.jpg)
Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
The Psychology of Anger
Join James Craig co-host and guest Rebecca Baker as they dive into the psychology of anger and its impact on unwanted sexual behavior. Rebecca, a licensed clinical social worker, shares her expertise on different therapy approaches, naming emotions, and practical tips for managing and understanding anger. They explore how emotional awareness and maturity are crucial to personal healing and how faith is a powerful tool in this journey. Whether it's in therapy or spiritual coaching, this episode offers valuable insights and practical advice to navigate the intense emotion of anger, especially during the holiday season.
Feelings List
Rebecca Baker
ReMember: a night full of worship, art, dessert, stories of God’s goodness, and an opportunity to partner with Regeneration. We invite you to join us for our annual dessert Regeneration fundraiser. We’d love for you to join us, It will not be the same without you. RSVP here!
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
Welcome everyone to the Becoming Whole podcast. I'm James Craig, one of the coaches here at Regeneration, and I'm joined by Rebecca Baker, a good friend and former colleague at Regeneration. Rebecca is actually a licensed clinical social worker, so she does therapy as her primary job and she specializes in trauma. She specializes in attachment issues. You know, rebecca, I often am telling people I coach if they need therapy, if they need like that mental health aspect that we can't fully provide as coaches, that there's actually a lot of different types of therapy. So what are some of the types of therapy or approaches I suppose that you focus on or use I love your heart for educating people.
Speaker 2:I get excited about that too, because there are so many different types of therapy, types of ways that therapists-based or might even say practical types of modality, like CBT cognitive behavioral therapy and DBT dialectical behavioral therapy. So with those, change happens in between sessions. The focus is change happening in between sessions. So in a session we'll talk about what's coming up, we'll learn some skills, we'll talk about how to apply it and then really the shift starts to happen as the client takes what we're learning in session into practicing it in real life and applying it in real life. In real life. Then also I use some experiential therapies like emotion focus therapy, eft and IFFs internal family systems. So those experiential therapies more the change is happening right in the session and those are. I really love those because we client comes in and together we're collaborating. I'm helping to guide them through a process right there in the session that helps to shift some things internally. So the way that they interact with themselves and others starts to shift by the process that we're working through right there in the session.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a potent combo the in-session, getting after the emotions, work and other things, and then having clear things to be practicing in between.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Oftentimes clients will come in wanting that really practical stuff and then oftentimes where we'll end up is getting more into the process and that experiential work in session that then they take out into their world.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. So, yeah, just as a reminder, we do spiritual coaching here at Regeneration. We do try to pull from the best of therapeutic insights. We've actually had Rebecca as a consultant on our team to give us really good mental health insights. But we also recognize we are not licensed mental health care professionals and so we are very readily we very readily refer people hey, you might need an addition or instead of coaching to get after that anxiety and depression in a mental health setting, like with someone like Rebecca. So we're just so grateful for that kind of partnership and the fact that we get to try to be a bridge builder between therapists and the church and all these different, really important approaches that God has given us to healing the person.
Speaker 1:So, with all that said, with that little educational lesson, we're going to pick up this series on anger that we began last week. Josh and I spoke on anger and how anger, according to therapist Jay Stringer, is one of the biggest things that drives people toward unwanted sexual behavior. Besides shame, it's probably the biggest thing. And for so many people that come to Regeneration, who are in my awakening groups or that we coach, they're not aware of anger. So I just want to start with this question for Rebecca. Rebecca, can you share some of the psychological importance of this emotion of anger?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh man. Anger is a powerful emotion. We feel it really physically a lot of the times and it is an emotion that can be more animating or forceful in some ways and yet almost always comes alongside with some other deeper emotions underneath. So whenever I sense or I'm hearing about anger from clients, I'm also looking for what else might be driving it. Anger comes out fast, comes out forcefully sometimes, but almost always there's some deeper emotions underneath, like sadness, grief, anxiety, that coincide with that anger or are even kind of covered up by it. When the anger comes out first, so that's that concept of.
Speaker 1:I've heard it said, anger is a secondary emotion. Josh might have even mentioned that last week. Anger is a secondary emotion. More often than not, it's not the absolute, primary thing that people are feeling. It's often a way to perhaps protect. We talked about protection and destruction last week. Like, at its core, god has anger in his emotional world, whatever that exactly looks like, because anger is an appropriate response when there is injustice, when something does need to be protected or something bad needs to be destroyed. That's not people needing to be destroyed, that's not what we're talking about primarily here, but ultimately about that idea of bringing justice and restoration. And so again, we talked about that last week justice and restoration key parts of anger. So if anger does have these good aspects, why does it often lead people to unwanted sexual behavior? Why?
Speaker 2:does it often lead people to unwanted sexual behavior? Well, yeah, yeah, it's an energizing emotion, right, that can feel better in a sense, or feel more energizing than some of those deeper emotions, those ones we kind of want to get stuck in sadness. I don't want to get stuck in fear, but anger can be a little mobilizing, a little energizing, and that feels more animating. So it sometimes can be a little bit easier to get in in touch with than some of those emotions underneath. And yet at the same time we get a lot of messages of it's not okay to show anger. So we get caught in this catch-22. But, right, why does it lead to unwanted sexual behavior so often? Well, I think, first off, I think it's uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable. You feel that tension, we feel it in our body. So often it's uncomfortable and with an unwanted sexual behavior, in some sense there's a goal to want to feel better.
Speaker 1:Comfort is such a big part of what we're seeking in our sexual sin.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So I feel uncomfortable, I want to feel better, and often anger lights up quick in us. We feel it. I've said a couple times we feel it, us, we feel it. I've said a couple of times if we feel it physically, we feel it quickly, and just as quickly we say, oh no, I don't want to feel that, I don't want to get stuck in, that, I want to run the other way, get this, get me out of this. Right, so we feel uncomfortable. And then, and looking for a sense of comfort, it also sometimes we feel, all feel all that tension, but we haven't named it yet, we haven't called it anger, or we'll try to soften it and say we're it's frustration or we just don't there, there's not a word for it. So there's this turmoil inside, there's this tension, there's this intensity, but it's foreign and it's unknown and in that kind of confusion that feels overwhelming sometimes I'm really feeling this what is this? I don't know what this is.
Speaker 1:A big part of what we try to do every week in our Awaken360 groups is we say what are your current feelings? We actually have a list. There's feelings wheels out there, there's all kinds of resources, but part of getting management or a healthy engagement with an emotion is just naming it, and so often, especially the men I walk with, myself included, we lack a significant emotional vocabulary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. How often does somebody try to answer that with well, I'm doing this, or this happened, or something like that. How am I feeling? To really put a word to it can be hard sometimes and is a skill to build and to lean into. So, in that feeling of overwhelm and feeling this tension, this intensity, but I don't understand it, turning towards USB provides a powerful distraction and of a tunnel vision to not have to think about that, to not have to try to sort through or feel that overwhelm and even, being quite frank, a physical release which often with anger, since we do feel it so physically, requires some kind of physicality in addressing it, and we could talk more about some healthy ways to do that as we go here today, but oftentimes we might try to address the problem or think our way through.
Speaker 2:But especially with some of the intensity that comes along with anger, we really need to just tend to all of that tension and energy that courses through our bodies when we feel it.
Speaker 1:There's even an invitation there to that bodily awareness. That's something that we talk a lot about in coaching and in other spaces. Again, not only do we have trouble naming emotions or defining them, Not only do we have trouble naming emotions or defining them, but we don't realize that every I believe, or I've heard at least, that every emotion it corresponds with something in our body. We experience emotions physiologically in our bodies, and so there could be a tension in your shoulders, there could be a pit in your gut. Beginning to be aware of that sounds like another important piece of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love getting to do that work with clients. Can we name it? Can we name where you're feeling it? And even sometimes we'll practice putting a number to it on a scale of one to 10, how intensely are you feeling it? And oftentimes, by the time we're noticing that we're feeling it, at least early on, it's really quite high and probably has been high for a while. So more working towards that awareness is can I notice it when it is only like a three out of ten? Can I notice? Oh yeah, there's that feeling in my chest again. Okay, let me slow it down, let me pay attention. What's coming up for me? Can I name that? Okay, there's some anger there A little bit. A little bit of anger before we're all the way up to eight, nine, 10, and really not ourselves at that point, once emotions get to to that kind of intensity where we're really pretty dysregulated and it's much harder to kind of find ourselves again, which, um, easily, is where a pattern with usb can come in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another thing josh and I spoke about last week was just that in our well, josh shared a story actually of a really significant situation in his life where he did not feel like it was actually acceptable to show anger. I mean, if all we've ever seen is anger being something that's either blown up and causes pain for everyone around the person, or stuffed so that maybe we're avoiding a blow up, there's this element of anger just feels so bad. That's part of why we even had to name the fact that God feels anger last week, because not everyone realizes there's. We see God's anger throughout scripture. Again, it's often not like what we've seen in human anger. That's why it's so hard to reconcile. But we have trouble even accepting the fact that we're angry.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yes, I was so glad that you hit on that and the other podcast because I think there is a real tension there for people of it's not, it's not okay to be angry, it's not okay to show anger. And I want to break those apart a little bit. Can it be okay to feel angry? And yet there are some things that are not okay to do. When you're angry, right, we even have in your anger, do not sin about. It was really helpful that and in fact, in doing some of this work, we can sit with that anger a little bit more to say, okay, I'm feeling angry, and as we do that, that feels scary at first, but there can be some empowerment. That happens too. I'm feeling angry. Okay, now how do I want to be within this anger? What do I want to do with it? Where can I turn? So?
Speaker 2:And anger is a tricky one I found in working with clients is that sometimes anger is not acceptable. It's not okay to be angry, it's not okay to show it, so I'll stop it, I'll hide it, I'll ignore it, and what we see is then it finds a way to come out sideways. Right, and certainly with USD, that can be a big driver. It also doesn't tend to some of those deeper emotions that we said, those secondary emotions that are underneath the anchor. It also stops and ignores those.
Speaker 2:I've also found and this is some generalizing but sometimes for men in particular, anger is kind of the one emotion that it is okay to show. So they are, they're feeling scared, they don't know what to do, they're feeling stuck, they're feeling overwhelmed, they're feeling grief, they're feeling sad about something, but those ones aren't okay to share. So anger is what comes out, and comes out maybe towards somebody else, or comes out in situations that are completely disconnected with what they're feeling underneath learning that a great starting point I'm going to emphasize starting point for triggers is an acronym called HALTS Hungry am I hungry?
Speaker 1:Am I angry? Am I lonely, tired or stressed? That's a great starting point, but I think so many of us can end up stopping there, not realizing that there's deeper emotions underneath the surface. Or, yeah, there was a real injustice that needs to be grieved or dealt with in a godly way. So HALTS is a great starting point. If you have very little self-awareness, you're going to your sexual sin without understanding.
Speaker 1:Why start with HALTS Great acronym but recognize that there's so much more, there's more depth and so much of emotional, so much of sexual sobriety or sexual integrity is actually becoming an emotionally mature person, a person who, like rebecca said, is aware of the anger, who learns how to how to deal with it. So, rebecca, let's start talking about that more. We've already gotten into a little bit of how there's ways that we can develop emotional maturity that may be lacking, and I would say I've heard it said that so much of recovery is really about healing and about maturity and ultimately, at Regen, we believe that those things are meant to point us to intimacy with Jesus. So that's kind of the absolute focus of what we do. But let's continue on that theme of maturity. Besides practicing the discomfort of sitting in anger, acknowledging it, identifying it or even learning to accept it, what are some ways that you've helped people develop a mature response to anger?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I just want to give some grace that that first little snippet that you said is no small thing to sit with that.
Speaker 1:The halts. Oh to sit with the anger Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a starting point which feels really counterintuitive, but in the moment, to slow it down, to step back, to start to try and ride that wave of discomfort, and that feels really counterintuitive in the moment. But anger and emotions in general they move us, and anger especially. It goes quick, it lights up in us and things move fast. So, if we can, to slow it down, to take a step back to say, okay, what's happening for me, where do I feel this, what am I feeling, what a number to it. That's in the moment.
Speaker 2:And reflecting back on these times can be helpful too, because you notice some things what was happening, so you might come back to it later and say what was happening for me then. But also when you're not feeling it in the moment, it can be helpful to have some. This is practical here. But have some places to turn to that you've identified already, especially in a physical sense. Right, I've mentioned that a couple of times. This doesn't have to mean you go out and run a marathon or something like that, although certainly exercise can be a really helpful way.
Speaker 2:I think of it more like a sprint. You feel a lot of intensity in your body. So what is a quick burst of energy that you can release some of that? Maybe that's dropping and doing as many push-ups as you can in a minute or two. That quick burst, maybe it's grabbing a tennis racket and dumping the ball against the garage door for a while, and for a while I mean even a couple of minutes enough that your heart rate is changing a little bit and your breathing is changing a little bit. So in those ways you're using your body chemistry to kind of match the physical feeling, but in a way that you are controlling it and then can work to bring it down. So instead of just saying no, let me not feel angry. Let me try to problem solve my way out of it. Give yourself an outlet for that physicality that's going to move in a healthy direction. So any kind of exercise is a really good one. And I think, more sprint If that's not available to you right at that moment, because sometimes it's not another way to do that I'll do with clients.
Speaker 2:We call it a progressive muscle relaxation. That's a fancy word for it. All it is is you're taking muscle groups, you're squeezing them as tight as you can for 10 seconds and taking a deep breath in, and as you release the breath you release your muscles. So I'll practice that with clients in sessions. We might do the arms first and torso, then your legs, then your whole body. You might find, if there's a certain level of intensity, 10 seconds is not enough and you got to go 15.
Speaker 2:But again, looking to squeeze those muscles as tight as you can, kind of push them to the edge of what you can hold, and then releasing them, and what that can do is just kind of gives a little bit of a reset, a little bit of a wash, to give an outlet to some of that physicality. Cold temperature is also something that can help. So putting your face in cold water or putting some ice cubes on your temples or wrists or under your neck, where your blood is flowing more, that helps to. It gives your body a cue like you're underwater, to start to conserve Again. It's kind of using your body chemistry on purpose and helpful way to help bring it down just a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hadn't realized that our emotions can actually affect our temperature until our colleague Dan Kiefer had said it recently. He also has a private practice of therapy, but he pointed out that not only can we feel the tension and other things in our body shortness of breath, etc. We can actually get heated up or we can become really cold in certain parts of our body. Yeah isn't it wild With big emotions? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like that. Yeah yeah, none of these are like a one ticket through, but it could be enough to get you from eight to a seven, and even that seven is a little bit more manageable to try to bring yourself down. So identifying ahead of time what physical outlets am I going to turn towards to get that burst of energy out is helpful.
Speaker 1:Friends, you can think of that as a fire drill. We actually in Awaken right now we're in the middle of our strength module, awaken 360, and we talk about having an action plan or an escape plan, like calling a friend when you're triggered or you know what are some of the physical places you can go, et cetera, and there's a lot of overlap with what Rebecca is sharing and what we say in this lesson. We need to practice these things. We need to actually perhaps even practice when we're not in the height of things, when we can't think as clearly, so that next time we have more of a habit formed to handle it in a mature way.
Speaker 2:I love that. The idea of a fire drill that's perfect, right? Because in the moment we are not our best selves when our emotions are that high and so we're not able to connect with all our best thinking parts of our brains. Instead, we're activated. So having a plan but also practicing it when you're not in that state is really helpful to be able to be able to reach for that a little bit more easily when you're in the moment you're making me also think of this idea of control.
Speaker 1:There's a fruit of the spirit called self-control. It's the last one in the list of the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5. But then there's also this idea that so much of anger, especially in that blow-up kind and maybe even in the stuff it kind, can be about control in maybe an unhealthy way. Do you have any insights on that? That's something just coming to mind fresh right now.
Speaker 2:But healthy self-control like I've learned how to do this, this and this and learned how to regulate my body good things that are good, mature practices versus kind of an unhealthy control as part of the fuel of anger yeah, yeah, when I hear control, I think safety seeking, and I think most likely I would want to talk with that person more and see, is there some fear, some anxiety driving some of that Of oh no, things are not as they should be? I'm feeling unsafe, I feel out of control, I feel overwhelmed and in looking for a sense of control they're really looking for I okay, are we okay, are things going to be okay?
Speaker 1:and it comes out and maybe your anger or rest your control yeah, there's a whole lot of emotions that can be tied into or underneath even that idea of control, fear, can lead us to try to control. But I noticed, especially when anger is related to shame, which again, two of the biggest drivers toward unmonosexual behavior, whether that's like a shameful anger towards self or other things like that, or you know anger, but also anger at a situation, but also internal shame about that anger. There could be an element of I'm going to control my environment, I'm going to control others, I'm going to do others control. Maybe that's a way to say the vice version of the virtue of self-control. It's like others control.
Speaker 1:God has not made us or designed us, or even himself. He does not seek to control people, but he does want us to be self-controlled. He wants us to learn that internal place of maturity where we can act out of self-control. You know, one image I use, rebecca sometimes, is like and I'd love actually your feedback on this, but I talk about emotions being like a passenger in the car instead of the driver, or emotions being like the lights on the car, like the check engine light or the tire pressure light, again, rather than the person needing to drive the car. It's important to listen to what the emotions are saying, to engage the emotions. Would that need not mean that we say, hey, now you get behind the wheel and take me wherever the emotions would possibly lead? What do you think of that idea of balancing emotions in that way?
Speaker 2:idea of like balancing emotions in that way. Yes, yes, it hints at something really important, because in some ways, we we do want to manage our anger. In a way, when there's that intensity, we want to help ourselves be able to bring it down. But if all we do is bring it down to a more manageable level and then move on with life, we're missing something really big and important, which is listening to. Where did that anger come from? Why did that come up so strongly for me? What's going on for me that this thing really got me activated here and what could be underneath it? What else, what else is there that I'm not listening to, that I'm not tending to?
Speaker 1:We can invite Jesus into that. I mean, so many of the Psalms are full of anger and some of them say pretty wild things out of anger. But what I've heard noted before by pastors is that they're praying their anger. Even if they're saying kind of some wild stuff, they're at least praying it, they're bringing it into the presence of God, they're engaging it in a place where it is actually extremely safe. God can handle the fullness of our anger, even if it's with a lot of control.
Speaker 1:And so an image that popped into my mind with that car analogy, rebecca, is like we don't necessarily want the anger to drive the car. We also can't throw the anger in the trunk and tie a stop. You know that doesn't work either. We need to have some sort of like interactive relationship and again I would encourage that to be in the presence of Jesus, with Jesus, toward Jesus, processing in light of Jesus and his presence, like and still engaging the emotions, but not necessarily falling into that other error of like this thing needs to drive the drive the car wherever it wants right, right.
Speaker 2:So if we, if we're following the process here, starting with with naming it, with slowing it down a little bit, to be able to name it, name what see where're feeling it, put a number to it and maybe do something in the moment to help bring down that intensity a little bit so we can reconnect with ourselves.
Speaker 2:But if we stop there, there's still more and really there's an invitation I'm going to say with anger, to listen to that anger in the passenger seat and see what other emotions are in the backseat maybe that are saying there's something important here.
Speaker 2:Emotions I think even of the word emotions. They move us, we certainly feel them, they rock us, but they also show us things that are important to us and it can take us in directions that we don't want to go, certainly. But there's an invitation there to say what is this anger showing is so important to me? Is it a sense of injustice? Is it a sense of I feel I need some safety, I need some comfort here and I'm not feeling that when that anger lights up and also the ones underneath, what is it that these emotions are showing are important to me and that can feel really foreign and is worth sitting with you might not really get to an answer right away, that's okay. Or to sit with a coach or a therapist to try to not only identify anger but get to know it a little bit in order to understand it and know how to move when it comes along.
Speaker 1:Friends, we'll put in the show notes the feelings list that we use in Awaken, just as a way to get your mind going Again. You can look up all kinds of feelings wheels or other feelings lists, but this is just a way to get you thinking and more acquainted with different feelings words. So we'll have that in the show notes. We'll also have a link to Rebecca's therapy practice called Living Hope Counseling. She's based out of Towson, maryland, but I believe, rebecca, you also do therapy over Zoom or over telehealth, so Rebecca is available for therapy.
Speaker 2:It's my limits, but it doesn't have to be Say it again. Within the state of Maryland.
Speaker 1:Within the state of Maryland. Okay, yeah, there's all those uh, licensure, um things. So you guys can find that in the show notes and um. We talked a lot about maturity today, developing mature response to anger, and so aaron and I, in our final episode next week on this anger series, we're going to talk about how do we get to the root of healing some of the places where anger might've come from, from our family of origin, and what do we see? How do we see Jesus dealing with anger as well.
Speaker 1:So we'll continue this series and we'll actually close out with that next week and we just want to acknowledge, friends, that these are coming out right around Thanksgiving and soon before Christmas. These are coming out right around Thanksgiving and soon before Christmas. So there's a lot of ways we would encourage you begin practicing everything Rebecca shared. Begin practicing feeling the emotions, identifying them, some ways to have self-control in the emotions, or practicing the muscle tensing, breathing, praying, et cetera. As you head into the holidays, where a lot of our anger might come out externally or it might be kind of pushed inward as we see our families of origin. We want to encourage you. There are ways to continue this growth journey in becoming increasingly a mature person the way you handle anger. So, rebecca, is there any way you'd like to close us out today way?
Speaker 2:you handle anger. So, rebecca, is there any way you'd like to close us out today? Yeah, I'd love to pray for anyone listening and taking some of this in Lord Jesus, you have made us humans with our full spectrum of emotions, and I pray particularly for anyone listening today that you would meet them within this experience of anger, that you would be palpably present with them as they have the courage to name it, to face it and to return to it with similar questions of how it's showing up and what else could be showing up with it. Lord, would you give courage in the place of that reflection to look at it, to be able to sit with you in it a little bit longer and be able to keep returning to it to get to understand it a little bit better.
Speaker 2:Thank you that you are, God, with us and we don't do this alone. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen.
.png)
