Hey everyone. Shawn Mcguire, marriage counselor Edmond, here’s an envision counseling and I’ve got Heather band and Caleb today, some of the other therapists are uh, on a missions trip or probably serving the poor somewhere. But today we wanted to to, uh, introduce Ben Thompson. He has something to do, he’s really passionate about working with, especially men with violet anger and uh, even men in relationships or women that have anger problems. And he’s going to describe a lot of ways that we can work through our anger. So please tune in and when you do, I would love to hear where you guys are from. You know, we serve you every week because we want you to know that there is hope that no matter where you’re at, God can reach you, whether it’s through us at New Vision counseling or your pastor or a friend that you do not have to walk through this life alone. And today we’re going to help you understand how you can use anger
as the resource, Ben. All right, thank you Sean. So now we’re going to talk about, there’s some reasons we get angry and what we can do about it. So to kind of start this, um, I’ll ask you guys, since you’re a marriage counselor Edmond, say you’re good or bad. You think, is it good or bad? Sometimes when I get angry it’s bad. But I would say oftentimes it’s, it’s not good or bad. Yeah.
Yeah. No, that’s a good answer. But I think society kind of tells us the anger is bad. Yeah. I think, um, parents teach their kids anger is bad. Um, in marriages, anger is always bad. At school it’s bad. Um, I think that’s what kind of, what the message we’re getting from the world and I think here bad. Yeah. You can use that money to resource as something that can be used to invest, change something or can be used to buy drugs or to buy somebody off. So yeah, I think it can be both. Yeah.
We both really, uh, depending on how we use it. Right, right. I think the message sometimes are prevailing message we get is, oh, it’s bad. Avoided at all costs, you know, or, or stay away from that. And I think that’s really important. And as soon as even the message, you know, what message do we get from our families? Sure. What messages do we get from church? Always? I talked about the verse a lot. It says in your anger, do not sin. Talks about that in Ephesians and, and that always challenged me. He was like, whoa. That means sometimes we’re going to get angry, but the bandaid, the important thing is in that do not sin right now. But I think what a lot of times what happens is we see getting angry at all as a sin. Right now we’re kind of behind the eight ball already.
What are we going to do when you have the singer? I’ve sinned already. And then that just leads to more anger or more guilt, things like that. So we, from the perspective of a marriage counselor Edmond, we look at that and try to understand that. I certainly grew up, the anger was something you really did try to avoid, do you had, it was just kind of a sinful to habit and talk about this sometimes with people is I had a brother who was really, really rageful, had a lot of rage. She just really expressed that anger. I just remember him running down the halls, cussing, yelling. And I thought, man, that that’s bad is anger is bad. But at the same time I was sitting there getting angry but not doing anything about it, staying quiet, not trying to make any waves, all internal, kept it in, just absorbed so much of it.
And what I realized as I got older is that was detrimental to my health, I think as it was to my brothers. Sure. Because sometimes, sometimes people will say this, but depression, a lot of times anger turned inwards and really, um, really hit me. And so again, just cause I wasn’t expressing it didn’t mean I didn’t have anger. And sometimes we confuse that. Well, I’m not expressing it so I don’t have anger. We may have some that you need to deal with, but you’re just pushing it, pushing it down. If anybody’s had a, had a similar experience to that. Um, for sure. So your brother, I think I was thinking of your brother. So your brother probably put holes in the walls, he damaged your family, but you had holes in your stomach, poly for wording, you know, getting ulcers because yours was all inward to the toxicity.
Stay in. Um, well, I as saying, a lot of times it helps to see what his anger, first of all, what even is anger. Why is it there? And I think it’s important again, because let me look at the Bible. Look at scripture. It talks about God being angry, or I’m really angry at his people for not listening to turning their hearts away from him. And, and we see this and think, well, that’s, God has that side. God has that angry side. In fact, in the Old Testament when it talks about him being angry, actually the word Austin talks about his nostrils flared. Not An, I can kind of flammer nostrils a little bit, but the anger that nostrils flare, Seattle’s not came out right there. That was good. Um, but anger, really it’s just a warning sign to tell us something that something’s wrong or something is something’s feeling very threatening and it’s simply that warning sign.
So I might increase some anxiety a little bit. Who knows what this is smooth. See that is, do you know what that, have you seen that recently? Does anybody know? I try to never see that. So anybody catch on one? Is it, this is the check now my car is it okay. It was audit and minorities. Certainly I look at anger is a check engine light, right? When we’re angry, and even a marriage counselor Edmond can get angry, it’s trying to tell us something is not right. Something is going on. Um, now would it makes sense to get angry at the light? Do you ever get angry with the light? You See the light come on and you’re just ticked off at the light. I get anxious, I get anxious. Right? Um, but what happens, what does that like telling you to do? Look good. Look under that. Alright, go on under there and see what’s going on. If I didn’t even take it somewhere and they can hook it up through the computer and spits out a number. No, I have the computer. You have the computer or you can have the computer like mechanic. Yes. Had come in for your mechanic problems.
You are counseling while he’s working on your car. You know like yeah, I haven’t talked to a friend. He worked in a a car dealership for a while where they, you know, bringing their cars and he said at one point this guy kept bringing his light. The light just kept coming on and what they told them to do is disconnect the light. Oh, I wonder where that goes. You can just disconnect the light. That’s actually what I did growing up. Just disconnect the, I was not important. Don’t listen to and don’t deal with it. Well, what’s eventually going to happen? [inaudible]
I actually looked up, actually dumped the top five reasons. Our check engine light comes on. Maybe that auto zone had it had an article on that so I know it’s not what this is about, but I thought it was interesting. It talked about your oxygen sensor and a few others had that replaced. Yep. Your gas cap is loose or missing. Wow. Um, catalytic converter needs replacing, right. Whatever, whatever that is. Maybe that’s from back to the future. I’m not sure your mass airflow sensor needs replacing or your spark plug, your plug wires need replacing. Yup. Now those are the top five things to know from a marriage counselor Edmond. And really those things aren’t huge repairs if you take care of him, if you don’t, it gets a lot bigger. Um, my father in law recently spent about $400 trying to figure out why he’s stop engine light was on their check engine light.
They said after all this, uh, lady said, why don’t you just check the gas cap? He did. They guy’s gas gas, put it on two bucks. Yep. Um, yeah, so that may be very useful for some people. They’re just saved a lot of money, take a lot of money. But I also thought, well, what are maybe Maurice and top five reasons we get angry? Why does her anger light come on? So I, I just put together five. I thought they were, um, pretty valuable that you can kind of see. The first is pain pain. And I have to say that emotional or physical, I don’t know about you guys, if you ever like shut your hand in the door or done something like that is your first response. Oh that’s nice. Where do you get angry? You kind of have that sense. I don’t know. Some people can do it. Um, that new commercial, there’s new geico commercial people like hitting their heads on stuff for the last, um, that’s not me.
The first response is yes, if you, unless you’re Sean, unless your shot’s going to be Lord. Thank you for this adversity. I can trust you. And that’s actually what Heather does most times. That’s right. I’ve actually seen it where there’s will, there’s emotional pain, right? Somebody said something or something, it just kind of hurts. Right? It just doesn’t sit right. And there’s that. So I can be one of those first reason. The second one can be fear, right? We’re afraid something’s going to happen in re respond in anger cause cause why does that happen? If we’re fear of certain afraid someone is going to happen, what do we need that anger, what do we need that response for like our reaction, we need our body to be geared up for something if we need now that the problem is when we don’t need that to happen, it’s still happening and we get in that fear. I was thinking is scary movie. You ever seen a scary movie? You’ve been with a lot of people. Some people laugh when it gets scary. Some people get really mad. I don’t refuse me in a movie theater. You just hear him angry cause something’s popping out. Um, we will have that reaction.
No, it just made me think of like a dog that whenever they’re scared of them, they get kind of aggressive. Good thing your marriage counselor Edmond doesn’t get aggressive when they’re scared. It looks like anger. Like the dog is really mad at me. It’s wanting to bite me, but usually as because they’re scared. Um, uh, whatever’s let our betters happening right there. Yeah,
it’s a natural response. It is. It is. You know, and even in relationships, somebody is going to leave me if I, if I say this is going to get worse or the fear or sometimes the fear that I’m going to get angry because his more you’re near send the cycle. Right? I can’t get in here, I can’t get anybody that’s certainly can’t get angry. Right. Cause you know, sometimes things will go wrong. Third frustration as I was thinking about is those thing in house projects I’ve never done in house project without getting frustrated and angry reason why I don’t do house projects. Why would I want to get frustrated? Yeah. And then, and then I had children and there was another new level. So frustrating. I mean really is it that important that you put that leg in your pants first? So that is it, that big of a deal.
And also there’s huge, there’s frustration, right? And as soon as you want to tell your kids, if you would just do it this way, we’d have no problems here. I wouldn’t have to get frustrated only every other day. Only ever the other day. All right. So there’s so many ways and sometimes maybe, maybe, maybe people get frustrated with their spouses sometimes too, sometimes just sometimes. Um, and does the third reason, the fourth reason I just held a broken rule. Someone has violated or broken a rule that’s important to you, right? They, they’ve, they’ve crossed a boundary. They said something or they just said something that doesn’t go with your values and really understanding that and understand what rule did that person just break. And we’ll kind of get into why that’s important.
Sounds like expectations aren’t met.
Yeah. The expectations not met.
You know, Ben, something that sounds like you’re saying is that all these elements of anger, the five elements that you’re ringing up have something that’s underneath the anger or some other emotion that’s primary.
And I dunno if you segue that on purpose, but the last one is I’ve been unresolved issues, right? Things coming up in our sessions as a marriage counselor Edmond that we haven’t really quite dealt with or done anything about. And, and they’re, they’re right and we haven’t really resolved and work through them. And so they’re just kinda there. A lot of times I would just add onto the other anger, right? So that’s why you can be driving and somebody cuts you off and all the sudden you are just splurging. I mean you’re just angry. And what’s happened is finally you’ve had an acceptable place to be angry and he just piled it all on there. Right? And it just goes, and that’s what the car, sometimes we do that to our spouses sin. We do that to our kids and it’s like that wasn’t anger about you. I just brought everything home from work and I just let it out. It just got on anger, train and, and it got all over all over the place.
You see that a lot. I know, I see that a lot with married couples when they come in that, you know, at work I asked a lot of times it’s the guy, not always, but a lot of times and I, I say, you know, how are you able to so effectively control something you say is in controllable, at work and around your friends. Cause I’m sure if you have a normal job, um, that you get frustrated that there people in your career path that don’t want you to succeed or that you feel like you’re against you. But yet instead of yelling at them, getting in their face or cursing, you have different ways of handling it that don’t get you fired or put in jail. So what separates that? And I think one of it is we have boundaries and we mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, no that are not to be crossed.
You know, my son reacts to me differently than he does his mom. He pushes me to a point, but then you realize there’s a, there’s something very sharp at the end of that point. So he stops. But with his mom, it’s more of a blunt. And so he pushes her much further. And so I think if we see that, we can realize that it’s not about us necessarily. When somebody gets angry at us, sometimes it is about, sometimes it really is about you. When somebody gets angry, there are a lot of other times where it’s about what they, they’re bringing in. And so it’s beholden on the people that are experiencing that, that person’s anger to educate them. Right. On how to, how did they want to be treated, whether it’s you remove yourself from a situation, you said a hard boundary, you give a cops cause whatever that is because I think there’s both, right? So you’re saying sometimes dads, um, anger is something that we can also, as a spouse, if we see our spouse get angry, we can also find out why they’re angry and get a little bit more insight rather than always saying, well, you’re the one dealing with the anger. Yeah. Is that, I know that I struggle with that sometimes when the calves projecting, but yes, I agree with that too. I agree with that too.
It’s like what you’re saying then is that anger is a symptom of the problem. That check engine light is the symptom of the real problem. And it’s a communicating to us that there is a problem. And you know, I’m, I do this with, uh, with our Kiddo. I do this with my husband of whenever I see anger, I helped them label it as a marriage counselor Edmond. Uh, are you, are you feeling frustrated right now? Um, are you feeling disappointed right now or, uh, when it was my husband and I, we’re pretty good at calling each other out and saying, you’re seeing kind of irritable right now. What’s going on? Instead of just reacting to that anger, um, but labeling it for them and finding out what the underlying issue is, not just reacting to anger. Absolutely.
Were you done? I know that Mary and Elaina dads know that anger can be a very effective mechanism through which God can move to accomplish great things. I know that a lot of the people that I see in no, they don’t move in their lives and hard ways. They don’t press through boundaries and less, they’re angry because they don’t feel like they had the resources. And because natively where they operate, they avoid confrontation. But boy, you get somebody angry enough, nope. About go through any wall to deal with an issue because they just hit that critical limit. That’s why they anger can be a resource, right tool. If we understand that it’s a value into the energy that we get. Know, think about something in your life that happened that was just so unjust. Something you’ve seen on TV or something you’ve been personally a part of.
I know for me, when I was in 12th grade, which is a senior in high school, it’s about five or six years ago. And just kidding, it’s about 10. But this guy, his name is Joe, he drove a Harley Davidson in school. That means everything that you guys wow when he took off his shirt, he had these knives, scars and there’s all these rumors and you get in bar fights and all this stuff and a senior in high school. So we were the same age except for, he was a sophomore and Joel didn’t like me, thought I liked his girlfriend, which was totally not true. I would never date her. Um, so he jumped me. He came you to, you tried to fight me. I walked away and, and you know when you caught me at an inopportune time when my no friends around, he’d jump me from behind, started fighting.
And again, I, I pushed him off and I mean, then we ended up fighting, right? Cause nobody broke it up and I had to knock him out. But it’s a true story. It’s true story. You can look it up on a Joe’s Facebook page. I’m just kidding. It really is true. But I remember sitting in the principal’s office and I said to the principal, I said, look, my mom was there, his parents were there, and I, and I said, he jumped me three times from behind. I said two times I walked away. But when he jumped me the third time and he hit me in the head before I’m turned her out, I had to engage. And I even went like that and I felt so for so long was so angry because I still got suspended from school. I still got suspended. And I had to deal with that anger in a way I could, I could go fight him again because the guy, he wasn’t very bright.
You wanting to fight me again. I mean if you jumped somebody from behind and you still lose us a bad outcome, but he still wanted to fight. So I had to find a way to deal with my anger towards my school, towards the principal. You know what the Guy said to me? He said, you know, there are other ways to defend yourself. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, I’m not, I may look like an engine, but I’m not an engine, I’m a marriage counselor Edmond. Caleb, I’m not. I know, I know. It’s a surprise. So I wonder in your life if there are things that have happened to you, maybe your marriage with your career, with one of your kids that just aren’t right and you’re struggling with this anger and I would encourage you to ask God to give you the power to channel the anger and in some way or ways that can be a resource to you.
For me, it was the focus on my college cause I was, I was launching into college and I didn’t want to ruin my opportunity because I got in a fight and it looked like a hooligan. I didn’t want to ruin that. And so I really focused on college. I focused on putting myself in better situations. I learned a lot, you know, I may not have fought him, but I verbally, you know, just make them look dumb because he wanted to fight me and I wanted to go to school. So find ways that you and your own life right can utilize this anger, which I’m sure Ben’s about to tell her, said that the three best ways I don’t need to anymore right now, but what, what can we do, right? Because in these situations, what can we do? Because we want to be able to use that anger and use that to either help us or motivate as much. That’s what angers therefore is to help us.
Good decision. It’s gonna benefit
us, right? Help us get out of the situation or face a situation that we need to. So I first think for everything, it’s really first thing if you can do is take that pause, right? A lot of us think we just got to go with it, but take that pause and that anger, you know, be able to take that and identify it for what it is. Okay, I’m feeling angry. Right? And then when we talked about the car, then it’s time to go under the hood, right? So take that pause and then identify if you can simply just identify what the cause of the anger is and you’re, you’re telling me that, you know with your husband, is it because of this? It is it. Because of that you got to go under and just see one simple way to do it. As I just say, most thinkers because either pain, fear or frustration.
If you can just think those three things, I always think, is it p FRF pain, fear of frustration. Then at least I’ve narrowed it down to about three things and instead of a million things that could be right. And I think most of it go into those categories. And now that identified that I really think you really want to focus on what you can do. What can I do in this situation at this point as a marriage counselor Edmond? Because again, it’s an under folks on everything we can’t control, right? It got to do something about that and some about that. What can I do? Uh, and is sometimes what you can do, all you can do is just we just got to remove yourself and take a break. And this is the most that you can do. Sometimes you got to talk to somebody and, and confront them about somebody.
Sometimes you may have to fight back. That is, that is what needs to happen. Uh, at that point we were talking about, um, Jesus in the temple where he clears the temple out. That was the point. He could have thought there’s maybe a lot of stuff he could put at that point. What needed to happen was that temple needed to be cleared. That message needed to be sent. That you are not treating the temple right, that you are not following God in this and you’re using this in a very wrong way. So that that’s the, that’s what needed to happen. And so after you focus on what you can do, make a choice to something to do so somebody, if you’re, if you’re rageaholic right, you raging like crazy, kind of like my brother, he would have to make that decision probably to, to calm down, to stop the car, pull over somewhere.
It was scary to ride in the car with him. Um, take that, do whatever. He came out for me. A lot of times where I would need to do is say, Hey, I need to say something about this. I need to tell you, you just did something that violated those rules. Because if I don’t, I’m burying it and keeping it and you know, for now I got the ulcers right now I’m going from there. So it can be different for different people, even a marriage counselor Edmond. Um, and the fifth CV resolve have some kind of resolution. Seek to resolve that in some way. Again, like for me that be talking to that person or from my brother that would be taking that break, you know, praying about it, talking to somebody about it to get that resolution so it just doesn’t stay there. Those are kind of those, those five things that you can do.
Um, and, and again, I think maybe I’d had a six, but also always give yourself grace as well. Right? Cause that’s something that’s coming up with any usernames. It’s really hard. And if you don’t give yourself, oh God angry again. Okay, I can’t believe we got angry. I can’t believe I said that. You can give grace and you can then do something about that. Um, but more condemnation on yourself and feeling bad about all the times you just going to lead the morning. So what can you do? And sometimes that means apologizing to somebody. You said it. I have apologized to my children. I’m sorry. You know, Ben, one of the things that I’ve, I run into sometimes is that anger comes up in a pattern often. And so maybe if you’re somebody like me, um, maybe the weight of the world is on your shoulders and you go home and you still feel the weight and you walked into the house and the kids are doing this and that and you feel like you just have to pick all the pieces up again and the weight of the world is just packed on.
So I’m, something I find is instead of just going straight into that pattern, maybe stop, you’re saying take a break. Right. And it’s been 15 minutes outside of my normal day and try to recollect myself and be patient and maybe see what’s going on inside my own heart and then being grateful about something. If I’m grateful that I’m not angry, usually. Usually it’s hard to be both at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. So if I can be grateful about something that I can walk into the house and be ready for whatever comes out, maybe it’s, uh, my, my kids like to play an ambush where they turn off all the lights and we’re walking in the door and it’s there. All these balls at me. I want it and they’ll yell out ambush. The Eagle has landed the Eagle’s landing. And so that’s Kinda fun and I have to make sure I’m ready for that.
Or maybe if there’s just crying and wailing. So I just have to be prepared no matter what happens. Prime your wailing some of our staff meetings to get that. And you know, anchor is not that right? But it can be detrimental to our, to our health, to our relationships if either we’re just totally reacting in it all the time or if we’re totally avoiding it. And then you kind of have these extremes say, how do you get more towards the middle? Right? How do you get to that point where you are dealing with it? You’re assertively dealing with it. You’re, you’re facing it, you’re working towards a resolution of it. And so you’re not one extreme or the other. Sometimes thinking, am I moving towards the middle here and to get my moving towards the middle of, I got to say something about it. So Sean says something or just pushing that and I don’t say something about it.
That’s a place. And the other part of that scripture is the reason not to let the sun go down on your anger. So the devil doesn’t get a foothold. And that’s where the devil can really get a foothold. If I don’t say anything about it. Well now maybe put an obstacle between Sean and I if I don’t address that and deal with that then that anger has now given Satan a place to get between that relationship when it happens in marriages a lot too. And I don’t think it means you can’t go to bed frustrated with your spouse. I hope not. Yeah. Cause then sunrise will never go to bed. My wife, who isn’t a marriage counselor Edmond, cause we always live a peaceful life but just yet. But can you be moving in the direction of resolving that and dealing with that so it doesn’t take up a lot of residents in your heart. That’s great cause that’s what it’s really going to affect things and do things. Good word. There were guys, we hope that you have enjoyed the time to every talk on Tuesdays and if we can serve you, we would love to partner with you. And we’ve got a team. These are some of the team and other parts of the team aren’t here, but we would love to serve you and walk with you along your journey in life. Whatever you need, wherever you’re at, God has something for you. You can reach a set New Vision counseling that Org. You can follow us on this Facebook page or Sean mcguire.net and we will be here every Tuesday at 1230 and I think Heather is the Heather Acadia. Next time. Katie, Katie, who’s not here today, she’s, I still be serving on missions or doing something fun, serving the poor, the soup kitchen, or maybe she’s preparing, she’s doing something really productive, I’m sure, but she’s going to be preparing and sharing next time. I’m not sure the topic, but I’m sure it will be good. So we look forward to seeing you again soon and have a great Tuesday and God bless, God bless.