Welcome to episode 4 of the 5-episode series Resilient Hearts: Navigating Emotions After Tragedy, delving into the intricate paths of those who have experienced life-altering challenges. In this episode, we explore anger.
Anger often follows tragedy. Suzette Bravo, a transformational coach, helps us unravel the layers of anger and sheds light on the dangers of dismissing this potent emotion. We also talk about the importance of facing our emotions head-on.
Navigating anger and the grief that often accompanies it is no easy feat, yet it's a voyage we must undertake to foster resilience within ourselves. We examine the therapeutic value of expressing anger through physical release and the significance of cultivating a space where one can be vulnerable without fear of judgment.
As we extend our support to those around us who are dealing with similar battles, Suzette imparts her wisdom on the intricacies of emotional support. We delve into the profound journey of self-discovery and the role self-love and grace play in this process. For listeners seeking to embrace these teachings within their personal or professional lives, this episode promises that there are ways to thrive in the wake of life’s inevitable challenges.
Suzette Bravo is an empowerment coach, motivational speaker, and podcast host. Her mission is to help clients flame their inner fire, remind them just who they are and what they have to offer, and guide them on a journey to the greatest version of themselves.
Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.
Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams + position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in fostering resilience and trauma sensitivity.
Welcome to episode 4 of the 5-episode series Resilient Hearts: Navigating Emotions After Tragedy, delving into the intricate paths of those who have experienced life-altering challenges. In this episode, we explore anger.
Anger often follows tragedy. Suzette Bravo, a transformational coach, helps us unravel the layers of anger and sheds light on the dangers of dismissing this potent emotion. We also talk about the importance of facing our emotions head-on.
Navigating anger and the grief that often accompanies it is no easy feat, yet it's a voyage we must undertake to foster resilience within ourselves. We examine the therapeutic value of expressing anger through physical release and the significance of cultivating a space where one can be vulnerable without fear of judgment.
As we extend our support to those around us who are dealing with similar battles, Suzette imparts her wisdom on the intricacies of emotional support. We delve into the profound journey of self-discovery and the role self-love and grace play in this process. For listeners seeking to embrace these teachings within their personal or professional lives, this episode promises that there are ways to thrive in the wake of life’s inevitable challenges.
Suzette Bravo is an empowerment coach, motivational speaker, and podcast host. Her mission is to help clients flame their inner fire, remind them just who they are and what they have to offer, and guide them on a journey to the greatest version of themselves.
Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.
Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams + position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in fostering resilience and trauma sensitivity.
Anger oftentimes shows up as a second level emotion. In your situation there was a lot of anger, but there was also underneath that, there was grief, there was hurt, there was a lot of those emotions that were showing up as anger, and so, understanding that anger is a sign of something, anger is a clue and if you get curious and follow it back, you might get some answers.
Manya Chylinski:
Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski, and today we have another episode in the Resilient Hearts Navigating Emotions After Tragedy series. Today we're talking about anger with Suzette Bravo. She is a transformational coach, a speaker and a podcast host, and we had a fabulous conversation about what anger is, how it gives us clues to what we're dealing with, and I think you're really gonna love this conversation. If you like Notes on Resilience, find us on Apple podcasts, subscribe and please leave a review. We'd love to know what you're thinking. Suzette, hello, I am so excited that you and I are gonna be talking today.
Suzette Bravo:
Manja, thank you so much for having me today. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. I think it's a really important one and I'm looking forward to it.
Manya Chylinski:
Excellent. Well, before we get into the detail and start talking about this emotion, I have a little lighter question for you. Sure, if you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be, and why?
Suzette Bravo:
Wow, that's such a good question. Any historical figure I gotta go with Jesus, and probably not for the reason that a lot of people might think, but just so much curiosity, just feel like it would just be such a powerful conversation and so many things to take away, so many things maybe to clarify, and kind of feel like sometimes if he came back he'd sort of be like, no, that's not really what I meant when I said that. So, yeah, would love to have dinner with him.
Manya Chylinski:
Oh, wow, that's great. I wish I could make these happen, because I would want to find out how that dinner went. So thank you for sharing that. But you and I today are talking about one of the emotions that people can feel after experiencing a tragedy of some sort, and that is anger. So can you start us out with helping us understand what is anger and what is its role in the life of someone who's dealing with a tragedy?
Suzette Bravo:
First of all, I want to say anger is a perfectly normal, natural response, and anger typically means a few things, and it generally indicates that a boundary of some sort has been crossed, or anger can also lead you to things that are important to you. If something happens and you feel yourself getting angry about it, it could be that something that was important to you or somebody that was important to you was hurt. Anger gives us a lot of clues about deeper things that are going on inside of us, and I think, especially after a traumatic event or going through something really difficult, anger is often a cover up for something much deeper, and I feel like we're sort of sold this bill that we're not supposed to be angry.
Manya Chylinski:
Yes.
Suzette Bravo:
That anger is a quote unquote bad emotion and I a million percent disagree with that and I think that is a very dangerous line of thinking, because our emotions are valid, our emotions are always valid and when we make those emotions not valid or we make ourselves wrong for feeling those emotions or, even worse, we just try to bury those emotions without dealing with them. It's almost like it'll have a layering effect over time, and especially with anger, you layer that up enough times and push it to the side and push it to the side. Eventually what happens is some seemingly maybe small, not so significant event happens and all of that anger that you've suppressed over the years, it rubs like this massive volcano, catches you off guard and suddenly you're like I know for me personally like you're caught up in this spiral and you can't get grounded and you can't get your bearings because there's just so much swirling around Right.
Manya Chylinski:
I have experienced I'm sure most of us have that suddenly anger just coming out at a completely inappropriate time and not at all appropriate for the level of what you're actually experiencing in that moment. Just that somehow all gets concentrated. You know, you said something that I really liked back there. You said that anger gives us a lot of clues and I think, because it is a difficult emotion and because many of us have grown up thinking that it's bad and we shouldn't be angry, like you were saying, I like the idea that if we're curious about it and we follow up on these clues, we're gonna learn something 100% and most of us, starting in childhood, we were taught or we believed that our anger was bad.
Suzette Bravo:
You know, you see kids who get upset. They're expressing their emotions. They don't know how to express their emotions. So what is something a parent might do? Parent might put them into timeout, put them off on their own, with no outlet of how to explore that anger or express that anger. And we grow up as adults kind of doing the same thing. We don't know how to deal with it, so we suppress it. But if we can take a step back and allow ourselves the space to say, okay, like I'm feeling really angry right now, most important thing, like own that, it's okay, you're angry.
Suzette Bravo:
Something clearly happens to make you angry and then you can start asking yourself questions and get curious, like, okay, so what happened? What triggered this? Why am I feeling this way? And if it's in, you know, cause? A lot of times this comes up in relationship. So are you able to have a conversation with the person that you're in relationship with or the person that maybe brought this anger up? And it's also perfectly appropriate to say to that person hey, you know what I'm feeling really triggered right now and I'm very I use the word unregulated Not everybody probably would use that word, but you know you can say hey, I'm feeling just really triggered, I'm feeling like really heightened right now.
Suzette Bravo:
Can we take a couple of minutes for me to kind of sit back and figure out what's going on and where this is coming from? Because a lot of times anger is kind of a second level emotion and a lot of times when we're angry it's because of something deeper, it's because we're feeling grief or we're feeling a loss or we're feeling hurt. That's a big one. A lot of times when we're feeling hurt by somebody, it isn't safe to be vulnerable and say, hey, I'm feeling really hurt, you hurt my feelings. So that shows up as anger. Because anger is a safer emotion. It's less vulnerable.
Manya Chylinski:
That's interesting. Why is anger a safer emotion, do you think?
Suzette Bravo:
Because vulnerability is hard and when you say to somebody, hey, you hurt my feelings, that's really vulnerable, that's really really vulnerable, and that is you exposing a part of yourself that maybe you're not ready or willing to show. It's much easier to say, wow, you really pissed me off. Then it is to say you hurt my feelings.
Manya Chylinski:
Yes. So I'm thinking that, in terms of my own experience after the bombing, I would say that anger was the dominant emotion that I felt for a very long time, and it is still something that I need to be aware of. My anger was not directed at necessarily a particular individual, it was much more the general response. The response wasn't inclusive of individuals like myself with only quote unquote mental health wounds, and so I guess I'm bringing that up because I wonder if the anger was because I felt vulnerable and hurt, but then there was nobody I could really talk to about it. I couldn't say to you I'm angry with you, suzette. I was angry with the system and angry with the way things, sort of the way the world, was working.
Suzette Bravo:
And I completely can see where that would be incredibly frustrating. And you just said something that if I had to put what's wrong with a lot of situations into one sentence, it would be that sentence that you said, and that is that you had quote, unquote only mental health issues. Because, when you think about it, mental health issues are what led to that in the first place. We ignore mental health like it's some secondary thing, and mental health it is the single most important thing that we need to be looking at as a community, as a society assisting people, helping people, understanding, opening up a conversation, to where it's safe to come out and say this happened and I'm angry, and to have support for that.
Suzette Bravo:
Because a lot of times, with anger, with any emotion, with grief, with loss, with all of it, more often than not just simply having somebody to share your experience with and have somebody on the other side of that saying, wow, manya, I see that I completely honor and respect and acknowledge your feelings. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair on so many levels, and I think most people are really uncomfortable with anger because they don't know what to do with it, because they don't know how to express and own their own anger. So how are they going to hold space for your anger when they don't know how to hold space for their own?
Manya Chylinski:
That's a really good question and that's a really good way of thinking about it, especially if we're talking about something that multiple people are dealing with. So we've all got our emotions around this thing that's happening, and how do we support each other. But what do you think is the role of resilience in helping people, sort of in the face of anger after something awful has happened to them?
Suzette Bravo:
When we face our anger and we can take on our anger and we work through it and we get curious about it, it takes its power away.
Suzette Bravo:
And I think that's what happens with a lot of people is because they don't have a good outlet for it, because they don't have somebody that they can talk to about it, who isn't trying to fix it for them. Again, maybe you just need to be heard. But when we can face it and get curious about it and see where it's coming from, then we can work through it and again, emotions and anything in our life that we either feel shame about or we feel guilty about or we don't want to deal with, when we turn away from that it has so much power over us. And when we can turn and face that anger and say, ok, you know what I'm really angry and I'm going to get curious about this and over time I'm going to work through this and getting to the root cause of it or just acknowledging that it's there. You know, sometimes what you're angry about you can't do anything about.
Manya Chylinski:
Absolutely. I think a lot of times for myself. A lot of the things that I get really angry about are things I have zero control over, but things I never couldn't change with all the money in the world.
Suzette Bravo:
And sometimes I think that's the hardest, especially when we're angry about something like in your situation. You're angry about a situation that hurt so many people and created such a ripple effect and affected so many lives and there's not anything that you can fix or change. There's a lot of things that you can do to mitigate that and to feel, to feel better and to make a change that hopefully in the future you know, hopefully we never have that happen again. But God forbid, it does. It's handled, you know, on a better level than it was. But when there's nothing that you can fix or there's nothing that you can control, it's even harder. You've really just got to kind of get in touch with yourself and get to a place of acknowledgement and acceptance and allowing.
Manya Chylinski:
Well, I think about the anger that people often feel after a loved one dies. That goes so hand in hand with grief being so angry at the situation or the person for leaving, and it is another prime example of there's nothing you can do to change that situation.
Suzette Bravo:
Thank you, I lost my husband 10 years ago, almost 11. And I went through, you know, because he passed from a brain tumor. I didn't think I had the right to be angry about it, because he didn't ask for that, it wasn't his fault, it wasn't anybody's fault. So I didn't feel like it was okay for me to be angry about it and I suppressed that anger for a really long time and it eventually came back and it was showing up in so many ways in my life. I mean, I was drinking a lot because I was trying to numb myself to everything that was going on, and about seven years ago, when I got sober and started just really facing everything was when I finally had the acknowledgement that like, wow, I'm really angry about this and started working through that and it, you know, there was nothing I could do, there was nothing he could do. And that's hard because there's not a person that you could be mad at, right, and that's what you do, it's like. But you've got to work through it.
Manya Chylinski:
Right, because it's the situation and I can completely understand your position of well, it's not fair to be angry because this just happened and it's not his fault and it's not my fault, and it's just this awful thing. But I think we do that. We negotiate with ourselves, especially in situations like that.
Suzette Bravo:
Yeah, 100%. And what we really need to learn to do is just give ourselves permission to say, yeah, I'm angry, I'm really angry, and you know we talked a little bit earlier. Like you know, I finally had to start working through that anger and moving it out of my body, because we hold traumatic events in our body yes, or tissues or cells they remember, and consciously, which is 5% of our function we can say, okay, yeah, you know, we can logic our way through it and we can negotiate, but the subconscious mind is 95% of what we do and the subconscious mind is driving most of the time. And if you allow that anger to just kind of sit in there and fester, it will.
Manya Chylinski:
Absolutely, and I many years ago learned some techniques for getting that anger out physically in my body, and one of them is something even I talked about in the pre-call, which was just screaming at the top of my lungs into my pillow and I was surprised at how helpful that was, just to get that out.
Suzette Bravo:
Yeah, there is. There are a few things that feel better than just like that full, like you take that deep breath in and you take that breath all the way down into your stomach and then you just, like most mighty lion in the jungle, just release all of it. And I mean I've had, I've done, sessions of screaming where I haven't been able to talk after I've been so hoarse, and it is the best feeling. It's like you've been carrying around this backpack full of bricks and you take it off and you finally can breathe.
Manya Chylinski:
Absolutely. What are some other coping mechanisms that are effective for people who are dealing with anger?
Suzette Bravo:
One of my other favorites is either go to Target or your local pool supply store and get those foam pool noodles and literally just beat the hell out of your bed with it Anything that is allowing your body that full release like don't hold anything back. Sometimes, when we feel ourselves being triggered and getting elevated, take a step back and take a few deep breaths and allow your central nervous system to regulate, because the other important thing when it comes to expressing our anger is to be able to respond to our anger and not react to it. Staying in control and staying mindful, because I'm certain we have all said things we wish we could take back. We've all hurt people in anger. I'm sure of it. It's just, it's human nature, it's what we do and we always will. It's all part of being human.
Suzette Bravo:
None of us are perfect. But they have also talking about screaming. I think I mentioned, and I think you can get them on Amazon, but they have these screaming cups where literally they're these like cups that you put over your mouth and you just scream Because sometimes you might not have a pillow available. Or I mean, like I said, I love I'll get in my car, I'll put some loud music on and like just go someplace where there isn't anybody around and it just feels really good.
Manya Chylinski:
Oh, I bet it does.
Suzette Bravo:
And sometimes too, like just openly sharing. Find somebody that you can share, that isn't going to judge or try to fix, or that can just simply hold space for you and just allow you to just kind of word bomb it all of it, what you're upset about.
Manya Chylinski:
I like that concept of finding someone who can hold space for you and your emotions, and I think we all know that there are people in our lives who can't fit that role. They may be fabulous people who have many other good qualities, but they can't fit the role of holding space when we're dealing with difficult emotions. And then there are those folks we know we can trust in those difficult times.
Suzette Bravo:
I try to practice with some of my people in asking beforehand like hey, because we've all got a lot going on in our lives. So it's like hey, you know, I have this thing that I really need to get off my chest. Are you able to hold space for me? Yeah, Are you able to, you know, in your situation, hold space for me. The other thing I have a few friends that really wanna try to fix things when you're upset and acknowledge and it's okay to say to somebody I need to get this off my chest, I need to talk about this, I don't need it to be fixed, I really just need to vent and I need somebody just to hold space and listen Right and let you know. Let them know we, as humans, too, need to get better about asking for what we need.
Manya Chylinski:
I hear you on that one. And when you're thinking about anger, are there any cultural or societal you know issues of identity like our race or socioeconomic status that influence how we express or how we process anger?
Suzette Bravo:
I would say I'm sure at some level there is.
Suzette Bravo:
I think a lot of that comes down to stereotypes and expectations, and I would really love to see a world where we can set that aside, and I think that's one of the things that makes it really challenging for people to express their anger, and hopefully, express their anger is there. You know, sometimes there's an expectation that you know X means Y or Y means Z, and when somebody starts to express that they're angry about something you know, you tend to jump to a conclusion instead of just kind of stepping back and hearing people out and giving people the space to share what they need to share and then working through it with them. For instance, if somebody comes to me and they're angry at me because I crossed a boundary a lot of times, what we want to do is to react and not be wrong, and all that's going to do is you're just going to continue to escalate and being vulnerable and being OK with saying you know what you're right, you're right. I didn't handle that well and I'm really sorry. How can I do better in the future?
Manya Chylinski:
And what other advice do you have for friends or family who are dealing with someone who's going through something difficult or they're dealing with a tragedy and they're angry about it?
Suzette Bravo:
I would say allow them to be angry. Allow them to have their anger and be supportive. Ask them what they need. Don't assume. Don't assume that if they're venting they need you to fix it. Ask them what they need and try to again hold space and not judge. You see people angry in a grocery store, in a restaurant. You have no idea what that person has been through, you have no idea what happened to them five minutes before they came into your view, and so a lot of it is about giving people grace. And I say that, not saying that we just roll over and let people treat us badly. I'm not suggesting that at all, but I'm saying that before we react, yes, get curious with ourselves as well.
Manya Chylinski:
It can be quite difficult to deal with somebody who is angry, and I guess the old me didn't know that anger was a part of it. And so it was hard to deal with that anger because I didn't realize how normal it was to feel angry after something awful happens to you and you're dealing with grief and loss and all of those other emotions. It made it for me more difficult to deal with people who were processing their anger.
Suzette Bravo:
Yeah, and again, like I said, anger oftentimes shows up as a second level emotion. In your situation there was a lot of anger, but there was also underneath that, there was grief, there was hurt, there was a lot of those emotions that were showing up as anger, right, right, and so, understanding that anger is a sign of something, anger is a clue and if you get curious, you'll see and follow it back, you might get some answers.
Manya Chylinski:
I love that concept of anger is a clue to what's going on and to be curious. So thank you for sharing that, and we are getting so close to the end of our time, suzette, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and who you are and what you do?
Suzette Bravo:
I am a empowerment and leadership coach.
Suzette Bravo:
I work primarily with women, and most of the women that I work with have gotten to a place in their lives often where they're struggling with a lot of anger and unprocessed emotions, either from childhood trauma or life trauma or just things that have happened.
Suzette Bravo:
And a lot of times we take all of that on. I think, especially as women, we tend to take on the weight of the world and not honor our true selves. So I work with women, helping them get back to the true essence of who they are and what they want in their life, and learning how to ask for what they need and having their needs met and identifying who they wanna be Like, peeling off all those masks that we wear to be pleasing to everybody else in the world, where who are we Like, who are we at our core and what do we really want? And it's okay to be there. And part of that comes from accepting and acknowledging and honoring anger, honoring resentment and frustration and all of that, and then peeling the layers back and giving ourselves grace to put ourselves first and to lead ourselves and to care for ourselves and, most importantly, to love ourselves, because that is the key to everything.
Manya Chylinski:
Well, thank you for sharing that and thank you for the work that you do. And how can our listeners reach you to learn more about what you do?
Suzette Bravo:
I'm on Instagram, susettekbravo, and my website is susette at susettebravo. com. I've got some really cool events coming up after the first of the year, so if you pop over to my website, drop your email. You'll be one of the first to get notified as we start to roll these programs out.
Manya Chylinski:
Oh, excellent. I'll put the links for that in the show notes so everybody can find you easily. Susette, thank you so much for your time today and talking with me about this difficult emotion, and I think I've learned a lot, and I hope our listeners have too.
Suzette Bravo:
Thanks, I also host a podcast called Bravo Unscripted, and I highlight ordinary people doing extraordinary things and also powerful conversations on topics that I get asked about a lot.
Manya Chylinski:
Oh, excellent Listeners. Definitely check it out. Thank you everybody. We will talk with you soon. Thank you, thank you for listening. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did. So if you'd like to learn more about me, Manya Chylinski, I work with organizations to help understand how to create environments where people can thrive after difficult life experiences, and I do this through talks and consulting. I'm a survivor of mass violence and I use my experience to help leaders learn about resiliency, compassion and trauma-sensitive leadership to build strategies to enable teams to thrive and be engaged amidst difficulty and turmoil. If this is something you wanna learn more about, visit my website, www. manyachylinskicom, or email me at manya@manyachylinski. co , or stop by my social media on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thanks so much.