🎤 PODCAST • Anger Control ~ I was convicted of mild domestic violence due to financial stress.
09:49 Share

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download Chapter 1 for free at drkenner.com and at amazon.com. Matthew, you have a problem with anger? Yes. Yeah, tell me what's going on. Just a lot of pressure at home, going through foreclosure. I got talked into a home that I didn't want to buy that's way over our head. My wife maxed out her credit card.

I have so much anger that I don't know what to do. Sometimes it's okay, and then I'm out of control. How do I control this anger? What do you do when you're out of control? Well, I got a domestic violence charge two years ago. Okay. I slammed the car door, and it hit her arm. She called the police, so I had to go through an anger management class. What did you learn from that that personally seemed to hit home that helped you?

I don't even remember.

Okay, did you kind of fog out during it because it's mandatory? It was more mandatory. Okay, so this is very different then because right now you're seeking help rather than it being slapped on you as a sentence, right? Right. I'm calling right now because I'm angry. Right now you're angry. Yeah, and I don't want to end up in jail and I don't want to end up at an anger management class for a year. Okay, so one of the... What do I do to divert the anger?

First, I want to tell you what anger is and then I want to help you give you some skills. Number one is anger means that your mind is detecting something's not fair.

And you've already named several things. My guess is you could make a whole page full of things that are not fair or you're perceiving is not fair right now. The foreclosure, having bought a home, your wife having maxed out the credit cards. You're saying it's not fair. I'm in a position that I don't want to be in at this point in my life. I'm assuming you're thinking along those lines. Right. I can't even find a job, you know. And OK, so look at all the stressors that are on your shoulders right now.

Can you name two or three other stressors just so I get a picture of it? Well, the closest of my daughter is gone. The what? I was close with my daughter. I'm not hearing that word. I was close with my daughter. Yeah. And right now there's no trust and we're not close anymore because of the last three years and the spouts of anger and...

Just, you know, when you're upset at your mom, that's all you see. You don't know what's going on behind the scenes. Okay, so... So I've lost my relationship with my daughter, and that...

And my guess is that it depresses her too. Even if she's putting you at arm's length and making it seem like she doesn't value you, if you ever had any good moments together, both of you are missing each other. And that's really sad. Anger is something you can deal with. You could go to a... If you can find a sliding scale therapist in your area, do you know what that is? They won't charge as much. Or if you... You can...

You could even Google anger management for free advice. I can give you some tips. There are anger management workout books. There's one on my website, drkenner.com, that actually walks you through a whole bunch of skills. One of the things that you'll learn to do is to put yourself on pause, P-A-U-S-E, like you're in remote control when you're feeling angry.

and buy your mind some time because if you just go by your knee-jerk reaction, you know what happens. You slam the car door, correct? So if you buy yourself time, whether you take a walk,

or whether you simply go in the bathroom and close the door and sit on the toilet. You know, just something to buy some time. Or take a ride, but be careful if you tend to drive angrily, don't take a ride. Walk the dog if you have a dog. You know, just do something to put space, to buy yourself some thinking time, to cool down time, processing time.

So that's number one. If you know any relaxation techniques, that will help. Sometimes you would want to learn deep breathing or muscle relaxation or even sitting down. When people are angry, do they tend to sit down and get angry? No. Isn't that fascinating? They tend to stand up and get in your face. And I'm only giving you a little sampler of many techniques

anger management skills. Eventually you could work with somebody. Either if you don't have the money, you could use an anger management workbook. There's a Dr. Weisinger's anger workout book. That's the name of it.

That's on my website. I mentioned that before, drkenner.com, D-R-K-E-N-N-E-R.com. But eventually you're going to want to... Hey, I got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad and then Alan will be back. Romance. I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw?

Here it is. The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com. Huh. The Selfish Path to Romance. That is interesting. But eventually you're going to want to get to your specific thoughts. What's driving your anger? Because underneath every emotion...

is a thought process. It's not fair. Why am I in this situation? They should respect me, or I can't believe this is happening to me. It's not fair. The theme of anger is an injustice. It feels like it's not fair. Instead of acting on your anger, which compounds it, acting with your old coping strategy, which is just to kind of vomit the anger,

Are you with me still, Matthew? You know, just let it all out. I'm using the word vomit, but you know, let it all out. Instead of doing that, if you give yourself...

a menu of other things you can do. You can take the walk, but if you think productively, how can I learn to connect better with my daughter? What would be the very next step I could take? You could work with a therapist on that. You could try to find a cognitive therapist. Cognitive is a dressed-up word for thinking therapist.

C-O-G-N-I-T-I-V-E. You can put on little cards your different problems. One is foreclosure, one is the credit card, one is the job, and one is your daughter.

And you could try to say, there's no way I'm on overload. I can't deal with all these four things at one time. I can't. Look at how big they are. They're huge. They're enormous. But I would like you to have a 60-year perspective. How old are you now? I'm 50 years old. You're 50. If you were 60 or 70 years old, looking back on your life, how would you wish you had handled it at this point? You want some strategies that will work together.

towards your long-range happiness, not work against it. And lashing out in anger, you already know, complicates your life. It adds one more little card with a problem, right? Right. Actually, a big card. So, I don't know, did you get the name of that workbook? Yeah, I did. Okay. And I would really try to focus on one or two things you like about yourself, and

and better moments in your life so that you have a mental anchor and some grounding so that you don't beat up on yourself because anger really intensifies when we beat up on ourselves and it paralyzes our mind so we can't problem solve. Instead of problem solving, we're saying, oh, I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I let this happen to my life. And you hear what's called stinking thinking.

You know, that's what we do to ourselves. But while we're doing our stinking thinking, we're not saying, how can I connect with my daughter? Okay, foreclosures, you know, upon me, or I'm upset with my wife. What would be the next step that would work us more towards resolving this issue? And you work one little step at a time because nobody can deal with the whole mess.

All right. Okay. Listen, thank you so much for your call, and I wish you a lot of success. You can always touch base with a therapist. If they're a university-based therapist, sometimes they don't cost much or sometimes nothing at all.

Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you, Matthew. For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to drkenner.com and please listen to this ad. Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner. Another virtue that makes you lovable is justice. Justice means appraising and acting toward other people in accordance with facts.

Thank you.

You can download Chapter 1 for free at drkenner.com and you can buy the book at amazon.com.