Why Suppressed Anger Shows Up in Midlife (and What It’s Telling You)

Ever feel anger rise up and wonder, “Where did that come from?”

Explore why anger isn’t the problem, and what it’s been trying to protect all along. 

In this episode of The Underlayer, host David Young is joined by Carolyn Warsham for a deep, honest conversation about anger, emotional health, and personal growth, especially in midlife.

Together, they unpack why anger is one of the most misunderstood emotions, how cultural and corporate conditioning teaches us to suppress it, and what happens when unexpressed feelings quietly accumulate beneath the surface.

Carolyn shares personal stories and professional insight to reframe anger not as something to fix or avoid, but as a signal, often pointing to crossed boundaries, unmet needs, or unprocessed experiences.

The conversation also explores:

• Why anger often resurfaces more intensely in midlife
• How corporate culture and social norms discourage emotional expression
• The “pressure cooker” effect of suppressed emotions
• The difference between healthy anger and toxic outbursts
• How therapy, coaching, and curiosity can help us process emotions safely

If you’ve ever felt surprised by your own anger or wondered why it shows up when life looks “fine” on the outside, then this episode will help you understand what’s really going on beneath the surface.

Carolyn's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-alburger-warsham/

Meet with Carolyn, https://calendly.com/carolyn-warsham-coaching/intro-with-caro?month=2025-12

Subscribe to her Substack, Awake at Work

The Underlayer YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/@the_under_layer

The Underlayer Podcast Website: https://www.theunderlayerpodcast.com/

David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-young-mba-indy/

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: Anger’s Bad Rap
• 2:20 Anger As A Boundary Signal
• 6:20 Midlife Awakening And Stored Emotions
• 12:50 Sales, Rejection, And Finding A Voice
• 20:05 Ancestral Rage And Women’s Power
• 27:30 Social Media, Anxiety, And Real Life
• 33:10 Gender Conditioning Around Anger
• 40:20 Corporate Suppression And Micromanagement
• 50:00 Trust, Autonomy, And Better Management
• 56:40 Practical Tools To Process Emotions
• 1:00:20 90-Second Emotions And Letting Go

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Welcome to episode six of the underlayer, where the real story lives, the surface story dies, and the truth underneath comes to life. I'm your host, David Young, and every week on this show we peel back the layers, break old narratives, and move into the underlayer, place where clarity lives, alignment takes shape, and your energy finally starts to come back. If you want to make changes in your life, you have to go beneath your own story. Today I'm joined by Carolyn Warsham, and we're going to take a deep dive into anger with a possible side of manifesting. Carolyn is an ICF and heart math certified coach who helps high-performing executives break patterns of overextension, self-abandonment, and burnout. She teaches leaders how to build real boundaries, reclaim clarity, and lead from an inner steadiness that makes fulfillment actually sustainable. For coaching, Carolyn led teams at Salesforce, Google, and Vox Media. She spent the last decade helping Fortune 100 leaders unlearn the conditioning that keeps them on at all costs. She blends nervous system work, inner development, and a practical leadership strategy to bring more humanity and integrity back into leadership. Carolyn, thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02

I am so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05

Absolutely. So yeah, this is our first time meeting. I just started to see some of your content on LinkedIn, and then you just started a new uh Substack long form writing, which I I'm familiar with. I have not done that, but I knew it. And so I was really interested in it. And then really the genesis for having you on today is you wrote the uh I thought it was a brilliant Substack post on November 5th uh about the anger that freed me. And you told the story, which I'll let you talk about more in a second. Uh, but I found the story just uh it was really moving. I related to a lot of the story. Um I've dealt with anger issues in my life, but I didn't really see the pattern until I was much older. Um and I think it does get a bad rap, which you kind of talk about. So um, yeah, I'm just gonna read the very just kind of word for word, the way you started that Substack, and then I'll let you uh talk about it from there. But the way you started it was we live in a culture that stuffs away anger and shames sadness. We pretend it disappears, but the truth is it festers. And when I finally let rage move through me without trying to fix or tame it, my life reorganized profoundly, which I think is an amazing like setup to the story. So I'll let you kind of go from there.

SPEAKER_02: 2:17

Amazing. Thanks for reading that. Yeah, I mean, I think that anger is a fundamental part of being a human being. I think that's the first important thing to say about it. It it's just in us, it's part of our wiring. And unfortunately, the culture that we're a part of uh teaches us that there's something wrong with it, that if we're feeling angry, that there's something fundamentally off. And that's like deep in our programming. Um, a story's actually coming to mind about this because I was on an airplane traveling over Thanksgiving and I saw this in action. Um, I see it in action all the time with parenting. And, you know, these are well-meaning parents, but there were these two little children on the plane, young toddlers, they were fighting over a stuffed animal. They were pulling it from each other. And it was loud, you know, it was disruptive. And the dad was saying, Be nice, be nice, be nice. And because of my anger journey, I'm just thinking, these kids are asserting their boundaries here.

SPEAKER_01: 3:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 3:17

Like one child is stealing a stuffed animal from another child and the other child doesn't like it. And the dad is programming them out of that instinct of like, no, this is mine. Don't take this from me. Um, so we're taught to be nice, we're taught to be agreeable. And um, yeah, it's almost like the more civilization has evolved, the more that fundamental part of our what it is to be human has been suppressed. And it's, I mean, civilization is great in some ways, but it's deeply damaging in others. And I think this is one of the ways in which it's deeply damaging because anger is important for so many reasons.

SPEAKER_00: 3:54

Yeah, I mean, we all feel it, right, in different uh different phases and stages of our life, but it's always present. Like we just get angry for whatever reason. Could be a very valid reason, it could be not. Usually what I found for me is there's a lot of stuff going on either behind the scenes or a lot of stuff has commun uh accumulated over time. And then the way that comes out then is through like an outburst or anger. And sometimes that can take years, right? It doesn't, it's not necessarily like minutes or days. Like it can be a lot, you can build up a long, a lot of stuff, but then at some point you will reach max capacity and then it needs an outlet, and then that's typically not a great it's not a great setup.

SPEAKER_02: 4:38

Yeah, 100%. I the way that I think about anger is that it's a signal, and anger is showing you where a boundary is being crossed. And so I just want to like let that sink in for a little bit because that's so important, right? A boundary is being crossed. This is my internal mechanism to show me that. Um, and what you said is so true. Um, you know, anger it can be like cumulative. Um, so in my experience, anger comes up either because something small triggers an accumulation of infringements. It that's one. The other one is that it's just a real boundary being crossed in the present moment. And the third that I've seen in clients is that it's an it's an indicator of an unprocessed old trauma. So all of those are really valid signals to pay attention to. And unfortunately, there's such a stigma around anger that we just really try to stuff it away until, like you said, we become like this pressure cooker. And then something little happens, and before we know it, it's just out. And that's distorted anger, that's toxic anger. And unfortunately, that's anger that we see in the mainstream because of the suppression. That's the one that's more normal. And that just adds to the stigma because we're seeing the toxic form of anger over and over. And that part, that form of anger isn't healthy, right? That's that's the kind of rage that can do a lot of damage and harm. Uh, so I think that's a big part of why it's misunderstood is we're not we're not taught how to honor anger, how to respect the force that it is, and hold healthy space for it, right?

SPEAKER_00: 6:18

Yeah, and I don't think we do a good job, at least I didn't, of recognizing it like as it was happening, where you would get angry and then you just wouldn't do anything about it, and then you get angry again, do nothing about it. And you would just kind of keep doing that and not realizing, like I thought it was going away. Like I was like, okay, well, I got mad there, but nobody knows I got mad. I didn't I didn't yell, or or maybe I was by myself, it doesn't matter. What I'd never realized for a long time was that that it was just I was storing it, and then when I did that again, I was storing it again, and then I kept repeating the storage part, like I thought it was just gone, and then yeah, it was still living inside me, and then would come out, and then again it took like decades um to start to like pattern recognize that and then be like, oh, I should actually probably address that like as it's happening, and so it doesn't pile up totally right, and so when you turn towards the anger, and maybe this was part of your experience, but when you start to honor it and get curious about why it's showing up in your life, then you can cultivate the wisdom from it and take action in your life, right?

SPEAKER_02: 7:25

Like have a conversation with a loved one about some boundary that needs to be set or a new system or structure that needs to be put into place that honors you and your needs. So it's just such an important part of evolution in that. It helps us come into our power when we are curious about yeah, for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:47

Yeah, it it it eventually took going to therapy. I had been to therapist before, but I never took it all that seriously. Um, but it finally was like seeing a therapist and meaning it and wanting to go instead of feeling like I was being forced to go, which is what I thought.

SPEAKER_01: 8:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:01

The first couple times I tried it. Um, and then through those sessions and then starting to really deconstruct all of the different patterns. And then a lot of it was tied back to what you mentioned uh just a minute ago about childhood. I don't know if trauma's the right word for me, because it wasn't like uh there wasn't a single incident or like this one thing happened, but it was like this culmination of events. Yeah. Um, that just for whatever reason, the the end result of that was just me carrying just being angry. Uh, but I didn't really know it. Yeah. Like I didn't feel like I didn't feel angry all the time. Like I wouldn't walk walk around like always disgruntled and like yelling and pounding, but inside it was like silent, like I was just carrying it, but I didn't know it uh until again I was like almost 40.

SPEAKER_02: 8:49

Yeah, I can so relate to that experience. Actually, my experience is really similar. Um, you know, no like what they call capital T trauma, but more like cumulative little T trauma of just you know, continued suppression. For in my case, it was continued suppression of my voice and my truth and and my power. And for me, it came online around midlife. It was really tied to having my son. I think there's something there. There's like uh hormones, it's like such a rite of passage to have a child. And you know, it was almost like my internal chemical makeup shifted fundamentally and all the walking on eggshells and biting my tongue and peacemaking. I started to really see it for what it was, which was me kind of sidelining my own needs. It just became clear. And I think for a lot of people it happens at midlife. You wake up, you know, like you know, it's called a midlife crisis, but I I love the rebrand of a midlife awakening because I think it's so true.

SPEAKER_00: 9:57

Well, you start to see things differently. You you get you gather the life experience, some maturity, yeah, age age, yes, but it's just I don't know. You start asking more questions, you get to places in life where you're like, I don't know, is this really where I wanted to be, or how did I end up here? So you start looking back and you're like, you start you really start trying to put the puzzle pieces together, right? Which we can only do in hindsight. Um and so I think that's why a lot in those from like 35 to probably like 55, and a lot of a lot of in-between there is when yeah, a lot of people are like, hmm, something something is amiss. Something yeah, this doesn't feel like this doesn't it's not where I thought I would be, or like I just don't feel right, or so like something just feels off. And so I think that's yeah causes some like yeah, deeper expiration.

SPEAKER_02: 10:47

A hundred percent. I also think you start to care a little bit less about what other people think in some instances, for sure, right? Like you're you're less oriented towards like how do I fit in and how do I be a part of this culture, and you've had enough experience where you're like, okay, I kind of get what's going on here. I see it for what it is. Where do I fit in this mess? Um, you're kind of like on the roof a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00: 11:10

So yeah, and for me, you know, I was an only child and I didn't have a lot of friends. Uh like, you know, I play with the neighborhood kids, but like at school, you know, I played a lot of sports, so like you know, I knew kids on teams, but like I just I just wasn't super social. I was really shy. You know, I didn't speak up in class. Um, you know, I was terrified to read like from a textbook, teachers are calling you and you'd have to read like a paragraph or something out loud. Like that terrified me. I would sit back, hope nobody ever called on me. Um and then my parents divorced when I was really young, so I was I was in a lot of different places. I live with my mom, I'd see my dad, I go to different grandparents, I was in and out of aunts and uncles' houses. So like there was a lot going on, but like when you're a kid, you don't you're not really processing any of that, you're just doing it because you don't that's just your life. Um but through a lot of that, and because I didn't really have an outlet, like I didn't really have anybody to talk to, and I didn't, I wasn't that talkative anyway, like it just ended up creating this just suppressive emotions that I just had never like really processed, and then you know, I got to be an adult and I didn't know it, obviously, but it was just all it was just all inside, like and and just came out and usually inopportune times.

SPEAKER_02: 12:21

Totally. Yeah, I mean, in kids it's about survival, right? I mean, it sounds like you were in a lot of different situations and you were really just trying to survive and probably stay in the good graces of all the your caretakers. And 100%. Yeah, maybe part of that maybe being quiet made you more um lovable in some ways. I'm not quite sure. But um it's cool that you have a podcast now.

SPEAKER_00: 12:48

Well, it's funny because Oh yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02: 12:52

Well, I was just gonna say, I feel like it's just so common that the thing that was terrifying when we are were kids is the the thing that we um are meant to heal as adults, and it seems like that's your trajectory.

SPEAKER_00: 13:07

Yeah, that's actually really funny because two things. One, so when I was a kid, you know, like eight, nine, ten, you know, I played sports, I was good at basketball. And so if you had asked me what I wanted to do, I would have said I want to play, you know, in the NBA, not knowing that that basically had no chance. And then if somebody would have been like, well, on the off chance, you don't you know quite make it uh all the way to the professional level, like we're doing, I would have said broadcasting, but it was solely like sports broadcasting. It was just like, oh, I just want to like talk about sports, because that's that was literally my my life. I just saw the sports, right? Um the other thing is when I was a freshman in high school and I was still at the junior high, for some reason it was like seven, eight, nine was our junior high. It wasn't nine through twelve like it is everywhere now. Um, as a joke, I ran for class president. Uh I I had no intention of winning, it was just my friend came up with this idea and he was like, You should run for school president. I was like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. He was like, Well, you're not gonna win, but we're just gonna do it as a joke because like you would be the last person anyone would ever vote for, right? Because I was shy, they have a lot of friends. So I was like, Yeah, okay, fine. So we did it, and of course I won in a landslide. Like amazing. Yeah, yeah, of course. Oh my gosh. So I did it and it was fine. I didn't really have to do anything. I I ran like one meeting a month and nothing, nothing happened, right? So at the very end of that school year, so it's like April, the teacher who was in charge of running it, she was like, Don't forget to uh you know start working on your speech. And I was like, uh um, I'm sorry, you said speech. What what? And she was like, as the outgoing class president, you're gonna give a speech in front of all the parents at awards night. So that's coming up soon. Make sure that you're prepared. I was like, I'm sorry, how am I just learning about this now? I literally wouldn't have done this as a joke if I knew that was the outcome. She was like, Too late now, you've already been the president for 10 months, so you better get there.

SPEAKER_01: 14:55

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 14:56

So I go to my buddy and I'm like, hey man, listen, this is what you got me into. Like, not only did we do this not seriously, and then we won. Okay, fine. And now I've done it this whole school year. You have to now you have to write me a speech. And so he was like, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. So he wrote it. I would give anything to have this on tape. I read it from note cards, and I don't know if you're old enough to remember the micro machine guy, but he talked like really fast. Like, you if it's not a micro machine, it's not the real thing. They did this whole thing. I read the speech just like that. It was probably like a 10-minute speech, and I read it in like 35 seconds. It had to be the worst all-time like public speech ever. The parents had to be like, What? He just got started, he's already done. What is even happening? And so it's hilarious that you say like that. I was so nervous. I might be the most nervous I've ever been in my life. And now I would just I would talk anywhere. Like, you want me to talk? Sure, I'll come and talk. You you have people, microphone, stage, audience. I don't care. So it's I hadn't put that together until you just said that.

SPEAKER_02: 15:49

That's amazing. Do you have a sense of what uh was catalyzed the shift for you? Because that's a huge transformation to go from you know, terrified to speak to just bring it on.

unknown: 16:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:04

Do you just feel like it was like a slow evolution over time and it just kind of naturally had its way with you?

SPEAKER_00: 16:10

I don't know. I hadn't I had never I'd never put it quite together that way. Um and I still remember that that night so vividly, I was terrified. Um I think it was a slow evolution because I, you know, as I got older, like once I got into college, you know, I I opened up a little bit more socially. And then ironically, my first I don't want to call a real job, but like my first job after college was actually a door-to-door sales job, which was terrible. But that really, really helped open me up because I had to knock on strangers' doors and I had to say something, and I had to try to sell them something. And I actually got pretty good at it. Like I I ended up being like fairly decent, but that really the it really expanded like my ability to like speak to strangers or to have conversations and whatever. We and it was like a script that we memorized and we said it. Yeah. But we did it, I did it so many times, like every day I did a job for like five months. Um but I just got really I just got really used to like just trying to ask strangers for money. And if if you can do that, then I think you can do like almost anything.

SPEAKER_02: 17:14

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, what's striking me is how like such mundane things like a sales job where you are asking strangers for money become like this integral part of our soul's path and growth. And it seems like such like a transactional corporate thing, but it's like helping you evolve.

SPEAKER_00: 17:34

Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah, it was one of those where like when I got the job, it was like, why did I just say yes to you? Like this is this is dumb. And then I then I got into it and I was like, this is even worse than I thought. I cannot believe I'm doing this. But then it was a bunch of young people and we were working crazy hours. What's funny is how applicable it was right away because I went to uh I had a friend that worked at uh Fidelity, like the investment company, and there's an amusement park close to where I grew up called King's Island. It's pretty pretty popular, it's one of the bigger ones in the country. And it was like the Fidelity Day, so we all had like free passes because of him. So we're standing in line and there was one that was unused, and so I was like, You should sell it. And he was like, What do you mean? I was like, Well, we have this free ticket, these people were getting ready to pay$40 to get in the park. I was just sell it for$20, it'll buy your food for the day. And he was like, I would never do that. I was like, if I do it, can I have the money? He was like, Sure. So I took the ticket, I walked like 10 spots up in line, and I just every person, I was like, hey, this 20 bucks, you're getting ready to pay 40. It's a fidelity ticket, they don't they don't check. And like the first three people passed, I just kept going to the next person. And finally somebody was like, Why would I pay, why would I pay double when I can pay this guy 20? And then they took it, I took the money. So, like, just something little like that. Like, I never would have done that like prior to that, but because I was knocking on people's doors, I was like, Oh, this is the easiest$20 I'll ever make. Like, why would you not do this? It's so simple. He's like, I'm not, I'm not gonna talk to them, I'm not gonna ask them for money. I'm like, you're saving the money, you're not even asking. They're you're literally saving them twenty dollars. You're doing them a certain you're doing them a favor. He was like, No. But it's so yeah, it's just like but I had no idea at the time that like I was building those skills.

SPEAKER_02: 19:12

Totally. I mean, what I'm you also tolerance for rejection. You're like, sure, bring it on. Just rejection, rejection, rejection. I got this.

SPEAKER_00: 19:20

That was our goal. Didn't even phase you. That's amazing. We knew 90 people would tell us no. That was like our our daily goal. Was if you could if you could talk to a hundred people, you get 10 yeses. So you just automatically knew 90% were like, get you know, get lost, slam the door. You know, you're not supposed to lit solicit in this neighborhood, like you know, we got all we got all this stuff. Uh we saw the cops periodically. But um yeah, rejection was we welcomed it. Like we just yeah, we knew it, we knew that was part of it. And that's honestly, and being an online business now for the last you know, couple years, like that's you just have to, like, you just know yeah, you know, you know people are gonna say, No, you wrote the post about the group program that nobody signed up for. Exact same thing happened. Me, right? Like, yeah. I signed four the first time. I was like, oh, I'll sign eight the second time. Zero. Nothing.

SPEAKER_02: 20:07

Yeah, same. It's so funny. Uh, and I agree, like, sales training is so helpful. Um, you know, my background is in journalism and marketing and public relations, and all of those things are helping me so much as a solopreneur. But sales is the one thing that I never did. And I actually, it's funny, I thought about interviewing for a sales job out of college. And I remember I was going into the interview and I remember reading what they wanted me to do. It was like, prepare to sell X product and, you know, do the pitch in the interview. And I was like, getting ready. You know, I was an A student. I was good at stuff as a young one. And I was, so I always told myself, like, I can do it. I can do anything. But with that sales pitch, in the 11th hour, I was like, I can't do this. I I cannot, because to me it felt inauthentic. I think that was what was coming up for me. I was like, I can't just like fake selling this thing. Um, but I still think it'd be really cool to have the sales skills and just, you know, understand fundamentally how sales works and have like that in my DNA, which I don't really have. I have more of like the marketing and PR.

SPEAKER_00: 21:19

Yeah, I think uh we can talk offline. I can give you some the names of some people that can help. But I do think that sales and marketing are the two most critical factors. If you're gonna run your own like online consulting or coaching or service-based type business, products a little bit, but more service-based, because obviously there's a lot of coaches in the in the online space, which is fine. Um the ones that are doing well or that I know of are just really good at marketing and selling. And the ones who are really good coaches who don't sell and market that well, they struggle. It's exact it's the exact opposite. The ones who can help the most people are the worst at selling and marketing, and the ones who are the best at selling and marketing are the worst coaches.

SPEAKER_02: 21:56

That's just I have had this conversation before. I there are a few that have both, I would say. Uh like the holy grail, right? Yeah, but yeah, it's a completely different skill set. Marketing, showing up on social media, they're not the same skill set that you need for coaching people and holding space. So it's very true.

SPEAKER_00: 22:16

Yeah, and it's also the the rejection part is you have to you're taking it personally because they're telling you no, right? It's your program, it's your service, you created it, you believe in it, you know it can help. They're not telling the company no, they're telling like whatever. So, like when I was in sales, because I did sales for about seven years, then I worked for three different companies. Like, I didn't care if anybody told me no. But when I had my own thing and I was pitching it and they told me no, I always like internalized it. I was like, oh, that like hurts like hurts my soul. This is so valuable. Like this, I'm so good. I can help you so much. Like, I don't it's not even that much money. Why would you say no?

SPEAKER_02: 22:50

Uh anyway, um, yeah, it's a different I think I've finally gotten to the place where I don't I don't internalize it, which I'm grateful for um because I've done these programs and I I do know the value of what I do and I like trust it and I believe in it. Yeah, um and I also believe in divine timing. And I also I mean I attribute the lack of success of that program, or I I think I jumped the gun on launching it because I'm so excited about it, but I've only been really publicly talking about coaching for like a year on LinkedIn, and I just don't think my audience is really at the point yet where it's prime for me to launch something like that.

SPEAKER_00: 23:30

So yeah, it's I mean, a year on LinkedIn is like a couple months um in today's landscape, just simply because there's so much noise and social media and it just it's not you, it's just the message, it just gets lost. Yeah. Um, just simply in the volume. So yeah, it takes away.

SPEAKER_01: 23:45

Totally.

SPEAKER_00: 23:46

Um so that kind of brings me to the next point. We got a little bit off track there with my ninth grade class president story. Um but you really hit on yeah, you really hit on something with the whole like the the healing, the speaking. I yeah, that that really kind of blew my mind. Um in the uh back to subsect article, you talk about as you were you because you tell the story about like hitting the punching bag and you just felt like all this rage and like it just kind of came out in this like physical form. But you talked about like you had this sense of your grandmother, your mother, your grandmother, and ancestors you'd never met. And then this line I really struck home, the smallness of their lives compared to the bold dreams that they never got to breathe. I think that's an incredible line. Um, so yeah, talk, talk a little bit, talk more about that because I thought that was really um just I don't know, there's something about that that really struck me.

SPEAKER_02: 24:36

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a line that speaks to my lineage and to also so much to the collective ancestry that we all share. Uh part of you know, the culture and the civilization that we talked about earlier. There is so much suppression in it and so much conformity in it. And when I think about women, you know, for generations, we've been conditioned to be nice and keep the peace and self-sacrifice and martyr ourselves for our families and our children and to put everyone else's needs before our own.

SPEAKER_00: 25:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 25:11

And that is deified in our culture.

SPEAKER_00: 25:14

It's still happening right now. I mean, quite often.

SPEAKER_02: 25:16

It's still happening right now. We're unwinding it because more and more people are talking about it. And of course, there's nothing wrong for you know, giving so much to your children and to your family and um, you know, pouring forth from that natural nurturing spirit that so many women carry. And it's it's just been at the expense of our individuation and our power and our um full like self-actualization for generations. And in my family, my grandmother got a scholarship to Parsons, to Parsons. Um, she grew up in Middle America and it was a huge deal for her. My mom found an early note that she wrote about how excited she was to go to New York and what a big deal this was. She got a full scholarship for art. And when she went to New York City, she met my grandfather, who was a famous musician, fell in love. Uh, he was this dashing Italian man. She converted to Catholicism and went off birth control. I'll share all the details, proceeded to have nine children, and left, had to leave art school. And she was deeply, deeply depressed. My mom told me a story about her um painting all the walls of the house red. One day she just came in and her mother was on a chair just painting the walls red, and she just had just kind of like lost it a little bit. It was like that artistic part of her soul. She she abandoned it for Catholicism and having a bunch of babies and love.

SPEAKER_01: 26:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 26:57

So it's like a classic story. And um, you know, there's other stories in my lineage that are similar. And when I was expressing the rage, it was like a flash in my mind's eye. Like I saw them all. I saw all of their rage. I saw all of their unexpressed anger. And so in a way, it felt it felt really sacred for that reason. Um, and it felt like a point of no turning back.

SPEAKER_00: 27:24

Yeah, that's amazing that you were able to like feel it, right? Like you you obviously had thought about it and you knew the stories, but in that moment when you were hitting the punching bag, like it's like almost like a wave, like all this other all these other stories and feelings and emotion, like it all like you channeled almost, like you channeled it all like forward in a way.

SPEAKER_02: 27:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:47

Um, which I think is amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 27:49

I think at that point I was fortunate because I had had enough training to understand that anger was healthy and that there was something really important and necessary in this anger. And it was coming up in a way that was like undeniable. And that's why I went down to the basement because I was like, this needs to come out. Um and I remember in my in my mind, I was thinking, I want to understand what I'm capable of. Like that was almost like a voice prodding me on. Like, I want to see how powerful I can be because there is so much power in anger. And so I I tested the limits. I mean, at that point, I screamed as loud as I could, I punched as hard as I could, and I really felt the outer limit of my power. Um yeah, and I did it alone. I did it not in front of you know my son and my family because that's when it's suppressed for so long, the way that it comes out is like I said, more on the toxic end of the spectrum. So you need to hold a container for it to come out so that it doesn't hurt people or scare people.

SPEAKER_00: 28:56

Yeah, I know you talked about in the article about like you wish you had like pictures of it, like pictures of the anger. And I thought that was really interesting, like a visual. Um, because I'd never really thought about I mean, obviously, we have like violence and like boxing or martial arts or whatever, but like as an emotion, like almost more abstract, like a picture of anger. That's like what I started thinking about. And then I was like, oh, I've never really I've never really thought about that. Like I just think of like breaking something glass or a picture frame or whatever, slamming something down, a bat, whatever. I used to throw golf clubs when I played a lot of golf, um, just like that type of stuff. But I'd never thought about it more like what you were visualizing. Like, I'd love to be able to like capture this anger like right now in the moment. I thought that was really interesting.

SPEAKER_02: 29:48

Yeah, and that was kind of a response to Instagram, like and the putting our lives into tidy little beautiful square boxes and how we glorify all those pinnacle moments, right? On vacation or date night, or you know, everything that we put on social media. And it's kind of a retort to that of like, well, why don't we put this beautiful anger on social media? Like that's part of the human experience too, and that deserves a place in our collective consciousness as well. Um, but we sideline it and we don't represent it in in a way, in a way that is worthy of it or that it's worthy of.

SPEAKER_00: 30:26

Well, and that's part of the problem with social media, uh, especially with I think younger people is that we only see the good, like the the Instagram posts and uh Facebook and whatnot. Um, we're not putting typically like the rough, the rough pictures, the rough parts, the struggles, the fights, the depression, the sadness, right? We're just putting the happy, dressed up, going out, fun, parties, birthdays, vacations, whatever. And so as you start to if you spend enough time and you just are only seeing someone's highlight reel, you get this distorted view that like that's their life, like their life is perfect and it's always great, and they're always happy. And it's like no one, no one is like I don't care how well it's going for you, you're still gonna you're still gonna experience these negative feelings and emotions. It's just the way it is. So you have to be really careful when you're consuming that, again, especially when you're younger, you don't quite have the the frame of reference to understand it. I mean, it's harder for older adults too, but for the kids, like they can be like, oh well, my life sucks because so and so is always they look great. It's like, yeah, that's like 10 minutes. Like they're they're awake for 16 hours a day. You you see like 10 minutes, like there's a lot, a whole lot they are not ever gonna put, you know, on their feed. So have some awareness, but that's hard.

SPEAKER_02: 31:41

It's so hard. And that's why we have so much anxiety with young kids, right? Because they are so absorbed in it without more of the expanded knowledge that we have and not a fully developed prefrontal cortex. So they're just kind of taking it all in wide-eyed and thinking it's real. And um actually, we recently went to Costa Rica for Thanksgiving and um we did a few school tours there. And one of the things I noticed is that the kids are not on their phones. And I know that the anxiety uh the teenage level is a lot higher in America than it is in other countries for that reason, because we're more wired into our phones than other than other countries. So it's just an interesting side note.

SPEAKER_00: 32:28

Um Of course we are. Why why wouldn't we be?

SPEAKER_02: 32:32

Because we're so civilized, right?

SPEAKER_00: 32:34

Right. We're so advanced. We're on the cutting edge, which is why we're behind in literally every metric. Um, yeah, there was my wife was just talking about the other day. I can't remember what country it was, but or maybe it's a state. It doesn't matter. Uh 16. They were they all social media was banned until kids turned 16 or maybe 18.

SPEAKER_02: 32:52

I think it's Australia.

SPEAKER_00: 32:53

Oh, yeah, that's it. Yeah, Australia. Yeah, because we're yeah, that's it. So yeah, because we were talking about Europe and like we were actually talking about like other places to live, and then somebody was talking about Australia, that's what it was. Yeah. So um, but yeah, and so she was like, you know, that would be great. I mean, we waited with my oldest, he's he is now sixteen, waited until he was thirteen to get his first phone. He's never had any social media just until the last year, and he finally got Instagram. Um we try to limit this like what we as much as we can, but like once once you kind of open the floodgates, like you I mean, I can't be with him, you know, all the time and look at everything he's looking at. Like it's not possible.

SPEAKER_02: 33:29

So I'm feeling drawn back to what you said about throwing the golf club. Can we go back to that? I think there's something there. Um, and it's another just interesting point about anger, which is that in some ways anger is more condoned for men than women, and there's a reason for that. Um so you know, we talked about the guy on the airplane telling his kids to be nice, and I think that that is said even more to young girls. And women are taught at a very young age to fear their anger because it will make them unlovable, it will make them unladylike, it will make them not um acceptable in our mass culture. Whereas and for that reason, we're we fear our anger as women. And then men on the flip side are taught to fear their weakness and you know, to get up again and stiff upper lip and tough it out and don't cry. And in that fearing of the weakness, like the only way that's validated for young boys and men is actually anger in some respect because it's a sign of strength and it's a sign of power. So what I see a lot is that men who haven't learned to turn towards their sadness and their pain and their hurt uh will have anger just come out in ways like that because it's the only way that's condoned to express any negativity. So a lot of times with men, though those expressions are really like an expression of some unseen pain, unseen hurt, unseen sadness. So I I think it's it's just helpful to draw the distinction between men and anger and women and anger because we are conditioned differently at this stage of the evolution evolution of uh our civilization.

SPEAKER_00: 35:45

Yeah, that's interesting how you I like how you phrase that with like girls being taught fearing anger and men being taught, like kind of fearing the more I don't want to say delicate, but like the you know, weakness, crying, you know, showing the vulnerable side, which was totally I mean, you know, I was born in 75. So like I was a child of the 80s and like there was no there was no like express your emotions, right? Like my dad didn't say a lot, my grandfathers did they didn't like nobody we never really had any kind of talks about like how we were feeling. Like that was just not right. That just never happened, right? Like it just didn't, yeah. Um, and that was just totally normal, and so yeah, and that makes it a lot harder as you get older, where you're like, I've never done this before. What am I supposed to do or say? So it has to come out, and then yeah. So I yeah, I I didn't start playing golf until I was 13. My mom uh, you know, my parents divorced when I was young, and then it was like her second relationship. He was a golf professional, not not on the tour or anything, like at a local course, and so I was just around it. So I started playing. I wasn't that good, but I did have access to lessons and clubs, so I was able to get fairly decent pretty quickly, but never to a great level. But I still had this like really high expectation that I should be able to play like really well, and like I would hit a few bad shots, and um I didn't throw I didn't throw clubs a lot, but you know, on occasion, but I would more so I would just get like I would hit one bad shot and let it ruin like an entire round. Um I gotta be on the second hole, hit a bad shot, and like, oh well I've sixteen holes left and I'm gonna be out here for another four hours. So I'm just gonna salt and hang my head and you know, be mad at that shot for the next four hours, which of course did no good whatsoever, but you know, that's how I processed it.

SPEAKER_02: 37:22

Yeah, I think that's really common. Um you know, someone wasn't validating your emotions, allowing you to fully feel them and then move on. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 37:33

Now that my oldest son is he's gotten into golf recently and he was like, Did you throw clubs? And I was like, uh, yeah, I did. Not a lot. I don't recommend it. Um because you have to replace them and they're expensive, so don't do that.

SPEAKER_02: 37:44

Um they are expensive.

SPEAKER_00: 37:49

But uh but yeah, I don't know. Do you think it's shifting? Um, you know, as I mean, quickly approaching 2026, some in some ways I feel like we're making progress, and in other ways I feel like we're going straight backwards. Um do you think there's more messaging around out there that's getting through to where like younger this kind of whatever current generation of of young men or becoming young men and young women where it's okay for guys, you know, teenagers to be vulnerable and cry, and it's okay for girls to get mad and angry, or you do you think it's still we're still sending the message that we should avoid both those things?

SPEAKER_02: 38:25

I think both are true, like you said. I do think overall it's getting much, much better. I was even just thinking on the car ride home with my son yesterday. I was asking him, you know, how's school? How's Miss Alina? How's Theo? Like I was asking him detailed questions about things in his class. And like I'm keyed into him. I'm tuned in in ways that my parents weren't. Um, and I I'm, I mean, there's a lot of social media feeds that are all the veneer and all the roses and rainbows, but there's a lot that are also really real and raw. I mean, we're having this conversation now. I don't know if I would have felt emboldened enough to have this conversation 10 years ago, but it feels really right and prime to be having this conversation right now. And we have more education as well around emotions, how they work in the body. There's uh, you know, the whole body of science around polyvagal theory has really become more mainstream. You see so many more people talking about nervous system on LinkedIn, uh, to the point where I actually did a Google Trend search around nervous system recently. Because I was like, is this just me? Or are people really are talking about this more?

SPEAKER_00: 39:33

Regulated versus dysregulated, every other post.

SPEAKER_02: 39:37

Exactly. So, and that wasn't a conversation, even I don't know, five years ago.

SPEAKER_01: 39:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 39:43

But um, I mean, one thing I do anecdotally with my son is he my son has a lot of anger, actually. And um we have done a lot of trial and error with it because it can be quite fiery and and ups and upsetting for our whole household. And one thing that's really helpful for him is that I will just say, you're really angry right now. Like, let's punch a pillow together. And I'll get out a pillow and we'll punch it together. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes he's like, Mom, stop coaching me. But uh when he's really in it and I'm really in it, uh, it it really helps. And then, you know, we talk about healthy expressions of anger. So I I definitely think it's getting better. And I just think it's important to keep having these conversations. And um I think as far as it relates to having a corporate job, which isn't always conducive to feeling emotions fully. It's also super never is never is. So it's super important to talk about it in the context of corporate because there's a lot of anger management issues in corporate. Um, you know, we're always stuffing things down and soldier on. So I'll just share a practice that I used when I was managing a team. Um, is that when I felt a strong emotion coming up, I would look on my calendar for when there was a break. And sometimes it wasn't even until the end of the day, but I would literally block that time to go feel an emotion. And I would often do it with writing. Like journaling is a great way. You know, you don't always have to like go scream in the basement. That happened once. Um, but journaling is an awesome way to channel emotion. And then you you feel a release, like you feel when it's done. You're like, okay, it's done. I got it all out. And then you can take a deep breath and you can return to work and you're much more grounded and centered and present, and you're more of a lighthouse for your team. So it's actually a really valuable leadership skill to develop is to learn how to turn towards your emotions, feel your emotions, and then come back to center. Because if you don't, you just get off kilter and you become that pressure cooker. You become, you know, and then with the steam coming out in unwanted places.

SPEAKER_00: 42:01

Yeah, that's a great point. And I think that setting that's a great idea about setting time aside to feel it. I felt like in most of my corporate career, I'd never I could never be myself. Like I felt like I was always wearing so many different masks and I was hiding sarcasm or honest opinions or whatever. Um, and I was like, Oh, I can't say that. No one will get that. I'll get in trouble. They won't they'll take it the wrong way. Uh it's a terrible idea, but I should say it. And that happened for like two decades. And then I just got tired of folding it all in. So then I started saying those things. And nobody liked it. So I was right.

SPEAKER_02: 42:38

Really? Nobody liked it?

SPEAKER_00: 42:40

Not really. No. Some of my coworkers did because they agreed with me. Uh, but they didn't. Yeah. But that didn't, that didn't matter. Uh they weren't the ones in charge of whether they were gonna keep paying me or not. But um, yeah, I learned that management doesn't like it when you tell them their ideas won't work. Even even though you're right, and even though they didn't work. And then you could be like, well, I told you it wasn't gonna work and it didn't. Yeah, no, it doesn't play.

SPEAKER_02: 43:02

No, I mean I think people like solutions, not problems, right?

SPEAKER_00: 43:06

They like they like yes people, it's what they like.

SPEAKER_02: 43:08

They like yes people.

SPEAKER_00: 43:13

Even in the face of data that it isn't.

SPEAKER_02: 43:17

Yeah, it totally depends. There's some good managers out there, but um yeah, I feel like if you're gonna come with a contradictory opinion, you better have a solution. Like this doesn't isn't I don't think this is gonna work. And here's what I think will work. Otherwise, you're just gonna get maybe let go.

SPEAKER_00: 43:39

Yes, you will. I I can speak, I can speak to Really. Um, but that's fine. So that's actually a lot of times that's for the best. Um that's what I started doing. That's what I started doing my own that's why I started doing my own thing. Uh now if I wanna give flack to the boss, I just have to talk to myself. Um yeah, the corporate we could do a whole we could do a whole separate show on on the corporate existence and the suffocating of emotions and making people feel small and like really siloing them and even just like the cubicle experience and just the whole the whole setup is just it's not good.

SPEAKER_02: 44:17

Uh yeah, I would love to do a whole episode on that. I think that would be really valuable.

SPEAKER_00: 44:22

Yeah, that's like when I really I in my darkest moments, like my most depressive state was after a few years of just going into an office and like sitting in a cubicle. It felt like a prison.

SPEAKER_01: 44:37

My god. I felt it is.

SPEAKER_00: 44:38

I felt like I was swiping my badge, I was voluntarily swiping my badge. No one was forcing me. I could not could choose not to go. I mean, eventually they'd let me go, but like I didn't have to. Uh they were paying me, I did have benefits, and then I'd walk up the second two flights of stairs and plop down to my desk with my backpack and turn my computer on. And it was, you know, 9 05 on a Tuesday. And I was like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this?

SPEAKER_01: 45:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 45:05

Like this is insane. This is what I was put on earth to do this. So you this can't be this can't be for real. Like it's gotta be a movie. Nope. Nope. This is my this is my life. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it the rest of the day. They're gonna let me out for a few hours, then I'm gonna go to bed, and guess what? I'll be right back here tomorrow morning. Same bad time, same bad channel until it gets to Friday, and then you know what? They're gonna let me get they're gonna let me leave for two days, and then I'll be back on Monday. And that was it.

SPEAKER_02: 45:32

Yeah, it's pretty depressing. I agree, and it's it is inhumane. And it's a holdover of the industrial revolution, and it is prime for reinvention. And unfortunately, you know, we have this little moment of awakening during the pandemic where everyone was empowered to work from home and, you know, focus on their well-being. Like this was certainly the case at Salesforce. Managers were encouraged to be like, How are you? Are you taking care of yourself? And then, you know, with the stock market and everything that's happening with shareholders, now we're in this whole RTO 996 thing. I really think it's only temporary. I I think this is part of a very broken system falling apart. And it has to get really dark and really bad until it gets better. And it's if you think about um society as mirroring nature, this is like we're in winter. We're in like the death phase. And that needs to come before new seeds can start to grow. So I'm I'm a relentless optimist, but um, yeah, I'd love to talk about that more.

SPEAKER_00: 46:34

Yeah, the whole uh well, I mean, the whole the 40-hour work week makes no sense. Nine to five makes no sense. I think that's it's like you said, it was all based on you know agriculture and industry, industry and the sun coming up and crops like in the 1940s. Like it made sense then, it makes zero sense now. We're holding on to it like there's no other way. And every study, four-day work weeks, huge improvement in productivity. Uh, work from home is also I think every study shows people are happier, as productive, if not more. Like all these alternate ways of doing it prove that it is better, and yet we still want to go right back because it's so ingrained. We've been programmed. Society's programmed us. Like, no, no, no, it's gotta be you have to come to the office, you have to sit here for eight hours. Like I had a job, one of my jobs, it took me two hours a day to do my work. I would usually work from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and I would work very hard for those two hours. And for the next six hours, I couldn't, I couldn't say like I've already I'm done for the day, I'm gonna go do whatever, right? That would not fly. So I had to pretend like I was working, and so I would be available for like Slack chats and an email, and then I would just do other stuff like on the side. That's insane. Why would it, why would it? That doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_02: 47:47

Yeah, it is totally insane. And it's completely fear-based that we're still locked into that system. Yeah, I'm thinking about a conversation I recently had with a VP at a company who was talking about her boss who needed her entire engineering team to be butts and seats from nine to five. And she was saying that she was worried because a lot of them were leaving early and going home. And my question to her was, Well, are they hitting their benchmarks? Are they hitting their paper's? And she said, Yeah, they are. And she's like, But what am I gonna tell to my boss when he comes down and he sees that all the chairs are empty? And I said, Well, can you just tell them this is your highest performing engineering team yet, and they're doing a great job and it's no problem? And it sounds so simple. Actually, maybe I can do that. But it's just a we have to rewrite the script of like, just because we're not in our seats doesn't mean we're not doing an awesome job. Like we're all, I think I'm really lucky because I worked for a few years, almost 10 years, actually, at Eater as a food reporter. And my boss, Lockhart Steele, I will never forget, he said, I don't care how you do your job, if you're doing a good job, if you're getting traffic, if the site's growing, fine. And that was one of my earliest roles where I had a leadership position and I was in, I was empowered to do the job any which way I proved from any country in the world, any time of day. And it was highly effective. I was accountable for my metrics. I've never worked harder. Um, and I really appreciated the ability to be free and work from home. Like I was so grateful for that.

SPEAKER_00: 49:23

So it's reverse psychology. My first boss, after that door-to-door job, I got the job that I thought I wanted, which was selling pharmaceuticals because everybody told me how great that job was. And I was 24, I got that job. I had a big territory company car. My boss probably twice my age, and it was the best boss I ever had. Same similar to you. He was like, I don't care what you do, I don't care how much you work. I'm never gonna ask you like if you went out in territory today or how much you drove or how many doctors you talk to. Like, he's like, I really don't care. Like, you know what the numbers are, and then you'll figure out how to hit them, and that's all I care about. So if that's 10 hours a week, great. If it's 50, great. I don't care. And I I I worked so hard for him because I was like, oh, that's awesome. You're just gonna trust me. I was 24, I was like a young kid, I didn't know anything. But like he believed in me and he was like, I'm gonna give you this territory. I know that you can handle it, but I'm not gonna, I'm here to help you if you need help or questions. I'm here. I'm not gonna abandon you, but like I'm not gonna stand over your shoulder and like tell you what to do. Like, hell with that. I wouldn't hire you if I did do that. I worked harder for him than probably any boss I ever had. And in fact, he got promoted after my first year. I didn't even have a manager for a year, and I I just continued doing it because I was like, oh, well, that's just kind of what I do, so I just kept doing it. I actually had my best year without a manager. I had almost a year, zero manager, no one tracking what I did. And then what they do, they gave me the worst manager possible. And what I do then, I started doing the minimum.

SPEAKER_02: 50:47

Interesting. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that first example is just the essence of a good manager, right? Trust, just trust, accountability, very clear goals and benchmarks, and then let go.

SPEAKER_00: 50:58

100%.

SPEAKER_02: 50:59

It's not that hard. Um yeah, unfortunately, there's a lot of people defaulting into micromanagement, and it can just be so much more simple.

SPEAKER_00: 51:09

Yeah, that and that's what I got. I got a I got an extreme micromanager, and then once I kind of realized the setup, then I went right back. It was just like office space. It was like I was just doing enough not to get fired.

SPEAKER_02: 51:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 51:20

That's what they that's what it turned into.

SPEAKER_02: 51:23

Right. Because micromanagement is like being in a chokehold. Like there's no freedom of expression or uh agency, right?

SPEAKER_00: 51:33

Um, it was all everything everything was just proving what I did. Like prove that you did this and then prove that you did that, and then send me another set of reports that showed that you did this. It was just doing it, then proving you did it, then proving that you did that you did that, like over and over and over. And it was like, I don't what?

SPEAKER_02: 51:50

Like what major waste of energy and time and also so anxiety inducing. It's like almost like gaslighting. You're like, I did this. Why are you making me prove it over and over?

SPEAKER_00: 52:00

Yeah, yeah. No, not not good. Um, well, yeah, we could we could probably go for another couple hours on a on a variety of different subjects. Um we'll definitely have to have to do it again. Um before we completely wrap it up, what you know, someone's listening and they're they're thinking, like, okay, I have these emotions, uh, not sure how to process them. Obviously, we talked about journaling, we've talked about like physical exertion. Um, what are like one or two steps if people want to take take steps to start to understand and process their feelings or emotions a little bit better? Obviously, it's a long, it's a long term to not to master, but to to improve. It takes, it's not an overnight type thing. But like what are one or two things they could start doing, whether they're feeling angry or anxious or fearful in whatever setting that they're in.

SPEAKER_02: 52:49

Yeah, I'm so glad you asked. I think the number one thing to start with is just knowing that your emotions are messengers. They are trying to tell you something and they are not to be suppressed. Um, suppression is only going to delay the inevitable. So just start by getting curious about your emotions, whether it's anger or sadness or even jealousy, all of these emotions are trying to tell us something. And when we start to get curious and um understand what that message is, it can expand our life in really amazing ways. I would say before you can really get clear on the message, you have to feel the emotion, uh, especially with sadness and anger. So find a healthy outlet for the anger or the sadness. Um, create some space for yourself to feel them. Journaling is great. And finding a really uh a therapist or a coach that you feel safe with and that you feel uh attuned to can also be a really important part of moving through emotion.

SPEAKER_00: 53:59

Yeah, that I 100% agree on whether it's therapy or a coach. Um, but having that independent third party that's not tied into your emotions and kind of help you from the outside. Because that's the problem is we get too tied myself. I would get you're so close to it, right? Because it's like your life and you're feeling it. And it's very hard to get outside. You almost have to get outside and look back, which I learned, which I learned to do much later. But for a long time I didn't understand that. And so you're just like, you just like you're all wrapped into it. So you need yeah, you need someone who's not to look at it and be like, oh, yeah, this. And you're like, oh, so obvious. Why didn't I see that? So well, you can't because you're inside.

SPEAKER_02: 54:37

Yeah, that's such a good point. We should add that, that the emotion is not you, right? And it's so easy to have that emotion take over your entire experience, but it's just a temporary visitor. It's like weather. So getting all of that emotion out and then like popping out of it and looking at it and understanding it as a visitor versus something that is all of you is really important. So yeah, I think that's a really good distinction to make.

SPEAKER_00: 55:07

Yeah, I was l I was on a webinar with a friend, uh, she's in Toronto, and her and her partner, business partner, run it's like a it's like an emotions, they call it the feeling school, but it's it helps people process emotions. And I was on their webinar. I know that. Oh, yeah, okay. Uh uh, yeah, a day at Orin. Um so I was on one of the webinars, and they said something I I'd never heard anybody talk about this, but they talked about that most emotions only last about 90 seconds. Um like even really strong emotions, like what you were talking about with the weather, like it's a pretty quick storm, like good or bad, but I think we don't realize how quick and so we end up reacting like very quickly, and then that makes it always almost always worse if it's negative, right? Whereas if we could, like you talked about taking the break to feel the emotion, like if we could just learn to just take a couple beats and like really like let it in and wash through us or inside us or whatever, no matter how strong or bad it is, like just feel it, like it'll actually will subside on its own. Like, I mean 90 seconds is a pretty short period of time.

SPEAKER_01: 56:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:11

And then you can breathe and whatever. Then you can say or do whatever you want, or nothing, it doesn't matter. But I thought that was really interesting when the day I was talking about that, because I would have if you would have asked that, like, how long do you think emotions last, I would have been like, oh, like 10 minutes or an hour. Like I would have said something like much, much longer than a minute, then a minute and a half, like, oh, that's that's it. Like, that's how long that they really are like with us. So I thought that was really fascinating.

SPEAKER_02: 56:37

Um yeah, I think that's so true. I think the only thing that keeps them locked in longer is a story that we might be telling ourselves. So if, for example, like somebody um cuts you off in traffic and you're enraged and you go feel that anger, and then you tell the story again about what a jerk that guy is. And if you keep telling that story, it can keep bringing the anger back.

SPEAKER_01: 57:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 57:02

So I think it's also important to release whatever story it is that's potentially triggering the emotion. But yeah, um, yeah, what you're saying is reminding me of something my aunt said to me once, which was we're afraid to feel our sadness and we're afraid to cry because we feel that it'll never stop. And I wish at the time I had said to her, Well, actually, you only need to cry for about two minutes and then you'll be done. Um, because I do, I do feel like that's been really true in my experience. It doesn't take that long.

SPEAKER_00: 57:34

Or me, I started taking Zoloff and now I can't cry. So there's that.

SPEAKER_02: 57:38

Um That's another podcast too.

SPEAKER_00: 57:42

We have so we have like five. We're gonna start a whole show. Um, yeah. So my wife will be like, why don't you how come you're not crying? I'm like, it's the medicine. I can't like I I wish I could, but like I it's not there. I can't. It's gone. That doesn't work.

SPEAKER_02: 57:54

Is that true?

SPEAKER_00: 57:55

Yeah, no, it's I'm serious.

SPEAKER_02: 57:56

I haven't cried like the same thing. Yeah, my mother-in-law, um, she recently passed away, but she never cried. And she was on antidepressants for her entire life. And yeah, I guess that's why. She thought she just biologically didn't cry, but maybe that was the real reason.

SPEAKER_00: 58:15

I mean, I think I mean I I'm certainly not an expert, but from my own personal experience, like I mean, I was never a big crier in in part because of what we talked about earlier with like don't do that. Yes. But so that was part of it. But like I as I got older and you know, like I would I would feel enough emotion to cry. And not I don't mean just like at funerals, I mean like in life, whatever. Not a lot, but some. Um and then and I won't we won't rehash the whole thing, but eventually I started taking Zolaf pretty small doses, and we ramped it up and then I ended up ramping it down. But I take a small dose and I have for a while now, and then I started to realize like I don't I'm I don't ever I can't cry. Like I I've tried, like there's been there've been times when it's like I should be this should be sad and I should be emotionally like there should be an outlet, and it's just like it just isn't it's not there, it just doesn't register. I don't know how to I don't know how to explain it. So I think you know if she was on it for a long time and obviously I don't know the dose or the medicine, but I think there can be a predisposition. Like some people obviously are more emotional than others. That's just the way people were wired. I get that. Yeah, the medication for sure dampens whatever that whatever that process is in the body, it 100% has some kind of effect.

SPEAKER_02: 59:31

Oh, that's fascinating. Wow, I did not know that. Really interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 59:36

Yeah. Um so yeah. Uh less Kleenex, which I guess is good, even though it's pretty cheap. So it doesn't really matter. Uh yeah. So uh well, this is great. Uh uh really appreciate your time and insight. Thank you so much. It's great meeting you uh and hearing part of your story. Thanks for coming on and sharing.

SPEAKER_02: 59:56

It was an honor. Thank you so much for having me.

unknown: 59:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:00

Absolutely. Uh so this has been another episode of the underlayer. Uh if you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to like. Uh follow the show, hit like, subscribe, and leave a review. It really helps more than you know. Uh this episode will be out uh today is December the third. It will be out on December eighteenth, and I'll take a couple week break and then new episodes will start back in January. Uh, because what you're looking for, it's not out there, it's underneath. Uh Carolyn, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:22

Thank you.