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VIP Audio - Anger

Hello my VIP member and welcome to this month’s lesson. This lesson’s title is ‘Anger’ err, yeah. Anger… That doesn’t sound like a very positive topic and we’re supposed to be a positive club, right, about thinking positively and doing all these positive things to change the world and contribute and to be great leaders. So why am I talking about anger this month?

Well, I’ll tell you, eventually. Let’s do this step by step and see if I can convince you about why this is an important topic and why, in fact, I feel that anger is a very positive and powerful thing, if used well.

So, the first thing I want to talk about – and this is a basic idea in a lot of different schools of psychology – is that emotions are not negative or positive. Naturally we have this feeling that certain emotions are negative and bad and other ones are positive and good.

So, we can all recognize that happy is a positive emotion. We all would love to feel more happy, but most of us would look at anger as something negative and bad. I don’t want to be angry. That’s not good. Angry people are not fun to be around. Anger, ah, that’s not good.

Same with things like jealousy or sadness, right? We tend to think of these as negative and we have this label in our head that they’re bad and because of that we can actually create a lot of psychological problems because we can try to push those things away.

Or, other people do the opposite. They just let those emotions come out uncontrolled and they can cause a lot of damage and a lot of negative affects. That’s why we think that these are negative or bad.

But the truth is they’re not negative, they’re not positive. What makes them negative or positive is how we use them. You know what we do when we feel angry, what we do when we feel sad or what we do when we feel happy. That’s what really determines if something is positive or negative; if it’s constructive and it builds and it helps or it’s destructive, it hurts and it tears apart. So, anger can be positive and constructive, absolutely it can and I’ll talk more about that.

Anger is a very, very powerful emotion. We all know that, right? I mean when you feel angry, err, it unleashes a lot of energy. If you are really angry you have a ton of energy, so much energy inside of you. Now, you might be really good at holding it in and trying not to show it, but you feel that in your body. You feel that energy. It wants to get out when you’re really angry about something.

It depends on your cultures too. I mean Tomoe is from a Japanese culture and they don’t show those strong emotions and let them out. It’s kind of not seen as good. This is also true in Thailand, you know, showing strong anger in public is not a good thing; whereas, in America, maybe in Europe, it’s a little more acceptable to show it. Even within the United States it depends on where you are.

So, for example, in New York City it’s much more acceptable to shout and yell and ahh!

You’re driving and you scream at other people. It’s seen as normal and acceptable. You do that in the southern part of the United States it’s considered very rude. So we have all these cultural kind of norms; these cultural rules about anger as well.

But what I want to talk about is really something more personal in our own lives. When we feel anger about something in our own life how can we use that in a positive way?

Well, like I said, the hint to how we can do that is that anger is very powerful. It’s a powerful energy. It releases incredible energy.

So energy we know is, again, not positive or negative. It can be used negatively. It can be used positively. So what we’re really talking about here is how can we use that incredibly powerful energy and sort of shape it and channel it in a really positive way.

Well, the first thing we have to do is don’t suppress it. To “suppress” means to push down.

Now, that doesn’t mean we’re uncontrolled. I mean there’s great value in the Japanese way. For example, everyone is not running around screaming at each other. It’s not good. That’s very destructive. But, on the other hand, if you’re always suppressing it, even when you’re by yourself and alone, even when you probably should express your anger, that’s not good and it can create a lot of problems.

People who push down anger all the time they can get sick, right? Their stomachs they start having all these problems with their stomach. They can become really kind of sad and depressed eventually, right, because they’re pushing that energy down all the time and it can kind of just like take away all their energy and they start feeling powerless. Or, people can become very bitter. They’re never really yelling and screaming, but they’re just negative all the time. They look like this all the time. Nothing in their life is good, rah-rah-rah, everything is bad. That’s called bitterness.

And that’s what happens when you try to suppress anger; when you just push it away and pretend it’s not there. That’s not healthy. You know we all do this. I’ve done that.

You’ve done it. We’ve all done it, but generally it’s not a good thing to do. It’s not a good habit to have. You do it sometimes, you know, it happens, but it’s not something you want to constantly do, very, very unhealthy.

The opposite extreme is to indulge anger. Now, “indulge” means to just let something go uncontrollably. For example, if you indulge a child you’re spoiling the child. You just let them do anything they want. So if they’re running around destroying things and starting fires you just let them do what they want. We all know that that’s not good. Children need some control. So that’s indulging.

Well, we can indulge our anger. To indulge our anger is the opposite of suppressing it.

People who indulge their anger, they get angry and just aaahhh! They just yell at people and they insult people and they do mean things. They say bad things or they throw tantrums like babies, you know? A tantrum is like naaaaaaaaa!

And usually we have sort of one style that’s more normal for us than the other, it depends on your family and your culture and all of that. Like I’d say in the Western culture it’s probably more common to indulge anger. Like I have more of a problem personally, in my own personal life at home, I might kind of throw a little tantrum. Like I’m not happy about something and I just act like a little child sometimes. It’s not good.

It’s not healthy.

But in public I don’t usually do that. In public, however, there are people, like I mentioned people in New York, we all know them, who just scream and yell, even about small things. They get angry and they just go crazy and nobody likes these people.

That’s also not a positive way to use anger. I think we can all see that. So how do we do it? What can we do?

Well, the idea is that you need to think about anger as like fire, right? It’s a power. It’s a fire and fire and that fieriness in your spirit, in your soul, can be super powerful. It can be amazing and fantastic. You see, anger has a message for you, has a message for us.

When you feel angry, what’s happening is that your unconscious is telling you that your values or your principles have been broken, have been violated. Someone or something is doing something wrong, something that feels wrong to you that you feel is not fair; it’s not just, it’s not right. Maybe they’re doing it to you, maybe they’re doing it to somebody else, maybe it’s just a situation, but that anger comes up. Well, that’s a good thing. It’s an important message.

What you need to do when that anger comes up is you need to look at it and say okay.

What is happening here? Why am I getting angry? Which of my values or principles is being violated, is being broken by someone? Of course, you can get angry at yourself.

You could maybe violate your own principles. You do something that you really don’t feel is right and then you’re mad at yourself. Why did I do that! That’s okay.

So, again, the message is good because the message is telling you something is happening that you don’t feel is right. Something is happening that doesn’t fit your highest principles, your highest values. That’s good to know because then you can do something about it. Anger is a call to action. It’s a call for attention. Look what’s happening. Something is happening and it’s not right. It gives you that energy then to do something about it.

So the first step when anger comes up – it’s not always easy when it immediately happens, but you sometimes wait and just do it later – is you look at the situation and you’re like which of my values was being violated. Why was I getting angry? What was happening that I feel was not right, that it was wrong, it was not fair, it was not good, and what do I think should happen instead?

Now, the second thing is then you want to channel that anger. You want to use it like a fire, like gasoline, like power. How are you going to use it? You’re going to use it, you’re going to put it into being more strong and courageous and brave to do what’s right.

That’s the positive power of anger. It gives you the energy and the power to do what’s right, to correct the wrongs, to fight injustice and, as another one of our lessons was about, to fight the good fight. It gives that energy and power to do it and that’s great.

That’s how you want to use it.

So, first, you identify what’s happening that’s wrong. Which of my higher values is being broken and then what needs to happen. Then you take that anger and, eeerrr, you let that power build inside of you and then you take action with that power inside of you.

Then you can really make some great changes, some positive changes.

So let me tell you how I’ve used this in my own life. I’ve used this in many ways. You know I’m kind of a fiery person by nature. It’s my personality. I’m sure you can see that on the videos. You can hear it in my voice, right? I’ve got a lot of energy, a lot of passion, fiery. Well, a lot of that energy and passion comes from anger because I see things that I don’t feel are right.

I see people getting hurt. I see things that are happening bad in the world in many different ways or in my own life. I even look at myself and I see things that I’m not doing that don’t fit what I feel is the best for me and my family. I get angry and then I take that energy and I’m like err! I’m going to change this! That’s all that fire and energy and passion. That’s why I’m jumping around and moving all the time. It’s not all anger, but I do put anger into that and it gives me a lot of power. It gives me a lot of energy.

So, you all know my story. In the past I was working in schools and I didn’t like what I saw. I saw all the failed methods. Well, that made me upset. It made me angry and then when my bosses tried to force me to use textbooks that were boring and didn’t work and they tried to force me to use techniques that caused a lot of stress for my students that also made me angry because I thought this isn’t fair. This isn’t right. We’re not serving these students. We’re not helping them, we’re hurting them. I’m not going to do that.

I started getting that anger, right? You can hear it and you can feel it, but instead of just screaming and indulging it or instead of just pushing it away I used it. I said I’m going to do something different. I’m not going to do what they told me to do. I’m going to do what I think is best. I’m going to try new things. I’m going to find better solutions. I took all that energy and that fire and I put it into my teaching and it helped a lot. It helped my teaching improve very, very quickly.

If I hadn’t used that energy and passion and that anger I don’t think I would have improved as quickly. I think it would have taken me a much longer time. But because I had so much fire and anger I turned that into passion to do the right thing and it really helped me improve a lot personally as a teacher and it helped my students much more and, ultimately, it gave me the fire and the energy I needed to start my own company.

It wasn’t easy. I was afraid to do it. I mean I’ll be honest. I was afraid I was gonna totally fail when I started Effortless English, but then I had that anger too. I’m like well I’m not going back. I’m not gonna work for somebody else. I’m not gonna continue using those terrible methods. I’m not gonna continue to have these bosses telling me to do things that I feel are wrong. I won’t do it anymore!

You know, I got myself really angry about it and then I took that anger and I said okay.

What do I need to do instead? I had to find a positive way to channel that, to put that anger into something positive, not just get angry and hit the wall or something. That doesn’t help. So, instead, I used all that anger and I channeled it and I said I’m going to start my own company. I’m going to record my own lessons. That’s it! And all that power and energy, it helped me get through all the problems and challenges of starting Effortless English.

I mean they continue. There are always problems. We’re having lots of problems now.

We’ve had them in the past. We’ll have them in the future. But I had that passion and energy and fire and anger and I channeled it in a positive way and it gave me tremendous energy to get through lots of problems. If I hadn’t had that those problems might have felt bigger and I might not have the energy to record all those lessons and learn all about business and learn about websites. Man, I had to learn a lot of stuff.

So, as you can see, anger can be positive and it can be an incredible source of energy, but you’ve just gotta channel it in a way that gives you courage to do the right thing.

That’s basically how you use it and when you do that it’s an incredible source of power.

So don’t push it away and don’t just jump around like a baby.

You know we’ve all done those two things, but when you can, when you’re thinking about it, channel it. Think about what’s wrong, what’s right and then put that anger into doing what’s right and then it will turn into something more positive. It will turn into a happier, more passionate feeling instead of a negative feeling. It will just kind of change and instead of feeling like I’m angry, you’ll feel like I’m passionate and, as you pour it into those positive actions, the feeling changes. It’s really powerful. It’s amazing.

So, of course, that is your homework and I’ll talk more about this in the commentary, but I want you to think about it in your life. What are you angry about? If you say nothing either you’re living a really boring life or you’re not being honest and I think it’s number two because we all know things in life somewhere that are wrong, that feel wrong, that we don’t think are right, that upset us.

So I want you to identify, just identify one of them and, you know, chose something in your personal life. I mean we all have big political things we don’t like, but those are harder to change. I want you to focus on something a little closer, like in your job or in your family or your health, something that’s more in your direct control.

Identify what you’re angry about and then identify have you been suppressing it or indulging it. If you have that’s fine, but just decide you’re going to do something different. Then I want you to decide what is it that’s happening that’s wrong that’s making you angry.

Then finally, I want you to decide, what’s the right thing? What’s the right thing you want and then I want you to take that anger and channel it and focus it on doing the right thing. And the final thing is take action. Use that energy to actually take consistent actions to change the situation.

That’s it. Get on the social site and tell us about your experiences with anger and how you’re using anger in a more positive constructive way and turning it into passion.

All right, I will see you in the Commentary and see you on the social site, bye-bye.