Anger: The Fuel of Sexual Addiction

*The topic is anger, but the stories are tender, so please pause, pray, breathe, and listen as you feel ready.*

Anger is often misunderstood—and often buried.

But what if anger isn’t just something to control…
 What if it’s something to understand?

In this episode, we explore how anger can function as both a signal and a driver—especially in cycles of unwanted sexual behavior. Drawing from Scripture, personal stories, and practical tools, we talk about how to:

•  Recognize anger as more than a surface emotion 
•  Understand what anger may be protecting or revealing 
•  Avoid the two common traps: explosion or suppression 
•  Bring your anger into the presence of Jesus in a healthy way 
•  Begin moving toward healing, clarity, and restoration 

We also reflect on Psalm 139:23–24 as a pathway into honest prayer:

“Search me, God, and know my heart…”

If anger has felt confusing, overwhelming, or even shameful—this conversation will help you take a next step.

 👉 Learn more about coaching and support

• Men's Coaching
• Women's Coaching

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

Transcript

Why Anger Matters In Recovery

James 0:18

Got two quotes for you guys to start us out. Number one from Jay Stringer in Unwanted,"Want to figure out why you're so compelled to pursue unwanted sexual behavior. Figure out what has made you so angry." Another thought for you, anger's worth sitting with. You'll find it both at the beginning and the end of your addiction cycle. You'll find it as often the trigger, but also the despair stage after you've given in, the, the end, the consequence of acting out. Friends, anger is a big deal on this journey of sexual integrity. It's a big deal as Christians trying to walk with Jesus, and it is so easy to misunderstand, to bury what is actually meant to be good anger, productive anger, anger as a primary emotion in light of Jesus, and it also seeks to bury secondary emotions. It seeks to protect you from sadness and shame. So I'm with a beloved co-host today, Andrea Smith Berger, who runs our Sacred by Design podcast. She's one of our women's spiritual coaches. Andrea, thanks for being on Becoming Whole today.

The Car Metaphor For Emotions

Andrea 1:28

Yeah. Uh, James, I'm so excited, even as you read out those, um, quotes. There's a lot of burying. The anger- Yeah is so buried, so what an awesome o- opportunity and time to just kind of bring this to the surface really carefully. So- Yeah listeners, buckle up.

James 1:49

Yeah. All right. So wh- where do we start? Um, well by the way, I'm James, uh, director of projects here at Regen, also a spiritual coach. Um, and, uh, I want to start with this, Andrea. When I'm, when I'm walking with men and coaching in, in Awaken, our, our year-round men's group, one of the things I try to highlight is I use this metaphor of a car when it comes to emotions. Uh, I, I, I walk with men, many men immediately hap- happy to be in a car in their minds, okay? So you can picture any car, Andrea. I don't know if for you it's the Rolls Royce or for me it's a, I don't know, BMW electric or something, but imagine driving this vehicle. You're the driver. Jesus is the passenger of honor. He's sitting next to you. He's your counselor, he's your navigator. You're the one driving him around,'cause he's amazing. But the emotion, the emotions you're feeling, whether it's anger or any of the other key emotions, sitting in the backseat, able to have, to give voice to what you're really feeling. This is what I believe is a relatively ideal picture of how to navigate emotions.

Andrea 3:00

Mm-hmm.

James 3:00

What's not happening is that the emotion is not getting to drive the car. We've all let anger drive our, our cars. Um, we, we crash into a lot of- That doesn't lead to good things. It does not lead to good things when it's driving on its own without us, without Jesus. It's just like... And, but this, this is the other place that we, we can't put anger. We can't put anger or any other emotion in the trunk.

Andrea 3:25

Mm.

James 3:26

When I picture your, uh... You don't actually have a Rolls-Royce, I'm just kind of messing around. But when I picture your beautiful Rolls-Royce, and you throw the anger in that trunk, it is dismantling every little fiber- Mm of the fabric. It's dismantling the wheels. It's dismantling the, the axle, and, and the car is falling apart.

Andrea 3:43

Mm.

James 3:44

Andrea, this is how I've lived so much of my anger.

Andrea 3:47

Mm.

James 3:47

When anger is actually a primary emotion, which we'll explain more in a second, and even when anger's been a secondary emotion, whatever the emotion, I've often shoved it in the trunk. And, Andrea- Mm I end up so tired. One of the ways that I know that I've shoved a high energy emotion like fear or anger in the trunk is now I'm exhausted. I'm in that low energy spot, because what I'm meant to feel, what I'm meant to feel with Jesus, what I'm meant to feel and, and allow to speak is, is being shoved down so thoroughly that now I'm exhausted. I've spent so much of my life with significant fatigue. Mm. Largely, not, not exclusively, I've obviously go- gone to doctors, made sure there's no physical thing going on, and there isn't, largely because I've shoved emotions in the trunk, including anger, because anger is so hard to figure out what to do with. Mm. I don't know if you can relate to that, Andrea, or if that's a more of a me thing.

Andrea 4:37

Well, so in my Rolls-Royce, it's not in the trunk so much, but equally as exhausting, it's been the backseat driver, like trying to- Okay,

James 4:45

backseat driver. Yeah.

Andrea 4:46

Yeah. Like yelling out from the backseat,"Hey, do this," and I'm like,"Shush, I can't. Shush, I'm not allowed. Shush," Yeah"there's no place for you. Shush, I've got it."

James 4:55

Yeah.

Andrea 4:55

And I'm so distracted, and I'm so exhausted, um, because I'm constantly giving energy to this emotion I don't feel that I am allowed to have, um, or I have not felt like I'm allowed to have it.

James 5:08

Yes. Yes. I had a wonderful, uh, boss at one point working with InterVarsity, a guy named Greg Howe. Uh, he's basically, um, behind the scenes, like, you know, s- second in command type of guy these days, just brilliant mind, and he's that type of mind where it's, like, probably a little more left brain-oriented, and as he's figured out a lot in marriage, I remember one of his wisdom things to me is,"James, emotions are valid data points." Well, that's- Emotions... I'd love for you guys to be able to, uh, if you're watching on YouTube, you just got to see Andrea's, uh, reaction, but emotions are valid data points. And what he's trying to say is, if we don't give voice to emotions, if we don't at least let them be, to keep mixing the metaphor up, why not, if we don't at least let them be like a check engine light on our car that we actually pay attention to, we're not doing ourselves any good.

In Your Anger Do Not Sin

Andrea 5:58

Mm. Mm.

James 6:00

W- so, so here, here's a key thought from St. Paul,"In your anger, do not sin."

Andrea 6:08

Mm.

James 6:09

And this is one of those key places where if we've been taught most of our lives that anger's bad, uh, sometimes we've been taught that by the people who are angry at us, if we had an angry parent or people who lashed out at us in anger, it's almost impossible to really believe that in our anger we cannot s- we can, um, in those situations, not sin. Especially'cause when we read Jesus, he says things like, when we read Jesus in the Gospels, I, I believe in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 or 6, he says,"Those who are angry in their hearts are, have committed murder."

Andrea 6:45

Mm.

James 6:46

Mm-hmm. He, he basically says th- these roots of anger are not that different than the fruit of murder. They're, they're, they're different in maybe degree, but they're not different in kind, part of the same tree. Same with what Jesus says about lust. If you've lusted, if there's lust in the roots, it's really not that different than the fruit of adultery. Mm. What he's saying is he sees beyond our, uh, I don't know, self, self-delusions or self, uh, deceit, and he's like,"Hey, you think you're just, like, angry in your heart, but you're not doing anything wrong." You're actually cultivating... So, so we've got two pictures of anger here. We've got,"In your anger do not sin," therefore anger's not inherently a sin. And we've got, when you're angry, you've basically murdered someone in your heart. So what, so what, what do we do with this, Andrea? And I'll, I'll just throw this your way just for you to muse on or, or even, you know, just- Yeah reflect on. Back to that quote from Jay Stringer at the beginning,"Want to figure out why you're so compelled for, uh, to pursue unwanted sexual behavior, figure out what's made you so angry." Mm. Any thoughts on this mixture of like... I don't even know

Andrea 7:51

where to start-

James 7:51

It is a mixture with

Andrea 7:52

this thing.

James 7:53

Yeah.

Iceberg Anger And Hidden Grief

Andrea 7:53

Well, I feel like,"In your anger, do not sin," okay, so then Jay's quote with, um,"Want to figure out why you're so compelled to pursue unwanted sexual behavior, figure out what, what's making you angry," well, in your anger do not sin. I feel like Jay then points us to being curious about our anger. Mm. So in your anger do not sin, okay, well, anger can come from, you know, f- another picture is that iceberg, right? Um- Yes that is- Such a helpful picture tip of the iceberg. Yeah. And that's the thing that we see at the top, but if we look beneath and understand that there's rejection there, and that's why it's coming up as anger, or there's sadness and it's coming up as anger, it's showing up that way. Well, if you can see that you're lonely and that's what's actually making you angry, angry, then, um, turn towards that loneliness and anger and try to treat that. A- and that diverts- Even the inclination to sin, and then my brain's going the other way with, um, the idea that anger can be a launching pad. If we're reacting from anger, um, well then we need to reset. That, that's an invitation to reset. Like, let's get some... Let's hit pause, um, because when you're fired up, amped up, um, you know, that's all up. Let's, let's ground and react from a different place other than anger.

James 9:32

Mm. Um... One of, one of the things you're getting at is this idea that most of us are very familiar with, that many have said anger is exclusively or at least primary, primarily a secondary emotion. Mm-hmm. But what they mean by that is more often than not, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of balance this out with a, with a slightly more nuanced way of thinking about it in a little bit. But more often than not, at least to some degree, there's some other key emotion mixed in with the anger. I, I see, Andrea, you threw this, uh, C.S. Lewis quote on our, on our show, you know, prep doc. He says,"I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief."

Andrea 10:11

Mm.

James 10:12

So what, what I think, the reason I think you probably brought that quote to this doc is because so often anger is a secondary emotion. We're angry because we cannot handle sadness or grief. Mm. We're angry because we're uncomfortable with admitting we're feeling disgust. We're angry because we're actually feeling despair, and that despair is really hard to touch. We're angry because we're afraid, or we're angry because we're actually feeling so ashamed that we want to divert that at all costs. Mm. I think this is probably what most people when they think, if they've been in, you know, therapy or they've been in healing spaces, they've been taught when you're angry, there's one of these other things beneath the surface. What's really going on? For C.S. Lewis, it was grief. Mm. For many of us, it's shame. I don't know if, uh, you can relate to this, Andrea, but I've seen a lot of anger outbursts that are really this like I feel cornered in my shame thing and I've got to protect myself. I've seen it in myself too. Right. I've seen myself do this.

Andrea 11:13

Yeah. Yeah. I've seen-

James 11:14

Is that a pretty common place for you and for those you walk with in this journey of overcoming, you know, sexual brokenness?

Andrea 11:22

Well, it's interesting because for women and particularly Christian women-

James 11:26

Mm

Andrea 11:27

anger has not historically had so much of a place or space to even be okay. Um-

James 11:36

Mm-hmm

Andrea 11:37

and so, uh, to even name... I, I have seen surprise. You know, if we sit long enough even with the grief- Yeah that all of a sudden it's like,"Oh my gosh, I think these are angry tears. These aren't sad tears. These are angry." Um- Mm and like it's just a, a, a surprise- At being able to say that out loud, um, is such a release because- Mm yeah, to be cornered by shame and by anger a- and then to lash out, it's, it's again, it's explosive, it's reactive. So when you sit, w- like C.S. Lewis is saying, sit with it long enough, and then there's a tenderness with grief that we're allowed, that we are okay with. Um, I wonder if we could have a tenderness towards the anger also.

James 12:29

Mm.

Andrea 12:29

And that's where the sweetness... I, I think of a client just recently who's crying, and she was like,"They're hot," and she kept patting her face. Like,"These are hot, angry tears." And I, um- Mm I'm honored, right? Um- Yeah to know and hear, um, that we can name things worth being angry about- Yes and then know the connected feelings that go with them.

Protection Justice Restoration And Destruction

James 12:59

So I've gotta, I've gotta then bring us to what I've learned from Jay Stringer's book, Unwanted, and from a guy named, uh, Scott Moore, who, who did my, um, who took me through the Unwanted guide training. So all this is actually kinda circling some of the content from Unwanted. But what I've learned from these two men is that anger is fundamentally about four things. Anger's about protection, destruction. Anger's also about justice and restoration. Protection, destruction, justice, restoration. So when I hear, Andrea, the angry tears that your client finally got to cry, which by the way, what a great, what a great, uh, outlet for anger.

Andrea 13:42

Mm-hmm.

James 13:42

I mean, that's not the kind Jesus is talking about, like necessarily. It's not the, hey, murderous type anger. It's actually like,"I've been feeling this anger," and because we're in coaching, it's a sacred place. You're with me as my coach. Jesus is with us. Again, kind of back to that car image. I'm driving, Jesus is the passenger of honor, maybe Andrea's in the backseat, but anger's back there, and it's not allowed to backseat drive, like what you were talking about earlier. But it, it does need to have voice because- Mm-hmm there are things that should've been protected, namely people are one of the primary things that should be protected. Mm. There are things that should be destroyed. I know that sounds crazy to... It sounds crazy in my ears every time I say it, at least. But there are things that should be destroyed. The kingdom of darkness should be destroyed. Sure. It is wreaking havoc th- this very moment all across the world, the, uh, sin. A- and, and I wanna be tender there because I know some of the,"I must kill my sin" language can, can get a little bit mixed up with shame- Mm and other things, but, but we know that sin is just the seeds of death. I mean, no one wants death. Like, if you're a Christian, I think you're beginning to see and increasingly seeing,"I don't actually want that. I wanna actually see this brought to an end." So protection, destruction. So often those wires get crossed, Andrea, and I think that's part of where we get into sinful anger is like- I end up destroying a person with my words because... But they should be being protected, and I end up protecting maybe the bad behavior when it should be destroyed. Like, these wires- Mm get crossed all the time. Right. But anger's actually meant on a p- This- We're talking about now on a primary level where, like, this is, like, genuine. Like, there's... It's not just an iceberg with anger at the top and sadness underneath. This is actually, like, anger's underneath, and sometimes even sadness can hide anger. I've seen that in- Yeah in my own family, where it's like I'm more com- Some, some people are more comfortable with sadness. So what actually needs to be spoken lovingly is anger, but what, what is covered by is sadness in that situation.

Andrea 15:41

Mm.

James 15:41

So it can be a primary emotion, and the other emotions can be secondary, and it can be vice versa. It's not always one or the other. Let me just briefly share about justice and restoration.

Andrea 15:50

Mm-hmm.

James 15:51

Um, when we've experienced injustice, any, any harm or things that should not have been done or, or said, anger is actually an appropriate response. Andrea, I don't know if you've thought about this, but it can be such an uncomfortable doctrine that God is a god who experiences anger. Yeah. Um, people used to use the word wrath a lot, and I'm sure some people still do, but those are really uncomfortable words. But when you actually think about injustice in your life and, like, when there's been so much pain, we long for justice, and actually God longs for justice because he's a loving God. And if he didn't care about injustice, if he didn't care about things which destroy people, if he didn't want to protect his people, if he didn't want to bring his kingdom, he would never get angry. He would be kind of the grandfather in the sky situation. But actually, he gets angry because things that should be p- protected are being destroyed, and things that should be destroyed are being protected.

Andrea 16:46

Mm.

Jesus Gets Angry For The Wounded

James 16:47

That's a, that's a loving, wise response. Um, obviously much more to meditate on that. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts in just a second on that. But also restoration. Uh, we're recording right now during Holy Week, and when I think about how Jesus was destroyed, his life was taken by the, uh, Jewish, uh, you know, uh, religious leaders and, and given over by Pilate and the Roman authorities, he did that, he allowed that to bring true restoration, to bring life out of death, to bring his kingdom of light, the kingdom of heaven, where there's been darkness. So, so when an- when anger's actually brought into conversation with Jesus, and again, we might need a helpful person like Andrea sitting with us as well. We might need another, uh, believer sitting with us, loving us even when we feel angry. Mm. We can actually have it recontextualized so that it's actually a force for good, believe it or not. Mm. It's actually a,"I want to bring restoration in this very moment," because I'm bringing my anger to Jesus. I'm not gonna just take out the raw stuff on the people around me, but I'm gonna immediately bring it to Jesus. I'm gonna let him do with it what he will, but I'm still gonna then allow it- In light of Jesus, i- in light of living in His Spirit, to bring true restoration in this situation

Andrea 18:40

Well, there are a lot of feelings coming up Um, hmm. So we are a ministry who prays a lot, and, um, a few weeks back, uh, during one of our, um, meetings, um, the prayer turned into a healing prayer session for me. So- Hmm staff turn, um, circles around me, and part of my story is that I was, um, sexually abused as, uh, a little girl, three years old.

James 19:12

Hmm.

Andrea 19:13

And, um, I've done so much healing work, and, um, I've, I really have, you know, gone through my story, done EMDR, uh, been in therapy for years now, and prayed through so much, and yet there was this, um, anger that was building for the- Hmm three-year-old version of me that went mute for almost two years. Um-

James 19:38

Yeah

Andrea 19:39

and I did appreciate the fact that three-year-old little me had enough wisdom to know that the people around me at that point were not safe enough to hold me and hold that. Yes. Right? And then, um, but then I was ticked off that I had to be that wise at three years old, that even- Yeah being violated I would have to know that I should be quiet and go mute. And so Blake is praying and saying,"Andrea, your body, Jesus says, God says that your body's a temple. Our bodies are a temple." And we know from the Gospel that when Jesus went into the temple and saw it was being violated, He got angry and He flipped tables. And He

James 20:34

Yeah

Andrea 20:35

Blake kept praying, um,"God was so angry that your body was violated"

James 20:41

Hmm.

Andrea 20:43

And it released, still in my eyes, this protection, destruction, justice, and restoration. All that essence of anger that you just- Yeah went through was encapsulated in that moment of knowing that Jesus, my Savior and my friend, would wanna flip a table out of protection for me. Yeah. Would wanna be so mad for me. Um-

James 21:11

Hmm

Andrea 21:12

that was very freeing- Hmm to know that somebody would be angry about that for me, um- Yeah and especially God.

James 21:21

Hmm.

Andrea 21:22

So that encapsulated that essence. Man, I feel that.

James 21:26

Yeah. Andrea, thank you so much for sharing. I mean, what a, what a pure sense of the wrath of God, but you knew it was because he loves you. It's like the wrath again- like, it was... He, he hates what happened to you. Yeah. That kind of thing.

Andrea 21:44

Yeah.

James 21:45

And I, I, I can get uncomfortable just like probably many people with Jesus flipping table- flipping tables Jesus.

Andrea 21:52

Yeah. I don't

James 21:52

know if anyone saw the last season of The Chosen, but I was in a season a year ago when it was being aired, uh, I guess, and I forget, I think season five, and I was like,"God, do you have good heart toward me? Are you angry with me?" Mm. And so watching Jesus portrayed on The Chosen flipping tables was really hard. I'm like,"Is this toward me?" And I think part of my healing is recognizing that he's... And he says this... I, I journal almost every day and, and try to say,"Lord, what are you saying to me?" as I, uh, I'm steeped in scripture, and then I'm, like, trying to listen. Um, obviously anything that feels like it contradicts scripture, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna digest that. But almost every time I start writing what I think he's saying, he says,"I'm for you." Mm. And I've had to hear that, um, it's probably been nearly 100 times in the last year because-

Andrea 22:44

Yeah

James 22:44

so many of us have seen anger torn- turned against us-

Andrea 22:47

Mm

James 22:49

that it's so confusing. It's so confusing to feel anger. It's so confusing to think Jesus flipped tables. Like, is he angry at me?

Andrea 22:57

Mm.

James 22:58

But actually, in those places, he's, he's been at least speaking to me on a regular basis, like, he's for me.

Andrea 23:05

Mm-hmm.

James 23:05

He's for me in these... Ev- even as a broken man who still gives into sin. Mm. Like, he's still, he's still... He's for us, and his language of anger, even, like, that whole thing of, like, uh, someone who leads a little child astray, you know, a, a abuse situation, it'd be better for them to have a millstone tied around their neck. It's like these are really hard places, especially if we've ever been on the perpetrating side of significant sin. And yet, even then, he's, I think, wanting to bring redemption. He's wanting to bring restoration, even to, even to the thief on the cross, even to the people who were crucifying him,"Father, forgive them." So we've got this, like, almost... I guess as I'm talking and processing what you're saying out loud, I'm like, it's kind of like a paradox. Anger, the anger of God's kind of like a paradox. Like, on one hand, he's so angry at the ways we violate, we've been violated, and yet he... And he, and he's angry at the ways we violated others, and he's for us at the same time, and wants us to come into his restorative power. Like, even when we've sowed death, he wants to sow life in that place.

Andrea 24:19

He stays in the car with us. And it makes

Anger As Fuel For Sexual Sin

James 24:23

no sense. Yeah, that's such a good way to say it. Like, the way, um, the life model talks about these emotions is when you become more and more emotionally mature with all those big six negative emotions that I, I listed earlier, uh, shame, anger, anxiety, all these things, when we can get to a place where we stay relational while we feel these things, that's a sure sign of significant maturity. If I can... Th- this is an amazing thing. I've only seen it a couple times in my own life. I'm still got a lot of room to grow in this. But when I can be angry, let's just say at my spouse, but in a way where I'm seeing her as more important than the problem she's causing, people matter more than problems. When I see her as more important and I let my anger be subsumed into the life of Jesus, but then I still allow it to drive me toward healing, toward restoration with her, those moments are so healing for both of us because instead of using my anger as a way to destroy her or to break her down, it's actually being used to bring protect- I'm protecting her. I'm trying to destroy the thing that's getting in between us. Mm. I'm seeking justice, but I'm ultimately seeking restoration. I actually want to see us in relationship, and I think that's... You just said it so well. It's like he stays in the car with us. Wow.

Andrea 25:45

Thank you, Lord.

James 25:51

You know, one of the thing... one of the ways that this connects clearly to those dealing with unwanted sexual behaviors is for, for, again, going back to Unwanted, the, the book that I was referencing, around page 102, Jay Stringer talks about how he groups together lust and anger as two key drivers that keep us going to sexual sin over and over. Uh, they're number five and six of the six that he lists, and interestingly, he groups them together, and you're like,"Well, yeah, obviously I have a lust problem. Like, that's why I'm here. Like, that's why I'm reading Unwanted. That's why I'm at Regen," whatever. But he actually says lust is like... Here's another car metaphor, so s- we've mixed this metaphor a lot, but he's like,"Lust is like the car battery." It matters. We need to deal with the car battery. It gets the thing going. It's maybe also like the spark plug or the ignition switch, like it gets the car going. But anger, he s- he argues, is the fuel that keeps the car going, that keeps the sexual behavior kind of moving forward. So again, going back to that quote, want to figure out why you're going to sexual behavior, figure out what's made you so angry. So often, Andre, in my own life, I've turned the anger of others that's been toward me on myself, like I've agreed with it, in other words, when it was actually destructive anger that was destroying me. And so part of actually getting unstuck is being honest."God, I am so angry that that person took their anger out on me," for example. And obviously you can see how easily this per- you could perpetuate the cycle. You could just launch it right back at them and get back at them, and- Mm-hmm that's kind of the murderous type of anger. But when we bring it into the presence of God, I mean, Andrea, I don't know if you've come across some of those psalms that are so angry and you're like,"How is this even in the Bible?" Well- Yeah what, what I find fascinating about it is they're praying their stuff. Mm-hmm. It's almost like yelling into a pillow. It's like I'm not gonna take out this anger on my perpetrator the way that, you know, uh, the world looks for justice and vengeance. I'm actually gonna give it up to my God, uh, who says vengeance is ultimately Him, H- His. I mean, He'll, He'll be the just judge in this situation, and I can give it to Him. But, but I need to f- I need to, like, feel it with Him. I need to, like, bring it into His presence.

Andrea 28:11

And that's so uncomfortable for a lot of people-

James 28:14

Yeah

Andrea 28:15

to bring it into His presence, and it's so necessary. Yeah. When it, when it takes the place of safety and comfort, um, it's taking the place of safety and comfort. So, uh, the alternative are safety and comfort. Um-

James 28:40

Mm.

Andrea 28:43

A- anger is worth, I, I mean, I t- if nothing else from that quote from C.S. Lewis,"I sat long enough. I sat long enough." Like, just sit long enough to understand it, um, uh, to, to pray out loud. I, with clients, we, we color, we stretch. You know, anger's very activating, so we get act- Mm with our anger, and there are ways to move through it so that it doesn't stay stuck because anger's a really, um, one of my favorite quotes, another quote for you is, uh, Jennifer Rothschild. She said,"That which we don't lament becomes spiritual cement." So-

James 29:23

Wow

Andrea 29:23

right? Like, if we're not lamenting it, if we're not feeling, uh, going through the feeling of anger and actually trying to move with it, I don't know whether you feel it in your head and it's a headache or in your heart and it's a tight chest or your- Mm-hmm gut's all twisted up. There- Mm there are ways to physically move it through your body so you are not stuck with the spiritual cement that is just, um, rock solid. It can be broken up, and it should be, um, so- Yeah.

James 29:50

Are there any ways that you do that? Like, very particular ways that you somatically deal with it? Like,'cause,'cause what you're saying, just to highlight this for the listeners, we feel emotions in our bodies. Mm-hmm. And that's something most of us don't fully realize, but our bodies are often more honest about our emotions than our minds are. And so when you're feeling that tight chest, when you're feeling the tensed up gut, like, it's, again, a signal. It's trying to tell you something. Right. So what are some of the ways you, you help people somatically, Andrea, recognizing we're both spiritual and physical creatures. We're not just- gonna bring it to Jesus and we're gonna bring it to Jesus as foundation spiritually speaking- Mm-hmm but He's also made us physical. How do we deal with it bodily?

Andrea 30:30

Yeah. So this is an opportunity, let's go back to the car, and Jesus is like,"Hey, James, your grip on that steering wheel's real tight. How about you just-" Oh"loosen it up a little bit?" Yeah. Um, or your, your foot on the pedal's getting real heavy. Let's, like, lighten up a bit. So the, the, the beauty of our bodies, um, is, is, is Jesus. Uh, Jesus came in a body, so h- that tells me that our bodies matter to God. Um-

James 30:59

Mm-hmm

Somatic Tools To Move Anger

Andrea 31:00

our bodies are truth tellers. Mm. We can absorb so many podcasts and notes and books and whatever in our, in our minds and hold that knowledge. We can trap emotions in our heart or try to work through them with, um, counselors and therapists and coaches. But it, our bodies are still getting indigestion and, um, sore and achy and, uh, we're grinding our teeth. You know, these are all signs- Mm-hmm anger that we're trapping in our body. So somatics- Mm are great exercises specifically meant to process these emotions in a really healthy way. Um, one of them, especially'cause anger is active, is a big clap. I won't do it'cause I don't wanna hurt your ears, but you clap really loud- Mm and it, let it be an interruption to your mind, and then you rub your hands together until they get nice and warm. And I don't know if you... Like, I'm thinking about you in our conversations right now and just the listeners, like, what... If they've heard something that's made them angry, once your hands get hot, you place your hands on your ears.

James 32:08

Mm.

Andrea 32:08

And I think of, like, Isaiah 50,"Lord, you wake me up each morning. Bless my ears and fill these ears with your word, Lord. Bless these ears and all that they have taken in."

James 32:23

Mm.

Andrea 32:24

Um, you can do the same thing and bless your eyes. D- do the same thing and bless your chest or your belly, but feel that warmth. Allow yourself to feel the warmth. Um, my husband is a TMJ, uh, specialist, and he sees a lot of anger in his patients, and so they'll do this exercise- Wow where you put your tongue on the roof of your, um, mouth right behind your top teeth and you stretch your jaw, and that releases the storehouse of anger in your jaw. If you're clenching at night, if you're grinding at night, I wonder what kind of anger is being stored there. Mm. That's almost the trunk, so to speak, um, as you reference it in the car. A wall push, holy moly. You go- Mm You go, like, stand in front of a wall about two feet away from it, and you press into it, and you- I'll try

James 33:20

it while you're talking.

Andrea 33:21

Okay. Yeah, you do it. You lean in- Push off? and then you press off until you go back. Yeah. So you do that a couple times, and you're breathing through that, and that's, that becomes a prayer also. It's,"Lord, why?"

James 33:35

Yeah.

Andrea 33:36

Lord, where are you? Lord, we're h- you, we're here again." Have it out with God, and push against it- Yeah as if that's the Father's chest.

James 33:45

Yeah.'Cause he can handle it. Like, that's something we've also seen, Andrea. It's like we can't handle a- uh, wrathful anger toward us. Many people we've shared anger with, even if it's not directly about them, can't always handle it well. But God can handle it in the fullest sense. Like, God, why? Like, get as honest... The Psalms show us again how honest humans are meant to be with God. We are meant to hold nothing back.

Andrea 34:10

Mm. There's that, um, I think it's in 1 or 2 Samuel, where Hannah is, um, praying, and she's, she's at the temple, and she's so upset that Eli, when he first sees her, thinks that she's drunk. Yeah. And he goes to her- I just read that

James 34:27

the other night. Yeah

Andrea 34:28

and he's like,"What's going on with you?" But then he sees her, and he hears her, and she says,"I just want a, a baby, and I'm here praying, and I'm here pouring my heart out." And to have this other person see her and be with her and her r- Mm her anger and her sadness, she went away, and her countenance was different. It s- the scripture says. Yeah. Yeah. Her countenance was different because she released it. Yeah. Not because- Yeah she had a baby, not because she had a clear answer, but because she released it and she'd been seen.

James 34:59

Mm.

Andrea 35:00

That is Jesus staying in the car with us- Wow saying,"I see you, I hear you, and I know it hurts, and it hurts me, too." And that is transformative, restorative, and beautiful.

James 35:13

Amazing. Any, uh, any, like, um... Have you done any, like, tensing work? Like tensing muscles and then releasing? Is that some of the- Yeah Is that in your tool belt? And does that

Speaking Up With Sanctified Anger

Andrea 35:22

help with anger? That's a good one. So clenching your fists, and then visibly, like, naming, okay, biceps now, and then my stomach, my glutes, my thighs, even my toes. Clenching it all and holding it. You have to breathe through it, but you clench and hold for, um, 10 seconds and then release, and breathe through it for 10 seconds. And then do it again, and that's gonna lower the cortisol. That's gonna bring you back to your, uh, a really good, grounded state so you can be... You can allow anger to be a purifier and not a destroyer. Mm-hmm.

James 35:59

Yeah. Not destroying what should be purified- Mm-hmm or should be protected.

Andrea 36:05

Mm-hmm.

James 36:06

Andrea, we gotta land the plane here. Okay. I just want to share two other thoughts, though. One is a brief story. So recently, I was in a meeting, and I was feeling like someone in the meeting was kind of undermining, like, something that I was advocating for, basically. I felt anger. And my typical tendency, Andrea, and this, this was certainly true in an even more magnified form back when I was in my pornography addiction, but was to shove it down."Okay, I got to love this person. I've got to respect them. I've got to throw it in the trunk." Like, deal with it later. But I felt, because I've been on this journey of trying to be more honest with my emotions with Jesus and invite him into it, I was like,"You know what? Lord, I feel so angry right now. I feel like something good is being undermined." So I brought it to him, and I'm still in the meeting, I'm still in the conversation, and it's, it's... these are brief things. I'm just giving it to him as, as effectively as I can in those moments while still having an ear open to what's being said. I give it to him, and instead of shutting it down, instead of him saying,"Hey, just look over that offense and, and move through the meeting and just forget about it," he, like, he, like, sanctified my anger, and by the end of that time, I spoke up. A- and I might have had a little trembling. I don't know, because it's, it's a vulnerable thing to express anger. Even if you're doing it really lovingly, it can feel extremely vulnerable. And I said,"Hey, I think that what you just said is undermining something really good that we had talked about." And it was so necessary. It was necessary for me to some degree. Obviously, even if I didn't get the chance to say it, hopefully God was going to walk me through it, but it was necessary for me to not hold all that stuff in, and it actually fought or protected the good, the good that I was seeing. It brought restoration to an idea that, you know, might have been taken off the table or something like that. Kind of a small, benign example, but just a little picture of, like, instead of shoving it down, in that moment, by being subsumed into the life of Jesus and living by the Spirit...'Cause by the way, letting the anger drive the car or even backseat drive was your image, or th- shoving it in the trunk are both, in my opinion, flesh responses, meaning they are defaults in our brains that are not brought up into the life of God. Mm. I'm thinking of Romans 8 here, like, don't live by the flesh. You just kind of sow death, right? Like, throwing it in the trunk's going to sow death. Letting it drive the car, I'm going to run over everyone and sow death, right? But instead, by life in the Spirit, by bringing it up into Jesus, by inviting him into it, he was so faithful to kind of reorient my mind so that the anger was actually used for good. It wasn't used to destroy the person. It was used to destroy the bad idea. It wasn't used to just self-protect. It was used to actually protect the good of, of a situation. This is what anger can do, guys. We cannot crucify anger. Yes, often it's a secondary emotion, and sometimes it's mixed. But don't neglect that sometimes it really is a primary emotion, and perhaps there's other more comfortable emotions. For some of us, it's despair. I might be more comfortable with despair, and this is the second thing I wanted to share, Andrea, and then I kind of want to give you the last thought on all this. But we were talking before the show about how so often, uh, Jay Stringer describes shark like a sh- uh, shame like a shark. So sharks are so used to everyone swimming away from them and, uh, basically to face our shame, which is the number one thing he correlates with sexual behavior. The number one emotion for him is shame, but the number two is anger. So to... We actually have to face our shame, but so often what we do is we swim toward the surface as if we can, like, launch ourselves out like a dolphin and, like, just be in the air and float or something like that. In fear, we run away from shame, but we also do this with anger. Maybe it's a little bit of a different image. Maybe instead of swimming toward the shark of shame, you start swimming toward your, your, your co-diver, like your friend. We, we come at them because they're, they're un- uncontaining or unveiling our shame, and it's easier to s- try to stop them at all costs to protect ourselves rather than to recognize, no, that shame needs to be dealt with. So what I'm trying to say with all this, Andrea, is that in these situations, it is often a secondary emotion, where we're avoiding the tenderness of sadness. We're avoiding the tenderness of, of shame. But Jesus wants to come even to those tender places. And so again, this takes wisdom. This takes nuance. But it takes prayer. It takes being with Jesus and other prayerful people like Andrea to unveil, like, okay, there, these are actually sad tears. I just, I did an an- anger outburst, but it ends with sad tears. Or what you described, I just did a sad outburst, and now it's e- ending with anger tears because, again, sometimes it's primary, sometimes it's secondary. So we need, we need to get in touch with this, but we need to do it with Jesus because we've all seen anger be like a wildfire, right? And that's not what we're advocating for. We're not advocating just go get revenge in the name of justice. We're actually saying, bring it up into the life of Jesus. Live by the Spirit, and he will show you the way with these emotions.

Psalm 139 Prayer And Sending

Andrea 41:14

We packed a lot in here, James. I I hope our listeners have all the visuals, all the quotes, all of it, uh, written down and will listen again and again because, um, not only is this time worth listening to, I feel so blessed in this time, and I, I don't know if you noticed, I was rocking when you were telling the story, and I realized it myself. I was like,"Oh, I'm so proud." I'm like rocking James for not allowing anger to undermine himself or, uh, who- Mm you were meeting with, um There's a lot here, and there's a lot to be sat with, rightfully so. Mm-hmm. And we know the n- the, the beautiful uncovering that Jesus offers us, being the passenger with us. So- Mm-hmm um, when those check engine lights come on, when the trunk starts bopping around and something's tearing out of there- Yeah the backseat driver, um, starts yelling out. Um, I pray for our listeners that they are able to- Hey,

James 42:19

can you, can you pray for our listeners?

Andrea 42:21

Sure. Um- Yeah sure. I actually wanted to go to Psalm 139 because... Yes. Yeah,

James 42:27

sure.

Andrea 42:28

Psalm 139. God, thank you for this time. Thank you for our hearts and our thoughts and our bodies. Um, I pray that anything that has been stirred up for our listeners today, that, uh, you would meet them in their journaling, in their boxing it out, in their driving, Lord. Um, I pray that your presence would be abundantly clear to them, and I pray, God, that, um, these words from Psalm 139,"Search me-

James 42:57

Mm

Andrea 42:57

search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my concerns. See if there's any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." God, we pray that we let you be God, the God of our lives. We pray that, um, we understand truly, deeply, to our very core, that you are for us. And, um, yes, God, that y- I just hear you saying it again and again,"I am for you. I am for you. I am with you. I am beside you. I am before you. I am behind you. I am for you. In your anger, in your sadness, in your grief, and in your joy, I am for you." God, thank you for this time. Uh, bless all these precious ears and hearts listening today. Amen.