Episode 236: How To Stop Anger In Your Relationship

Trina Glines: All right. Welcome ladies. I am excited to have this conversation, a very candid conversation today with Dr. John, who his last name can be a little bit of a tongue twister, so I'm gonna attempt it. It's er. Schinnerer. So we are gonna go by Dr. John. That is what he typically is known as. Anyway, Dr. John says he is inspired by human potential and our interconnectedness.

Dr. John's mission is to enable all people to develop powerful, authentic selves, live according to their values and make a positive impact in their work as well as their personal lives. Powerful influence occurs. He says, when you think, create and make choices with confidence and poise, every one of your experiences is just that.

Experience a platform for growth. Learn to use life's challenges and springboards towards greater success. Life's challenges don't have to become roadblocks. Rather, they lay the foundation upon which you build your pathway to success. Dr. John's anger management, counseling and courses are the path to experiencing the next level of life.

He shares with clients how to master their psychology, physiology, productivity, and people skills so they can feel alive again, find their purpose, and feel more joyous, confident, and fulfillment in every area of their life. Who doesn't want that? I want, so Dr. John says, you don't have to struggle so much to balance your life.

You don't have to keep fighting uphill battles. Or let your fears win. There are better ways to handle life. I

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: passionate. Would you read that?

Trina Glines: I am passionate about having this conversation with you because I work with ladies who, some of them have some challenges with their spouse with having anger and it's not my specialty.

It's not. My what I have gone and studied a lot about when you and I met at a conference, I was like, oh, we so have to hook up. I need to talk with you. My ladies are gonna love, and hopefully all of you out in the YouTube world will find this beneficial as well. So thank you, John, for taking your valuable time to meet with me.

I appreciate it. Of course.

Okay, so we're gonna get right into the meat and potatoes. Alright, so one thing I do know, I know a little bit about anger is that anger is a secondary emotion.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Sure. So this, there's no easy answer to this question, so lemme break it down a little bit.

To me, there's four pieces to anger.

There's the emotional piece where we label it. It's a feeling piece. We've got anything from irritation to lines, to frustration, to anger, to rage. Then there's a cognitive piece, which is the thoughts we have when we're getting angry. He shouldn't do that. I can't take this anymore. No one likes me. Then there's a physiological component, which is what's happening in your body when you're getting angry.

So the adrenaline surge, the eyes narrowing, the blood rushing to your fists to prepare you to attack the shallow breathing, the muscle tension. And then the final piece is this attentional piece, which is that anger causes you to focus on things in the environment, which store to reinforce your anger.

Anger's like the devil sitting on your shoulder. That's it grabs your eyeballs and it forces you to look around the environment to find things that continue to keep you mad. It's just looking to keep itself alive at some level. I remember we've had this debate in my office suite many times where the other therapists are like, anger only a secondary emotion.

I'm like, yes, it can be a secondary emotion, but it can also be a primary emotion, which means that certain things happen and we just feel anger, for instance, something or let's say so cuts us off on the freeway. That's just anything. There's no secondary emotion there. I would argue. I guess at times there could be, if you're in there by yourself, it could be fear, but I would say that the anger comes first and then fear, there's then it's a secondary emotion in that you can feel embarrassment, you can feel anxiety, and quickly that flips to anger.

And think of a third of a second. The one that I've seen the most in myself is when my feelings, so when my feelings get hurt, I've seen that flip to anger immediately. And now that I'm a little bit older, more mature, when I get angry, the first question I ask myself is, okay, did something just hurt my feelings?

Because about 90% of the time, that answer is yes. So if I can get down to that level, it's ease of being made from the anger, what just hurt my feelings?

Trina Glines: I like if you can catch yourself in that moment and check the meaning almost,

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: if I can. Get to that level and then say to my significant mother, when you said, I don't even my dad, that hurt my feelings, that's a much better conversation than if I come at her with anger.

That just shuts down conversation.

Trina Glines: Yeah. Oh, I like that. Okay, let's carry that on with living with a spouse or significant other. Struggles with anger. What are the consequences for the non angry spouse if the anger spouse does not figure out a way to control their anger?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Okay.

To me, I go to the work of John Gottman, who's, in my opinion, the world's leading expert on relationships.

He's probably spent 40 years looking at why do people divorce, and then what makes a successful relationship. So he's got the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Those are criticism, contempt. Stonewalling and defensiveness. And if you look at so criticism, you can attack someone. Let's say your spouse asks you to fix a leaky sink and you don't do it, and she's, oh my God, you're so lazy.

That's criticism, that's attacking you route the behavior or the situation. Then you've got defensiveness where people will get into an argument, or let's say if you get a criticism or a perceived criticism and your spouse responds, is anger. That's defensiveness and it tends to be shut down. Even conversations, contempt is where you feel that you are superior to the other person in some way.

And so if you talk down to them, it's putting yourself on a different level and speaking down to them. Why can't you be smarter? Why can't you use your head? And you always do this, and it's a mixture of anger and disgust. And then there's stonewalling, which is getting into a conversation or an argument.

One person I think gets their feelings hurt. They get angry and they just shut down and they'll withdraw from the conversation. So to me, each of those has an element of anger to it. And what we're talking about here with these four horsemen is they're always that shut down communication. To me, great relationship is based on open and transparent communication.

So any of these things that shut down communication are, I would say, deadly to a relationship or potentially deadly. Chronic anger and irritability, what they do is they train your partner to withdraw from future conversations. The lesson there is, geez, if I bring up like finances, I'm gonna get lost it again.

It's not gonna change anything. Why should I even bother? Why bring it up? And so it sets that dynamic into motion. You begin to withdraw. Resentment builds over time, you get more and more angry. And then it's this sort of a dynamic where you gradually split.

Trina Glines: Yeah John Gottman's stuff is amazing.

His research on being able to predict divorce, it's scary. It's pretty spot.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Yeah. It's interesting in that there's only three forms of couples counseling that are based on research in science. So there's a lot of couples counselors out there that are doing things that are really based on any empirical evidence.

For those of you who are looking at going to couples counseling. Make sure that you find someone that is doing their work based on research. That would be my opinion. So you can, do you know John Gottman or Sue Johnson? Both Greek sources.

Trina Glines: Those are great resources. I know I've advised several of my ladies read the John Gottman look if their spouses will do it together.

'cause there's so many exercises and I love how his really focuses on creating a more intimate relationship. How can we become more intimate and intimate, actually intimate. It's knowing each other so intimately, you know everything about one another. So when the hiccups come because they will 'cause the world is constantly maneuvering.

You have a so more solid foundation.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Absolutely

Trina Glines: right. So yeah, I love his stuff. It's amazing. So it's probably, this is probably a difficult answer or question to ask you and get an answer from. So you do have a spouse who is angry or suffers, or that's their challenge is having that anger rise. Can the non angry spouse do anything about it in the moment that's gonna help though?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Yeah.

I think that generally what you wanna do is bring it to their attention. So honey, it seems like you're getting a little bit annoyed or irritated. How about if we talk later when you've calmed down and then disengage in the situation? I get this question a lot, and it's difficult in the sense that one of the things I always tell my clients is if you're getting into argument and you're going back and forth and getting escalated and beginning to yell at each other, nothing you say is getting into your partner's head because they're angry and their only concern is I want to let my argument be known.

I want you to understand that I'm right. All the blame is getting externalized onto you. So understand that those scouting matches aren't really doing, they're not accomplishing anything. So I think once you understand that, it helps you to disengage, pull back and say, how about if we talk when we're calm?

Now the extension of that is if you real anger problem, I think you can drop seeds, of your or his mind that, Hey, I think there's something more go along here that you need to speak to someone about. But you have to do that when the other person is calm. When they have chance of hearing you. And then give them examples of things that they said, or things that they did when they were angry and know that some people don't remember what they did when they're really angry.

I don't think there's a whole lot other people can say to us when we're really angry. The traditional stuff. Breathe, relax, take a time out, all that stuff. If it's coming from outside, you typically serves to make you more angry, but if it comes from inside you, you're like, oh wait, I'm starting to get annoyed.

You breathe. Let me take it out. Let me excuse myself. That stuff can work, but it's gotta be internally driven.

Trina Glines: Okay. And as we communicated before this interview, most of your clients are individuals that it's been brought to their attention, they've got an anger problem, and they're coming into you saying, I guess I've been told this

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: true.

Trina Glines: Is there a way to speed that process? To get her to really desire to find that, because like you said, there's not much the spouse can do, but yet

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: I think that you continue to have conversations about it when they're calm. I think you continue to point out some of the behaviors that come up. I think you continue to point out she, maybe this isn't constructive or maybe this, the other approach is it shuts me down.

When you come at me with anger describing how it makes you feel. It makes me feel less down. It makes me feel afraid. I. That's not healthy for our relationship. And then I think I was telling you earlier that most of the people that I see that are adults with anger problems, the reason they come to see me is the ultimatum.

If you don't see someone I'm leaning

talking about speeding it up, I suppose that's one way to speed it up.

Trina Glines: Yeah. It's it's difficult. Here's the stop, so I know

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: because we don't see it when we're angry and what we do is. Will say, you made me angry. It's your fault. People lied, or You shouldn't have talked to you like that.

Trina Glines: Yeah,

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: okay. Maybe, but it's still my anger that I need to deal with.

Trina Glines: That's, that takes us perfectly into the next section that I'm hoping to spend a little bit more time on.

You have tools that you teach these individuals on how to control their anger. I want you to share those tools with me, but before we get into the tools.

Do you believe that these tools can work to an extent that it's so successful that, 'cause I think there's some people that think I'm gonna have to be in therapy for the rest of my life is, and that's daunting. I think it's extremely daunting for men. Men don't wanna go to therapy in general. Nobody does.

But for some reason I think there's a hiccup there. Not quite sure why. But do you believe they can learn these tools? Not have to continue this feel good therapy like you and I talked about, to get the success that they want.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Yeah, and to back up a minute, that's why I do coaching, not therapy, because I think that men can relate more to coaching.

I think my approach is to try and teach tools, which I think is less threatening because honestly it scares the bejesus out of men to go to any sort of therapy. I think that's part of it. It's embarrassing. We don't even like to stop to ask for direct sheets.

Trina Glines: Yeah.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Why would we stop to ask someone how to deal with something more personal that's going on inside of us?

So I think it takes a great deal of courage just to come in and be open to it, though I always praise the clients that are brave enough to come in and be open to learning as far as the tools go. A lot of it, the foundation is about awareness. So if you are aware of the fact that you're becoming angry, there's a lot of stuff you can do to stop that anger cycle.

And so the awareness is all about training your mind, training your attention to spend more time in the present moment. Because we know from research that the mind wanders a lot about 50% of the time. Our mind is wandering to the past and to the future, and usually it's a negative past and a negative future.

So negative past, which is things that I wish I hadn't done, bad things that happened to me, things that people shouldn't have done to me, which is all about sadness and depression. Or the negative future, which is, oh my God, I'm worrying about things that might happen tomorrow or might not happen. And that's all about dread, worry, stress, anxiety.

So the more time we can spend in the present moment, the better off it, the happier we are, but the more chance we have to be in touch with what's going on in our body so that we can go in the moment. Okay. I'm starting to get a little bit annoyed here, like what's going on? And look around and then take some steps to interrupt it.

The other part that we know is that attention is closely linked to emotion. So what we pay attention to greatly influences how we feel and how we feel greatly influences what we pay attention to. For instance, anger on a one through 10 scale, like intensity. One is calm, 10 is enraged, incredible whole, and you wanna get on it before it gets to like a five because once it goes over a five, you become anger at some point.

The anger takes over. So I'm coming home from work. Maybe I'm at a one because I'm just stressed and tired. Pull up into the driveway. One of my kids has left their bike in the driveway, so I gotta stop the call short, get out, move the bike, get back in the car, pull the car all the way in, go from a one to a two, go into the long room.

There's dirty clothes all over the floor. So I'm picking my way through the laundry room. Go from a two to a 3D. Come inside, there's some trash on the floor in the hallway. Go from a three to a four, say hi to my teenage son who's got his head buried in a video game. He doesn't say hi back, go from a five to a six.

Come in. And this didn't really happen, but just for the sake of example, let's say my 2-year-old was drawing on the wall. Feel real, six to a seven. So now I come in to see my wife at that moment in the kitchen, and I'm at a seven on 10 point scale You can imagine my interaction's not gonna go very well.

Because I'm already angry, but I'm looking for things to keep me angry. So my attention is grab my eyeballs and it's scanning the to look for things that keep me angry. So when I get to this conversation with my wife, first time I've seen her in 12 hours, that's probably not going to go very well.

And here's the thing, none of that had anything to do with her. So that's all me displacing my anger onto her. You want to be aware of the dynamic of anger and attention, and when you start to get angry, realize that your attention is going to be hijacked and that you begin to look around for things that keep you angry.

Trina Glines: Peace. Oh wow. And that like really brought everything together that, that scenario why, what your attention is linked to the emotions, what you're paying attention to. If you can stop yourself in that moment, like you would probably, like you're at a one in the car, right? You drive up, you see the car, the bike.

What would a tool be that somebody could use, like you could tell the bike's making a little bit more get just how do they interrupt it?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: The other way to do that is, let's say I pull up into the driveway. Maybe I get to a three in the laundry room. If I'm aware of my body, if I'm in the present moment, I can go, okay, wait, so my heart rate's going up, blood pressure's going up.

Got a little muscle punch in here. I. My blood's rushing my fists. Okay, let me just step outside for a few minutes, few seconds, breathe deeply. Can look at the lawn or the trees and just realize, okay, I'm switching hats near. Now I'm going from work to home. Calm down. You can do a brief visualization of one of the ones I like is imagine reading in white light.

If you're religious or spiritual, you can imagine it coming from. Higher power. Whatever you need in that moment is in that white light. So breathe in through your nose. Let's say I'm breathing in peacefulness, relaxation, calm, breathe out black smoke, which is whatever you don't need, is in that black smoke, anger, frustration, stress, fear, and so just doing something like that for a minute will calm you back down.

Bring your heart rate back down, relax your muscles slightly, and then you can go inside and you'll be okay.

Trina Glines: Yeah. So doable.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: It's doable, but it's gotta be driven by the person that's dealing with the anger. That's the thing. So if I come in and my wife's oh, you seem tense, relax, why don't you go M like it's, it would always amazes me.

'cause there's almost nothing she can say in that situation that would help me out.

Trina Glines: Yeah.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Depending on where you're at with the anger and how aware you are, it seems to feel the anger often.

Trina Glines: You. It's

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: gotta be driven internally. It's gotta be driven by the individual themselves.

Trina Glines: Individual.

I imagine like the men you've worked with or the women you've worked with, when they've learned to control that anger, how much does it change their life?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: It's pretty remarkable because a lot of songs, people that are angry are not enjoying life that much. I can't tell you how many families and executives that I've dealt with that. Extraordinary glow Life has been to create wealth, and they've done a fantastic job of that. They have more wealth than they can spend in a couple lifetimes, and they've got a wife or husband and kids at home, and they have everything that they can want materially and they're manipulable.

To me, it was such a shame that. With learning some of these tools, you can learn to be more relaxed. You can learn to enjoy life more. You can learn to be quicker and easier to laughter. You can learn to be more intimate and vulnerable in your relationship, thereby creating better relationship. The, upside is tremendous.

For instance, can I read an email I got?

Trina Glines: Yes, please.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Yes. This was from a guy that, someone that took my anger management course is an MBD. He has a huge private practice. And he said, each one of your methods works very well for me. However, I found one which has more magic to it than the others. It's the compassion offered to others.

I found that when I am thinking, may you be healthy, may you be peaceful. May you live life with ease and wellbeing in the presence of an angry person. It has the power can reduce their anger, and often causes them to behave calmly or lovingly towards me. As I repeat these thoughts in my mind, made a much formal life possible for me, life is worth living like this.

So what he's talking about there is this another tool called Loving Kindness Meditation or Meta, and around 2,500 years, I would say that they've done research on it, which proves that there's a variety of benefits to it. But basically you imagine someone that you love very much and you wish 10 dogs upon them maybe be happening.

Will you be healthy? May you live life with ease and wellbeing. Then you think of the two of you together, which kind does on both of you. Then you think of your stealth. Wish kind thoughts upon just you. And from there you can expand family company, Google stay country world kind of a thing. Very powerful meditation.

The other possibility is that you can also include someone in there that you find very difficult or annoying that's a little bit more advanced. But what he did is he took those thoughts and started applying them to difficult people in his life just throughout the day. And what happens is. As you think those thoughts, you begin to calm your own physiology, and as you calm your own physiology, the other person will pick up on it from emotional contagion, from the mirror neurons, and so they'll pick up on your increasing qum and usually will calm down too.

So it makes for much better interaction.

Trina Glines: It's something we talk about in Upkeep three a lot, the our thoughts, the power of our thoughts, the power of. The negative narrative, the ton, like you said, 50% of the time, our brain is like not being controlled whatsoever. I'm just letting all these things come in and how we have to consciously choose to put those powerful thoughts in our mind.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Yeah, and to that point I, think I've done this, I dunno, 25 years now, and the more I've done this work, the more I've become convinced that the mine is just a random thought generating machine. It just sits there and spits out thoughts. I don't even consider myself my mind anymore. I consider myself this entity looking down upon my mind and going, oh, there it is again.

I'm thinking that thought of I'm an idiot or worthless, or I need to lose weight, whatever it is, right? We've all had those negative thoughts. Yeah. Now I can go, there's that thought, and I'm an idiot. I've heard that before. I know it's not true. I'm just gonna let it go.

And that kind of rolls into the next tool of.

What I would say cognitive reinterpretation, which is just a fancy phrase for how do you interpret what's going on around you. And the best example I can give you of this is road rage. So every angry person that comes in to see me has some great road rage. They get mad on, on the freeway. I remember when I was younger, I'd be in the fast lane doing, I don't know, 80, and someone would come straight up and tailgate me doing a hundred.

I would get upset, I'd get mad, and then it leads into all sorts of problems. Tap on the brakes a little bit. You're not gonna get past me. You get angry, then you start doing really stupid stuff. Yeah. So now what I do is I just reinterpret their motives and their destination. So you know, where I used to think what an able, he shouldn't doing that.

And now I think. Maybe there's a pregnant woman in the back of the car that needs to give birth. Maybe there's a sick child in the back of the car. Obviously we need to get to their destination more quickly than I do. I'm just gonna get more. We lane let 'em go by, get back over. No anger, no problem.

Trina Glines: Yeah,

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: that's simple reinterpretation.

And the funny thing is I don't know if either of those interpretations are accurate. I don't know if this guy's actually a juror. I don't know if they actually need to get to the er, but why not pick the interpretation that serves me?

Trina Glines: I agree with that.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: You extend that into relationships. I think that in relationships, a lot of times we get in these spaces where we accumulate these resentments and annoyances with our partner, and if you let that stuff accumulate over time, I think what happens to many of us is we get into these.

We begin to interpret the motivation and intention of our partners negatively, and then it becomes just everything they do, whether it's neutral, even positive, we can interpret it through a negative lens and so they can never win once we get to that point. I've found in many relationships it makes a lot of sense to have a conversation with your partner and just, it seems like we've gotten in this negative space lately.

How about if we agree to. Both really try to interpret each other's intentions and motivations with some grace and positivity and kindness.

And just recalibrate that.

Trina Glines: Yeah. So much more powerful. It takes away so many minutes, hours, days, sometimes of being angry, upset, and won't talk to each other.

And. A lot of wasted time, and that's something I've learned in this life. Life's too precious, right? Yeah. You've gotta favor every moment. That kind of made me think of a thought. Is there a tool that you ever use to teach the spouse who's having the anger portrayed on them? How to combat that? Because if you have an angry spouse who's like beating you down per portraying on you all the time, projecting on you.

It's so hard to internalize it.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Yeah. And I think that part of it is understanding the dynamics of what's happening. So for instance, let's say you've got a spouse that has some narcissistic tendencies, okay? And one of the dynamics of narcissism is that when you criticize them or they, you criticizing them, they will respond with rage or a high degree of anger.

And once you realize that's the dynamic, you can, gee, honey, we need to talk about the financial budget. Let's talk about the budget. And they begin to get escalated on pretty, they're attacking you saying you just need to earn more money. Once you understand the di dynamic of, okay, I'm going to get attacked verbally when I bring this criticism up, or even the sensitive subject, you can begin to name it and work around it.

Okay, so he's starting to attack me. I knew this was coming. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the issue of earning more money later. Right now I need to come back to the topic of the budget and our spending. Happy to have that conversation right now. I need to talk about the budget and our spending we spending, and you have to keep bringing it back over and just know that's the topic and know it the core of your being that.

It's not arguing. That's not your anger. That's their anger. And I think back when I was worried and there was some of this dynamic going on, and I got really good at splitting my attention in those moments. So I would coach myself in my own head and my ex-wife would be yelling at me and I'm like, I'm not really sure you yelling at me.

I yelling at me. So I remember just thinking, okay. I'm gonna work on being calm while she's younger at me. And so I would say, Dave, okay, breathe. This has nothing to do with you. You're okay. And I remember I would repeat this line of a song. I think it's a shin song. You can't wrestle a dove. And so I would just repeat this so I could split my attention and pay attention to her and respond appropriately.

Then just repeating these things. It's funny, in the book I wrote, that was actually one of the examples that were in my book, and I didn't even realize it until later after I was divorced. I was like, that's the one example, like that's the one part that she was in, was her yelling at me and I think you can do it. I think it takes practice. I think it takes some great clarity that it's not about you, but to do that, you also have to not be doing anything wrong either. I think that if you're, you shouldn't be doing, I think it can muddy the water.

Trina Glines: Yeah, for sure.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: When I started this career, I studied Eat Berkeley, and they teach you very sternly that everything you say and think has to be based on research.

And so that was my focus for many years. As I've gotten older, I've branched out of that because I know that there are things that are true that can't necessarily be proven by science or by the scientific method. One of those things, which there is some scientific backing for it, but it's the idea of visualization, which I mentioned already of the breathe in white light, breathe out, black smoke.

One thing you can be to protect yourself emotionally is this constant called shield, where you just think to yourself, shield, and then you imagine or visualize a, when I do it, I imagine doing egg shaped shields. Around surrounding my whole body. And for me it's blue. I could be any color you want, but that shield without negative energy, negative emotional energy, but it allows the positive in.

And so for those people that are really empathic, it's a good tool to use going into a shopping mall, going into a concert, going into any large crowd. But you can also use it if you're going into a conversation with a spouse that you know is. It's probably gonna get ticked.

Trina Glines: Yeah.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: And the more you practice it, the better you get at it.

When I first started it, I don't think I was that good at it. Now I can just think, shield, it's up and it's no big deal.

Trina Glines: Wow. Yeah. That's pretty empowering. If you can get that concept down. When you explain that to me, I saw the vision or things just bouncing off. Just Yeah. Penetrate. They just were bouncing off.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: And it's funny, I had a guy, a client who was a great musician. He actually cut an album in Tennessee. But when he was starting out, he was playing in a lot of bars and half the people that were interested in the music, half could care less. And so they'd be talking and they'd be, and they were sending negative stuff his way, like sometimes they'd jo to or make fun of them or whatever it was.

And he had a hard time staying in the zone to play at his level of ability. So he said what can I do? And so I taught him this technique of shielding. So he would get up on stage and he said, it just looks like I'm fiddling with my amp. But what I'm doing is thinking about the shield and I can see it come up through floor.

It's blue, I think it specks of dust blowing through it. It envelops name my guitar seals off at the head and that once I get more, I'm solid and then I just tread.

Trina Glines: Wow. It's empowering. I really like that. And the

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: other thing to consider for people that are getting the anger directed at them is to tune in your physi, all of them.

The biggest one for me is heart rate. So if I'm getting anger at me, the emotional contagion piece will automatically up your heart rate. It'll increase your muscle tension. 'cause your body's preparing you to attack in return. So you have to stay ahead of that and breathe deeply and focus on bringing your heart rate down slightly.

And you can do that with practice.

Trina Glines: Okay. Do you do that kind of through breath?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Yes.

Trina Glines: Yeah. I

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: can visualize my heart rate slowing, my heart actually beating more slowly.

Trina Glines: Oh, I can see how that would totally keep you. A little more in a level place as this is coming at you, so then you can be thinking, oh yeah, shield.

I think, oh yeah, I'm going to remove

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: myself. The part thing is you have to remind yourself to breathe because any of the negative emotions will make you breathe shallow, which means you're not getting enough oxygen in and your brain runs on two things, glucose and oxygen. If you're not getting enough oxygen in, your brain's not working at peak performance and our brain really sensitive to slight variations in oxygen level in our blood.

You literally ha and I it. I remember thinking this, God, this is so dumb. Like I'm telling myself to breathe, have you my whole life. But I do. I have to remind myself to breathe throughout the day and especially intense situations.

Trina Glines: It's so true. When I have clients text me and they're having a moment, I can just see in their text this just like rolling of words, and I could just feel it. I'm reading it and I'm not evading. So yeah, text back often I'll be like. Breathe just for a minute. I want you to sit there and read. So often I'll get a text back from, I totally forgot to breathe. The one that could breathe and just, yeah, our breath. I don't think we know how powerful that little thing we do daily to stay alive really is for our emotional help.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Yeah I, heard a saying a while back that I really liked it was the breath is the remote control for the brain. Yeah. I'm like. It sucks.

Trina Glines: No, it's true. I love that the breath is the remote control for the brain. I love that. Might have to name this. Talk something with that. That's awesome.

Okay, let's wrap up here just a little bit on why do you feel like anger's increasing?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: That's a huge question. I, think there are social fears out there. I think that there's a lot of economic fear. I think that anxiety is increasing, so as anxiety is increasing, anger can be a secondary emotion for the anxiety, especially for men. We know depression is increasing and depression will often show up as irritability In men, it doesn't show up as sadness, particularly, and I remember there's a great called Angry White Men by Michael Kimmel.

He's a sociologist and he did a lot of work in this and found that there's a lot of. Middle class to lower middle class white men that are fearing because they feel that they were promised something by America, the American dream, and the promise was broken and the promise went something like this. If I work hard, if I do the right things, then I will earn enough to support my family and I will earn enough to be able to buy a house.

And they found that wasn't the caved. And then they found by their belief system, it feels to them as if there are all these protected groups coming in front of them for government handouts, and they feel like they've been cut in line like these other groups have cut in line in front of them. Then they're in a situation where their wife equals to work because they can't make enough money, and then the wife is upset because that broke their promise.

They would be able to stay at home with the kids. So now they're out in the workforce. They're being forced to work. They don't wanna work. Often they're earning more than the man, the husband, which is masculine, the man. And I think that's part of it as well.

Trina Glines: Yeah, our dynamics in society and has changed so much.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: I think there's a lot of fear under it for Caucasians. I think there's fears of being the minority in America. I think there's fears of being displaced in their jobs. I think there's fear of being placed by automation, robots, technology, and so it becomes a pretty complex problem.

Trina Glines: Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like it.

I think, Keith, you were right, like this is a long answer. Try and fully under

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: question.

Trina Glines: Yeah, But I agree. The fears and the anxiety, the American dream that we thought was there, it's so different now. It really is so different now. So those are some really good points.

I want you to share your information on how people wanna get ahold of you.

Tell us about your book, your programs, how. How can they find you?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Alright, so I've got a couple websites so you can find me@guidetoself.com. So that's G-U-I-D-E-D-O-S-E-L f.com and that's where executive coaching and local, where I see local clients. I've got another site that's web anger management.com and they're offer online video courses and the courses are on anger management.

I. Anxiety and positive psychology or happiness. The book is available there, which is entitled, how Can I Be Happy? And you can also join my facebookPage@facebook.com slash guide to self coaching. I'm on TWI at Chinn, S-C-H-I-N and Ins brand at j Siner, and that's S-C-H-I-N-N-E-R-E-R. At least picked a easier handle on that one.

Lisa

Trina Glines: and I will make sure I have all of these correct that when I upload this video, I will put all of those in. They can have easy access to reaching you. You are needed, and I'm really excited that because you're in San Francisco, I have clients all over the United States and some in Canada, that you have your online courses that can be accessed anywhere.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Yeah, and thank you. And I started those out about 10 years ago with the idea that my idea is there's millions of men that need these tools that maybe don't have the financial resources to come in and see me or nearby, or don't have the courage to come in and see someone individually, which I get. So I thought, let me put something together that these guys can tap into anonymously, so to speak, in the comfort of their own home and the privacy of their home.

The funny thing was I went live with it. Immediately started getting hundreds of emails from angry women all over the world. It was like I, I didn't know. Under

Trina Glines: neutral. A lot of angry women out there apparently.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: But all we biased.

Trina Glines: Yeah. I'm actually surprised by that statistic as well. What a blessing it is to have this auction for women to help women that.

May have these same fears and anxiety, and I'm thrilled to be able to share this with others, and I completely support what you are doing and I love your demeanor. You're so calm.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Thanks.

Trina Glines: It's like you just, you bring this calmness and when I met you in San Francisco, I felt the same way. So you're a blessing to everyone around you.

So I wanna thank you.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Trina Glines: I will look forward to having more conversations with you in the future.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Anger Management Expert: Sounds great.

Trina Glines: Thank you so much, John.