also
when it's night and you turn out the
lights - so the backlight actually
brings out a lot of the UV ultraviolet
colors that we can't see with our
normalize that requires this extra light
that's so cool it's like it's a separate
secret hidden painting inside the other
painting yeah it's like two and one yeah
extra little surprise if you didn't know
it'd be you know what I mean it right
it's like oh this was so fun to do thank
you for coming by I'm sure having me
sharing your talent loves making art
with you yeah see it made me feel like I
could actually maybe create well you're
a creative person so
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you