67. Thinking Differently About Anger
How often do you feel pissed off about work stuff?
I used to feel pissed off A LOT, about work and lots of other things, but I didn’t always talk about it.
I might complain to my friends or partner, but most of the time, I didn’t do anything about my anger or bring it up to folks at work.
But today, I want to have a candid conversation with you about anger and about what you can do with the anger you feel about work stuff (and anything else, really).
Here’s something interesting - the reason I want to talk to you about this is actually because some BIG ANGER came up for me recently.
And it wasn’t about a work thing.
It was about a book.
Yes, a book.
As you know, I love books, and I’m always mentioning things I’ve read and loved on the podcast.
However, recently I was reading a book and I decided to stop and return it to the library early, which is very rare for me.
I stopped reading the book because I became so enraged about some of the content.
(Not because the book is bad, but because it was talking about something I have A LOT OF FEELINGS about.)
I realized that I did not want the passive experience of reading about what was happening. I wanted an active experience.
Instead of reading and finding out what happened, I wanted to record a podcast to talk about what the book brought up for me.
If I had shut my anger down, I would not have realized this.
If I had merged with my anger, I also would not have realized this.
Anger is information.
But sometimes that information can feel intense.
That’s why I’m going to refer to it as spicy information.
But when we dig a little deeper, this spicy information can help us understand ourselves and how we want to show up in the world.
So, how does this relate to work? Good question.
I know my clients have a lot of anger about things that happen at work. They find situations frustrating, they feel disrespected, they feel ignored or overworked.
Without examination, they may simply try to shut this spicy information down and not feel it. Or they may merge with the spicy information and lash out, behaving in ways that don’t align with their values and feeling guilty about it later.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Anger can be of service.
It can help you get to know yourself better.
It can help you have a better work life.
It can help you build a world you’re thrilled to live in.
It can even help you love yourself more, imperfections and all.
But in order to make it do those things, you need to understand how to engage with it.
And that’s what this episode is all about.
If you want to supercharge your capacity to create a life that blows your mind, I have some one-on-one coaching slots opening up soon. Send me an email and let's talk about it or click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
If there are topics y’all want me to talk about on the podcast, feel free to write in and let me know by clicking here! I’d love to hear from you!
I have a super fun announcement. This July, I’m launching my group coaching program Satisfied as F*ck. It’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever designed in my life, so if you want to come together and be part of a community, build relationships, and figure things out so your life can feel satisfied as f*ck, keep checking back here for updates.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
Why I like to think of anger as spicy information.
How a book translated into a lot of spicy information for me personally.
Why it’s okay (and can even be super helpful) to set something aside and explore your feelings about it vs just charging ahead.
The societal constructs and inherited beliefs that sometimes provoke anger that we don’t necessarily want to hold onto.
2 ways I see people dealing with anger at work.
My process of deciding how I want to deal with anger when it arises.
How to start dealing with your anger in a more intentional way that has you showing up in the way you want to.
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about anger.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y'all, happy Wednesday. I have something kind of interesting and maybe a little bit different to talk to y'all about today. Although I feel like I'm saying stuff like that at the beginning of every podcast, so whatever.
But today, I want to talk to you about anger. And I think anger comes up in our careers a lot, but isn't something we necessarily talk about directly all the time. For some people maybe they are aware of their anger, for some people maybe they're just aware that they're unhappy, they're complaining a lot.
But I think the way I want to talk about anger today isn't as common. And listen, even if it is common or were common, I still want to talk to you about it, so I'm going to. So why I decided I wanted to talk to you about this is because as you all know, I'm like always reading one to five books at a time, audio books, e books, paper books, all the books over here.
And I was reading the third book in a series of romance novels, and I actually chose to take a break from reading this book and to not finish it right now and to return it to the library instead, early, which I almost never do. Because something was happening in the book that I felt so upset about, and honestly so angry about.
And when we read fiction books, you know, a little bit like we talked about last week with the hero's journey and the heroine’s journey, things happen in books that aren't all rainbows and daisies. We never have a book where we're like, they were happy, and it was great. And then they were more happy, and then these great things happen, and then the end.
Books, they have conflict, right? They have the main characters going through difficult situations and figuring them out, or not figuring them out. That's part of the art of storytelling. It's also part of life, as we all know, with like the 50/50 and the fact that shit does not always go according to plan. And no matter what happens or what we try to make happen, there's always going to be some stuff that isn't working out the way we want it to do.
Anyways, so this book was like that. I read a lot of books, so all the books have parts where I'm like, oh no, the main characters, they're in danger, they're in trouble. They made this mistake that they have to overcome. Or they have this critical misunderstanding of their own nature that's causing them all this emotional pain.
And when I read most books, any book, there is some suffering that happens. I choose the suffering on purpose. I choose to keep reading the books, but I feel emotional pain created by my own thoughts about the book and about the characters. The characters aren't real, but people are real.
And I know that for the things I'm reading about in the book, or whatever books I'm reading, there are people in the world experiencing the same mental emotional states and experiencing some of the same circumstances, even if they may not be experiencing other ones. Especially since I tend to read romance novels and books with fantasy and stuff like that. There's a lot that we're not experiencing, for better or for worse, but there's a lot that humans are.
And so I think books are really what taught me how to have empathy for other people, and what taught me how to imagine other people's lives and other people's head spaces and what was going on with them. And usually, I can tolerate that and enjoy parts of it. You know, we enjoy their triumphs, I enjoy when things work out for them and when they overcome things, and when they up-level their mindset and their skills and all this stuff.
And there's always the part of the book that I'm just like, “Oh, this hurts me.” And I choose the experience anyways. But with this book I was recently reading, I was like, “This has become too painful for me.”
And I'm aware that the book is a neutral circumstance, as we say in the coaching world. And that the only reason it was emotionally painful for me was the thoughts that I was thinking. And I also did not want to necessarily change those thoughts. And what I chose to do was to create some space between me and that circumstance of the book.
So basically, all of that was a sort of long-winded way of just saying I've had an experience in my own life recently where I felt upset. And, yes, also angry, and chose to take a step back and kind of sit with that information. So that kind of leads me to my next point, which is going to sound silly, but I think it's actually really impactful. And that idea is that upsetness or anger, is what I'm going to call spicy information.
So, often when we're upset, our body is getting flooded with chemicals and we maybe want to do something. For a lot of people that might be a fight or flight response, if we’re angry it might be more in the fight response area. But I like to see anger, like I said, as information. But it's information that is spicy because we're feeling worked up about it.
And so for me with this book, the thing was that the plot of the book, the characters in the book, the author, however you want to word this, was putting some of the main characters through stuff that I took issue with. And it just became so unpleasant for me to read that I wasn’t able to enjoy the book anymore.
And like I said, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the book. I think for another reader, that might have been perfectly fine. They may not have even thought it was that upsetting, especially because it's a romance novel. So with romance novels we know we're heading for a happy ending where everyone is going to come back together.
But something I find for myself is that certain kinds of romance novels that hit really hard in the like, oh, no, it's all going to shit part, which is like a part of the book that happens, they push too hard for what I want for my entertainment, and it can get too painful for me to read. And in this one in particular, I got so angry. I got upset and it was painful. But I also was so angry. And I'm so angry that both the author and the characters in the book were putting this other character through all this bullshit.
And this is so interesting because I'm a career coach with a life coaching toolkit, and one of my main things is that other people don't cause your feelings. And that the mindset piece is so important and so essential for being able to have a good, beautiful, satisfying life experience no matter what's happening. And listen, I still believe that 100%.
And on the other hand, here was this main character who's like this really incredible person, and wonderful and delightful. And she's on the autism spectrum, which first of all, I just want to say I'm such a fan that someone's writing a book that's a romance novel about someone on the autism spectrum. I love the inclusion in that.
But this particular person in the book, in her childhood received so much shaming for the way she is and the way her brain works, which is differently than other people. And for the fact that she didn't understand social skills and stuff like this. And the way that her mind and body works is different than other people's and the things she needs are different.
But because of the way she was socialized as a kid, she doesn't give herself space for any of that. And so reading the book where other people in her life are demanding a lot of her, that is life. People are going to try to demand stuff of us whenever they want to because they have freewill, and they have their own opinions about what we should be doing.
But watching her internal dialogue and the things that she was saying to herself about the stuff that was happening in her life, I just was so fucking angry about it. And so one example of this is there's this guy that she had been dating, and then he asked for a break in the dating. And then he came back and he's kissing her on the back of the neck. And she doesn't want it, but she's not saying anything.
I just was like, I cannot. I cannot. And, again, this is no shade to the author because I understand it's not about her and it's not even about what was in the book. It's about the spicy information that this is bringing up for me, which is that I don't want to read that in my entertainment. And I know stuff like that happens in the world.
And it just gets me so fucking fired up to come on my podcast, and go out into my business, and go onto Instagram, and talk to fucking everybody about the fact that the way we were socialized as children is an optional framework that other human beings gave us, and the other human beings were imperfect. And also other human beings are either usually giving us their old, recycled teachings that they learned in their childhood, or they're giving us shit that serves them but doesn't necessarily serve us.
And I just want to talk to this main character. I want to coach her, I want to help her understand that she doesn't have to like live her life this way. And obviously, first of all, she's fictional. Second of all, she has her own autonomy. I could come in and be like, “You don't have to live that way.” And she could be like, “Fuck off, Kori.” And that's her right to do that.
But it just revealed so much to me about myself, and what I care about, and what matters to me, and what I want to allow into my psyche, both in the entertainment way and what I just don't want to stand for. So basically this is a little bit long-winded and tangential, so let's pull it back.
From the coaching perspective, I'm seeing anger as what I'm calling spicy information. Now, in a very traditional coaching way, our feelings are telling us about our thoughts. Because the way we're thinking, the perspective we're bringing, is creating an emotional response to the stimuli, to the book for me.
But I think sometimes what our anger reveals is some of that teaching from our culture that when we examine it we're like, no, I don't actually think I want to stay with that teaching from my culture. But sometimes what our anger is talking to us about and being information about is something is happening that doesn't align with our values and doesn't align with the kind of world we want to live in and see and be part of. And that's a different kind of spicy information that we might want to do different things with.
So to give you a different example, and this is a personal example, but this all applies to work. And we'll get to that in a minute. As a personal example, when I was new to thought work I was dating Alex, we were already together at that point. And I had a lot more anger. Things would happen in our relationship, and I would get angry about them, and I would have anger.
And it wasn't that I would necessarily lash out at her. But I remember feeling a lot of intense anger and then I was in the coaching program that I did as a client with Kara Loewentheil. So I would like stomp outside to the front stoop and get my phone out and be like, “I'm going to fucking do some self-coaching on this stupid thing.”
And I would discover, like, oh, I'm angry. And I could see how, oh, I have these thought patterns from my childhood about – I don't know what even a good example was. But she one time said no thank you to me. And my brain interpreted that as being disrespectful. And so when I had that interpretation, she's being disrespectful, I felt angry. And then I behaved in a way that also was disrespectful by my own standards.
And then when I kind of sat down with the coaching framework and looked at that, I'm like, oh, I'm only angry because I'm having the thought that she's being disrespectful. But is she actually being disrespectful? What actually happened? She said, no thank you. And when I slow that down, I'm like, I don't think I want to keep the thought that's disrespectful about when someone says, no thank you.
It's super fascinating, that that's what my brain had interpreted that as. So that was an example where I was like I got some spicy information, I examined the spicy information. And I used the spicy information to figure out how I wanted to think about that situation, what perspective and mindset I wanted to bring to it. How I wanted to act and how I wanted to show up to my relationship.
And I ultimately decided that that thought, she's being disrespectful, wasn't what I wanted to bring. And it wasn't bringing me anything that was great. It wasn't helping our relationship be more successful. It certainly wasn't helping me be respectful and show up by my own values. So I chose to let that thought go in that situation.
Now with this book, I'm having this spicy information or this anger, which I'm calling spicy information. And I'm seeing with that one, I'm like, oh, I could coach myself and be like, it's just the book, it's just fiction. Just get through this part, get to the part you like. It’s going to have a happy ending.
But with this book I was like, no. No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to continue to use my pleasure time to read this book where this stuff is happening that I feel so strongly about. And instead, what I want to do is go on my podcast and fucking scream my head off about it and let it be an interesting teachable moment for my audience.
And let us have a conversation about anger, and about the fact that anger is really interesting. It's not good, it's not bad. It's an emotion in your body that is just pointing to information that you get to decide what you want to do with.
Okay, so how might this show up at work? I know that a lot of my clients feel a lot of anger about stuff that happens at work. They maybe are having similar thoughts to what I was having in the beginning of the relationship with Alex of like this is disrespectful or they're not listening to me. A lot of my clients also get angry about workload. Or they get angry about the promotional processes in their workplace.
Whatever the thing is, with anger I see two things happening a lot. These aren't the only two possible things, they're just the big ones that I see. So let's talk about those. One thing that I see is some people do not fucking want to feel anger, so they just don't even go there. And their anger is sort of being pushed down subconscious. It doesn't mean they don't have it, it means they're not willing to interact with it.
And when we do that, we're not getting our information. We're not getting the spicy information that the anger has. And a lot of times it seeps out in other areas, or we'll do things that we think are disrespectful because we're having a model like the one I was having. And when I say a model, that's a coaching tool.
So it's like we're having a situation like the thing I was having earlier with Alex, where we subconsciously think they're disrespectful, and we subconsciously are angry. And so what that'll come out as is maybe not the big boom, boom anger, but the subtle, cutting, sharp comments that if we stop and think about them don't actually align to our values of who we want to be as a person. That's one thing.
And then another thing I see is some people really revel in their anger. I had a client once who was like, oh, I like being angry sometimes. And I think sometimes for people, anger is the only time they feel powerful. So when something happens and they feel angry, instead of pausing to look at that spicy information and see what they want to do with it. They're like, ah, yes, now I'm powered up, I have this energy. My body is flooded with these chemicals and I'm going to go fucking kick some ass.
And that can be fine. But I think, again, if we don't examine the spicy information, sometimes the spicy information is a leftover from socialization we received and it actually doesn't align with our values, either. Sometimes the spicy information is pointing us to something we really care about that we do want to maybe take action on or have a screamy podcast about, like I'm doing right now. But without that pause, we're missing some intentionality around it.
So whether you have either of those experiences or a different experience of anger, what I want to offer to you is what if anger is a way that, one, you can get to know yourself better. Two, you can be more intentional about how you want to think and what you want to do with this spicy information.
And three, a way to kind of think about what kind of influence you want to be on the world, and who you want to be, and how you want to interact with others. And how you want to go to bat for things that matter to you that you have that spicy information about.
So for me to go through this journey, it was like first noticing that I was having anger. And that in and of its own right, doesn't sound like a big deal. But it can be a really big deal, especially for a lot of us who don't stop to notice we're having a feeling. A lot of people push through their feelings. A lot of my people in particular, my clients, my audience push through their feelings because that's something we have a lot of practice with.
And I'm kind of like that too. And I think that's just something interesting to be aware of. So first coming into awareness, like I feel angry about this. I feel upset about this and that's okay because it's just a human feeling that's some information about something I'm thinking.
And then from there, we can be like, well, what am I thinking that is creating this spicy feeling in my body? We’re like, oh, I'm thinking that my partner is being disrespectful, like I was. Or I'm thinking that my boss is being disrespectful. Oh, let's see, when I think that my boss is being disrespectful and then I feel anger, how do I act?
Do I like how I act or am I acting in ways that I also think are disrespectful? Ooh, I'm acting ways I also think are disrespectful. But I also don't like this behavior and so I don't want to just be like, it's fine. So then how do I move forward from here? How do I take this information out of this spicy feeling of anger, and then decide what the hell I want to do with it?
Or it might be like that other example where we’re like, ah, I have a spicy feeling here and the information inside it is actually outdated because it's something that a teacher taught me in 1994 that I don't actually agree with. So when I'm having this anger in reference to this information, that's not my anger, that's anger I was taught to have. And I want to step away from that.
So in order to do that I'm going to intentionally choose a different way to think about this, so that I can interact with this stimulus differently versus doing this recycled behavior from that other person.
And one final thing I'll say with this is I think with anger especially, it can be really helpful to have this framework of what do I actually want to have happen? So I actually learned this from watching this video, it was about self-defense and about if someone attacks you. And the thing that the teacher in the video was saying was like, the best thing to do is to try to defuse the situation.
And the teacher gave several examples. It's like, if someone's like, “What are you looking at?” You're like, “Oh, I'm looking at your T-shirt. It's really interesting, I want to know where you got it.” Which basically is kind of like saying something that kind of contextually makes sense, but is also friendly and innocuous.
And the reason that this self-defense instructor was talking about this was they were saying like, listen, I can teach you how to win the fight. But if you win the fight and this person, like you hit them in the face and then they trip over this thing, and then they hit their head on this bar stool and they die, you can get in trouble legally for that. You could do jail time. So you have to really think about what is it that you actually want to have happen here.
And I think that's so important because for so many people, we go immediately into kind of this like mirroring phase, where if someone's rude to us, we're like, “Fuck you, I'm going to be rude back to you.” And listen, this happens to a lot of people. It happens to me still, where my brain is like, “Oh no they didn't. No, no, no.”
And I have to really pause myself and be like, “Thank you for this spicy information that you didn't prefer the way you were spoken to. But what do you actually want to have happen here? Oh, you actually want to go about your day and have a good day? Well, then how are we going to respond to this is geared towards what we want versus geared towards what we think that other person deserves for being rude or whatever.”
So in the example with the self-defense, it's like what do you actually want to have happen if it's your Friday night and someone tries to pick a fight with you? Are you really wanting to spend your night fighting this person and potentially going to jail? You can choose that if you want to. But for me, I'm like, probably not. Probably I want to get out of that situation as fast as I can and get back to enjoying my evening, right?
And so here's the thing with the spicy information in these other places, if it's spicy information in your workplace, it's like what do I actually want to have happen in the workplace? Okay, I've got that in mind. And then it's like, how do I want to move forward?
Not discounting the spicy information, not just telling myself it’s fine because I want to go do this thing. But saying like, okay, this is real information that's telling me something about my thoughts. And maybe I actually do want to do something about it. But let's also bring into the picture where do I ultimately want to get to? And then what's my plan when I take all of that information into context?
Okay, so let's look at my example with the book. The book exists. I felt angry and upset. I was like, “Look at this spicy ass information. I'm going to get in there.” First of all, I can use that spicy information as a way to get to know myself better. I can use it as a way to love myself more.
I can be so mad at myself for being like, “Oh, you're such a baby, you have these big feelings.” Or I can be like, “Wow, I love how deeply you feel, self. This is bringing up so much for you and you want to pay attention to it, and you want to examine it.”
Okay, what do we ultimately want to have happen? Well, we ultimately want to see a world where less actual humans are having the experience that this protagonist is having. And so how are we going to create that? I don't have to stop being angry. But it's like I'm like, okay, what's the path forward? And I was like, oh, I'm going to fucking tell everyone.
I'm going to tell everyone. I'm going to go on my podcast and talk about it. And I'm going to talk about both the socialization piece of if this character hadn't been socialized the way she was, the shit would not be happening.
Now, all of us were socialized the way we were and now we're adults. If your kid is listening to this podcast, I love you and you're also welcome. But I'm going to speak to the adults, which is like, now we're adults and if we have that socialization, we can untangle it.
And I also just want to have a minute to be like, it fucking sucks that she had that socialization. It fucking sucks, I'm pissed about it. And I get to choose that experience if I want to. But I don't want to get trapped there. I don't want to get stuck there. I don't want to spend the rest of my life being pissed about it.
I want to think about like, ultimately, what do I want to have happen? I want less of that in the world. I can't control everybody. So that option is out, but I can go online and talk about this and make a ruckus, and make a big deal about it, and make waves and let other people know that that doesn't have to be their experience.
And if it is their experience, and they're having trouble getting out of it, come listen to my podcast, come work with me, come work with another coach. I want everyone to be able to have a better life experience in the way that coaching offers, whether they're working with me or not.
And me doing this podcast is part of that. And me looking at my own anger and thinking about how I can take the spicy information and make it useful is a beautiful thing. And that's how I turned something that's painful, into something that's triumphant.
I'm taking this area where I personally feel rage and deep emotional pain for this character, ooh, I'm getting emotional. And I'm going to turn that into a gift to the world that's going to help other people have a better experience. And the more people are listening to the podcast, the more people are metabolizing this work, the less likely it is people are going to have that experience that that character was having.
So that's how I turn my spicy information into something useful. And that's why I frame what do I want to have happen? What do I ultimately want to have happen around this spicy information?
So to review, Anger is an emotion that's neutral and it’s information and gives us information about what we're thinking. And then we can go look at the thoughts and decide do these actually line up with my values? Or is this some shit I learned in 1994 that I don't agree with, and I do not want to have in my head anymore?
And then from there, we can either rewire the thoughts. If they're not something we want to have any more, we replace them with something we do want to have. Or if they’re something we do want to have, then we get to think about like, okay, but I'm going to feel this feeling, it's fine to have anger, it's normal, it's human. And what do I fucking want to do with this information?
What impact do I want to have on the world in my life? And then we can go do that shit and then we can be proud of ourselves and feel fucking awesome. Even while we live in a world where a lot of shit does not go the way we want it to or align with our values.
And this is not a one and done, and it is big work. Especially because for a lot of people, anger can feel really scary or dangerous. And you don't have to do this work alone. I think this work is so much easier to do in a coaching setting. And if you want to come do this work with me, I want to do this work with you.
There are currently two ways to work with me. I'm taking clients one-on-one, which is a super fun and cozy container where we work together to just tackle anything and everything.
And then the second way is the Satisfied As Fuck group coaching mastermind, which is launching in July. And it is going to be absolutely mind bendingly amazing because there's going to be a group component, there's also going to be some one-on-one calls so you can get some private coaching as well.
And I just think that group coaching is so spectacular, because when we are in a group coaching container, which container in this way is just like program, right? It's just how the coach brain thinks about it, it's like it's a container for your learning, for your growth.
When we're in that space, you not only capitalize on your own coaching, but you capitalize on everyone else's coaching. And just getting to be with a group of people who are doing the same work is amazing and it really amps up the transformation.
So if you want to come work with me, head on over to my website, and you can either join the Satisfied As Fuck wait list, or you can schedule a consult and we can talk about one-on-one. All right y'all, have an amazing week. I'll talk to you next time.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y'all, happy Wednesday. I have something kind of interesting and maybe a little bit different to talk to y'all about today. Although I feel like I'm saying stuff like that at the beginning of every podcast, so whatever.
But today, I want to talk to you about anger. And I think anger comes up in our careers a lot, but isn't something we necessarily talk about directly all the time. For some people maybe they are aware of their anger, for some people maybe they're just aware that they're unhappy, they're complaining a lot.
But I think the way I want to talk about anger today isn't as common. And listen, even if it is common or were common, I still want to talk to you about it, so I'm going to. So why I decided I wanted to talk to you about this is because as you all know, I'm like always reading one to five books at a time, audio books, e books, paper books, all the books over here.
And I was reading the third book in a series of romance novels, and I actually chose to take a break from reading this book and to not finish it right now and to return it to the library instead, early, which I almost never do. Because something was happening in the book that I felt so upset about, and honestly so angry about.
And when we read fiction books, you know, a little bit like we talked about last week with the hero's journey and the heroine’s journey, things happen in books that aren't all rainbows and daisies. We never have a book where we're like, they were happy, and it was great. And then they were more happy, and then these great things happen, and then the end.
Books, they have conflict, right? They have the main characters going through difficult situations and figuring them out, or not figuring them out. That's part of the art of storytelling. It's also part of life, as we all know, with like the 50/50 and the fact that shit does not always go according to plan. And no matter what happens or what we try to make happen, there's always going to be some stuff that isn't working out the way we want it to do.
Anyways, so this book was like that. I read a lot of books, so all the books have parts where I'm like, oh no, the main characters, they're in danger, they're in trouble. They made this mistake that they have to overcome. Or they have this critical misunderstanding of their own nature that's causing them all this emotional pain.
And when I read most books, any book, there is some suffering that happens. I choose the suffering on purpose. I choose to keep reading the books, but I feel emotional pain created by my own thoughts about the book and about the characters. The characters aren't real, but people are real.
And I know that for the things I'm reading about in the book, or whatever books I'm reading, there are people in the world experiencing the same mental emotional states and experiencing some of the same circumstances, even if they may not be experiencing other ones. Especially since I tend to read romance novels and books with fantasy and stuff like that. There's a lot that we're not experiencing, for better or for worse, but there's a lot that humans are.
And so I think books are really what taught me how to have empathy for other people, and what taught me how to imagine other people's lives and other people's head spaces and what was going on with them. And usually, I can tolerate that and enjoy parts of it. You know, we enjoy their triumphs, I enjoy when things work out for them and when they overcome things, and when they up-level their mindset and their skills and all this stuff.
And there's always the part of the book that I'm just like, “Oh, this hurts me.” And I choose the experience anyways. But with this book I was recently reading, I was like, “This has become too painful for me.”
And I'm aware that the book is a neutral circumstance, as we say in the coaching world. And that the only reason it was emotionally painful for me was the thoughts that I was thinking. And I also did not want to necessarily change those thoughts. And what I chose to do was to create some space between me and that circumstance of the book.
So basically, all of that was a sort of long-winded way of just saying I've had an experience in my own life recently where I felt upset. And, yes, also angry, and chose to take a step back and kind of sit with that information. So that kind of leads me to my next point, which is going to sound silly, but I think it's actually really impactful. And that idea is that upsetness or anger, is what I'm going to call spicy information.
So, often when we're upset, our body is getting flooded with chemicals and we maybe want to do something. For a lot of people that might be a fight or flight response, if we’re angry it might be more in the fight response area. But I like to see anger, like I said, as information. But it's information that is spicy because we're feeling worked up about it.
And so for me with this book, the thing was that the plot of the book, the characters in the book, the author, however you want to word this, was putting some of the main characters through stuff that I took issue with. And it just became so unpleasant for me to read that I wasn’t able to enjoy the book anymore.
And like I said, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the book. I think for another reader, that might have been perfectly fine. They may not have even thought it was that upsetting, especially because it's a romance novel. So with romance novels we know we're heading for a happy ending where everyone is going to come back together.
But something I find for myself is that certain kinds of romance novels that hit really hard in the like, oh, no, it's all going to shit part, which is like a part of the book that happens, they push too hard for what I want for my entertainment, and it can get too painful for me to read. And in this one in particular, I got so angry. I got upset and it was painful. But I also was so angry. And I'm so angry that both the author and the characters in the book were putting this other character through all this bullshit.
And this is so interesting because I'm a career coach with a life coaching toolkit, and one of my main things is that other people don't cause your feelings. And that the mindset piece is so important and so essential for being able to have a good, beautiful, satisfying life experience no matter what's happening. And listen, I still believe that 100%.
And on the other hand, here was this main character who's like this really incredible person, and wonderful and delightful. And she's on the autism spectrum, which first of all, I just want to say I'm such a fan that someone's writing a book that's a romance novel about someone on the autism spectrum. I love the inclusion in that.
But this particular person in the book, in her childhood received so much shaming for the way she is and the way her brain works, which is differently than other people. And for the fact that she didn't understand social skills and stuff like this. And the way that her mind and body works is different than other people's and the things she needs are different.
But because of the way she was socialized as a kid, she doesn't give herself space for any of that. And so reading the book where other people in her life are demanding a lot of her, that is life. People are going to try to demand stuff of us whenever they want to because they have freewill, and they have their own opinions about what we should be doing.
But watching her internal dialogue and the things that she was saying to herself about the stuff that was happening in her life, I just was so fucking angry about it. And so one example of this is there's this guy that she had been dating, and then he asked for a break in the dating. And then he came back and he's kissing her on the back of the neck. And she doesn't want it, but she's not saying anything.
I just was like, I cannot. I cannot. And, again, this is no shade to the author because I understand it's not about her and it's not even about what was in the book. It's about the spicy information that this is bringing up for me, which is that I don't want to read that in my entertainment. And I know stuff like that happens in the world.
And it just gets me so fucking fired up to come on my podcast, and go out into my business, and go onto Instagram, and talk to fucking everybody about the fact that the way we were socialized as children is an optional framework that other human beings gave us, and the other human beings were imperfect. And also other human beings are either usually giving us their old, recycled teachings that they learned in their childhood, or they're giving us shit that serves them but doesn't necessarily serve us.
And I just want to talk to this main character. I want to coach her, I want to help her understand that she doesn't have to like live her life this way. And obviously, first of all, she's fictional. Second of all, she has her own autonomy. I could come in and be like, “You don't have to live that way.” And she could be like, “Fuck off, Kori.” And that's her right to do that.
But it just revealed so much to me about myself, and what I care about, and what matters to me, and what I want to allow into my psyche, both in the entertainment way and what I just don't want to stand for. So basically this is a little bit long-winded and tangential, so let's pull it back.
From the coaching perspective, I'm seeing anger as what I'm calling spicy information. Now, in a very traditional coaching way, our feelings are telling us about our thoughts. Because the way we're thinking, the perspective we're bringing, is creating an emotional response to the stimuli, to the book for me.
But I think sometimes what our anger reveals is some of that teaching from our culture that when we examine it we're like, no, I don't actually think I want to stay with that teaching from my culture. But sometimes what our anger is talking to us about and being information about is something is happening that doesn't align with our values and doesn't align with the kind of world we want to live in and see and be part of. And that's a different kind of spicy information that we might want to do different things with.
So to give you a different example, and this is a personal example, but this all applies to work. And we'll get to that in a minute. As a personal example, when I was new to thought work I was dating Alex, we were already together at that point. And I had a lot more anger. Things would happen in our relationship, and I would get angry about them, and I would have anger.
And it wasn't that I would necessarily lash out at her. But I remember feeling a lot of intense anger and then I was in the coaching program that I did as a client with Kara Loewentheil. So I would like stomp outside to the front stoop and get my phone out and be like, “I'm going to fucking do some self-coaching on this stupid thing.”
And I would discover, like, oh, I'm angry. And I could see how, oh, I have these thought patterns from my childhood about – I don't know what even a good example was. But she one time said no thank you to me. And my brain interpreted that as being disrespectful. And so when I had that interpretation, she's being disrespectful, I felt angry. And then I behaved in a way that also was disrespectful by my own standards.
And then when I kind of sat down with the coaching framework and looked at that, I'm like, oh, I'm only angry because I'm having the thought that she's being disrespectful. But is she actually being disrespectful? What actually happened? She said, no thank you. And when I slow that down, I'm like, I don't think I want to keep the thought that's disrespectful about when someone says, no thank you.
It's super fascinating, that that's what my brain had interpreted that as. So that was an example where I was like I got some spicy information, I examined the spicy information. And I used the spicy information to figure out how I wanted to think about that situation, what perspective and mindset I wanted to bring to it. How I wanted to act and how I wanted to show up to my relationship.
And I ultimately decided that that thought, she's being disrespectful, wasn't what I wanted to bring. And it wasn't bringing me anything that was great. It wasn't helping our relationship be more successful. It certainly wasn't helping me be respectful and show up by my own values. So I chose to let that thought go in that situation.
Now with this book, I'm having this spicy information or this anger, which I'm calling spicy information. And I'm seeing with that one, I'm like, oh, I could coach myself and be like, it's just the book, it's just fiction. Just get through this part, get to the part you like. It’s going to have a happy ending.
But with this book I was like, no. No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to continue to use my pleasure time to read this book where this stuff is happening that I feel so strongly about. And instead, what I want to do is go on my podcast and fucking scream my head off about it and let it be an interesting teachable moment for my audience.
And let us have a conversation about anger, and about the fact that anger is really interesting. It's not good, it's not bad. It's an emotion in your body that is just pointing to information that you get to decide what you want to do with.
Okay, so how might this show up at work? I know that a lot of my clients feel a lot of anger about stuff that happens at work. They maybe are having similar thoughts to what I was having in the beginning of the relationship with Alex of like this is disrespectful or they're not listening to me. A lot of my clients also get angry about workload. Or they get angry about the promotional processes in their workplace.
Whatever the thing is, with anger I see two things happening a lot. These aren't the only two possible things, they're just the big ones that I see. So let's talk about those. One thing that I see is some people do not fucking want to feel anger, so they just don't even go there. And their anger is sort of being pushed down subconscious. It doesn't mean they don't have it, it means they're not willing to interact with it.
And when we do that, we're not getting our information. We're not getting the spicy information that the anger has. And a lot of times it seeps out in other areas, or we'll do things that we think are disrespectful because we're having a model like the one I was having. And when I say a model, that's a coaching tool.
So it's like we're having a situation like the thing I was having earlier with Alex, where we subconsciously think they're disrespectful, and we subconsciously are angry. And so what that'll come out as is maybe not the big boom, boom anger, but the subtle, cutting, sharp comments that if we stop and think about them don't actually align to our values of who we want to be as a person. That's one thing.
And then another thing I see is some people really revel in their anger. I had a client once who was like, oh, I like being angry sometimes. And I think sometimes for people, anger is the only time they feel powerful. So when something happens and they feel angry, instead of pausing to look at that spicy information and see what they want to do with it. They're like, ah, yes, now I'm powered up, I have this energy. My body is flooded with these chemicals and I'm going to go fucking kick some ass.
And that can be fine. But I think, again, if we don't examine the spicy information, sometimes the spicy information is a leftover from socialization we received and it actually doesn't align with our values, either. Sometimes the spicy information is pointing us to something we really care about that we do want to maybe take action on or have a screamy podcast about, like I'm doing right now. But without that pause, we're missing some intentionality around it.
So whether you have either of those experiences or a different experience of anger, what I want to offer to you is what if anger is a way that, one, you can get to know yourself better. Two, you can be more intentional about how you want to think and what you want to do with this spicy information.
And three, a way to kind of think about what kind of influence you want to be on the world, and who you want to be, and how you want to interact with others. And how you want to go to bat for things that matter to you that you have that spicy information about.
So for me to go through this journey, it was like first noticing that I was having anger. And that in and of its own right, doesn't sound like a big deal. But it can be a really big deal, especially for a lot of us who don't stop to notice we're having a feeling. A lot of people push through their feelings. A lot of my people in particular, my clients, my audience push through their feelings because that's something we have a lot of practice with.
And I'm kind of like that too. And I think that's just something interesting to be aware of. So first coming into awareness, like I feel angry about this. I feel upset about this and that's okay because it's just a human feeling that's some information about something I'm thinking.
And then from there, we can be like, well, what am I thinking that is creating this spicy feeling in my body? We’re like, oh, I'm thinking that my partner is being disrespectful, like I was. Or I'm thinking that my boss is being disrespectful. Oh, let's see, when I think that my boss is being disrespectful and then I feel anger, how do I act?
Do I like how I act or am I acting in ways that I also think are disrespectful? Ooh, I'm acting ways I also think are disrespectful. But I also don't like this behavior and so I don't want to just be like, it's fine. So then how do I move forward from here? How do I take this information out of this spicy feeling of anger, and then decide what the hell I want to do with it?
Or it might be like that other example where we’re like, ah, I have a spicy feeling here and the information inside it is actually outdated because it's something that a teacher taught me in 1994 that I don't actually agree with. So when I'm having this anger in reference to this information, that's not my anger, that's anger I was taught to have. And I want to step away from that.
So in order to do that I'm going to intentionally choose a different way to think about this, so that I can interact with this stimulus differently versus doing this recycled behavior from that other person.
And one final thing I'll say with this is I think with anger especially, it can be really helpful to have this framework of what do I actually want to have happen? So I actually learned this from watching this video, it was about self-defense and about if someone attacks you. And the thing that the teacher in the video was saying was like, the best thing to do is to try to defuse the situation.
And the teacher gave several examples. It's like, if someone's like, “What are you looking at?” You're like, “Oh, I'm looking at your T-shirt. It's really interesting, I want to know where you got it.” Which basically is kind of like saying something that kind of contextually makes sense, but is also friendly and innocuous.
And the reason that this self-defense instructor was talking about this was they were saying like, listen, I can teach you how to win the fight. But if you win the fight and this person, like you hit them in the face and then they trip over this thing, and then they hit their head on this bar stool and they die, you can get in trouble legally for that. You could do jail time. So you have to really think about what is it that you actually want to have happen here.
And I think that's so important because for so many people, we go immediately into kind of this like mirroring phase, where if someone's rude to us, we're like, “Fuck you, I'm going to be rude back to you.” And listen, this happens to a lot of people. It happens to me still, where my brain is like, “Oh no they didn't. No, no, no.”
And I have to really pause myself and be like, “Thank you for this spicy information that you didn't prefer the way you were spoken to. But what do you actually want to have happen here? Oh, you actually want to go about your day and have a good day? Well, then how are we going to respond to this is geared towards what we want versus geared towards what we think that other person deserves for being rude or whatever.”
So in the example with the self-defense, it's like what do you actually want to have happen if it's your Friday night and someone tries to pick a fight with you? Are you really wanting to spend your night fighting this person and potentially going to jail? You can choose that if you want to. But for me, I'm like, probably not. Probably I want to get out of that situation as fast as I can and get back to enjoying my evening, right?
And so here's the thing with the spicy information in these other places, if it's spicy information in your workplace, it's like what do I actually want to have happen in the workplace? Okay, I've got that in mind. And then it's like, how do I want to move forward?
Not discounting the spicy information, not just telling myself it’s fine because I want to go do this thing. But saying like, okay, this is real information that's telling me something about my thoughts. And maybe I actually do want to do something about it. But let's also bring into the picture where do I ultimately want to get to? And then what's my plan when I take all of that information into context?
Okay, so let's look at my example with the book. The book exists. I felt angry and upset. I was like, “Look at this spicy ass information. I'm going to get in there.” First of all, I can use that spicy information as a way to get to know myself better. I can use it as a way to love myself more.
I can be so mad at myself for being like, “Oh, you're such a baby, you have these big feelings.” Or I can be like, “Wow, I love how deeply you feel, self. This is bringing up so much for you and you want to pay attention to it, and you want to examine it.”
Okay, what do we ultimately want to have happen? Well, we ultimately want to see a world where less actual humans are having the experience that this protagonist is having. And so how are we going to create that? I don't have to stop being angry. But it's like I'm like, okay, what's the path forward? And I was like, oh, I'm going to fucking tell everyone.
I'm going to tell everyone. I'm going to go on my podcast and talk about it. And I'm going to talk about both the socialization piece of if this character hadn't been socialized the way she was, the shit would not be happening.
Now, all of us were socialized the way we were and now we're adults. If your kid is listening to this podcast, I love you and you're also welcome. But I'm going to speak to the adults, which is like, now we're adults and if we have that socialization, we can untangle it.
And I also just want to have a minute to be like, it fucking sucks that she had that socialization. It fucking sucks, I'm pissed about it. And I get to choose that experience if I want to. But I don't want to get trapped there. I don't want to get stuck there. I don't want to spend the rest of my life being pissed about it.
I want to think about like, ultimately, what do I want to have happen? I want less of that in the world. I can't control everybody. So that option is out, but I can go online and talk about this and make a ruckus, and make a big deal about it, and make waves and let other people know that that doesn't have to be their experience.
And if it is their experience, and they're having trouble getting out of it, come listen to my podcast, come work with me, come work with another coach. I want everyone to be able to have a better life experience in the way that coaching offers, whether they're working with me or not.
And me doing this podcast is part of that. And me looking at my own anger and thinking about how I can take the spicy information and make it useful is a beautiful thing. And that's how I turned something that's painful, into something that's triumphant.
I'm taking this area where I personally feel rage and deep emotional pain for this character, ooh, I'm getting emotional. And I'm going to turn that into a gift to the world that's going to help other people have a better experience. And the more people are listening to the podcast, the more people are metabolizing this work, the less likely it is people are going to have that experience that that character was having.
So that's how I turn my spicy information into something useful. And that's why I frame what do I want to have happen? What do I ultimately want to have happen around this spicy information?
So to review, Anger is an emotion that's neutral and it’s information and gives us information about what we're thinking. And then we can go look at the thoughts and decide do these actually line up with my values? Or is this some shit I learned in 1994 that I don't agree with, and I do not want to have in my head anymore?
And then from there, we can either rewire the thoughts. If they're not something we want to have any more, we replace them with something we do want to have. Or if they’re something we do want to have, then we get to think about like, okay, but I'm going to feel this feeling, it's fine to have anger, it's normal, it's human. And what do I fucking want to do with this information?
What impact do I want to have on the world in my life? And then we can go do that shit and then we can be proud of ourselves and feel fucking awesome. Even while we live in a world where a lot of shit does not go the way we want it to or align with our values.
And this is not a one and done, and it is big work. Especially because for a lot of people, anger can feel really scary or dangerous. And you don't have to do this work alone. I think this work is so much easier to do in a coaching setting. And if you want to come do this work with me, I want to do this work with you.
There are currently two ways to work with me. I'm taking clients one-on-one, which is a super fun and cozy container where we work together to just tackle anything and everything.
And then the second way is the Satisfied As Fuck group coaching mastermind, which is launching in July. And it is going to be absolutely mind bendingly amazing because there's going to be a group component, there's also going to be some one-on-one calls so you can get some private coaching as well.
And I just think that group coaching is so spectacular, because when we are in a group coaching container, which container in this way is just like program, right? It's just how the coach brain thinks about it, it's like it's a container for your learning, for your growth.
When we're in that space, you not only capitalize on your own coaching, but you capitalize on everyone else's coaching. And just getting to be with a group of people who are doing the same work is amazing and it really amps up the transformation.
So if you want to come work with me, head on over to my website, and you can either join the Satisfied As Fuck wait list, or you can schedule a consult and we can talk about one-on-one. All right y'all, have an amazing week. I'll talk to you next time.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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