Most Men Don’t Feel Anger… They Miss What’s Under It

What’s up community,

I want to send out a shout out to a group of my guys who who are tapping into the Law of Identity and making positive changes. I love seeing my guys being resilient, understanding they are not broken, they have everything they need. Moving from the brink of relationship collapse to transformation by learning how to speak the language of connection 101 is a reality.

Therapist and creator of Relational LIfe Therapy Terry Real says "..in his office, most of his work is with men is giving them what their caregivers did not give them emotionally." This reasonates as I grew up in a home of a matriarch, several aunts and my grandmother.

My grandmother was atop of the hierarchy. The issue however, I too did not get what I needed emotionally from my caregivers. No one taught me how to handle my emotions in relationships.

*Primary vs Secondary Emotions from a Performance Anxiety Lens.

The first tool my client receives is a Feelings Wheel created by Gloria Willcox. if you are unfamiliar with the Feeling Wheel, I encourage you to pause and take the time to get one in front of you.

Here’s The First Key:

Each of us have a manbox. This box is impacted by things such as culture norms. Our manbox is filled with feeback leaning on our idiosyncrasies annd subjective feedback gained through personal experiences such as our history tied trauma.

Those who do tap into their feelings communicates:

Anger
Frustration
“I don’t care”

The Second Key: Simple Brain Science

-Primary emotion (center of the feeling wheel) = first feeling in the body, fast, survival-based, unconscious

Happens before thinking, we react to the uncomfortable feeling.
Feeling comes from the lower emotional brain
Designed to protect us, adaptive, survival, the thinking brain offline.

Examples:

Hurt
Fear
Sadness

-Secondary emotion = our reaction to the first feeling, the primary emotion, the center of the wheel:

Examples:

Hurt → turns into anger
Fear → turns into control
Sadness → turns into shutdown

What This Looks Like in Real Life

A man says:

“I’m pissed.”

But what’s actually happening is:

“I feel disrespected… or not good enough… or abandoned.”

Here Is The Thing:

These guys just doesn’t know how to speak connection.101. It's like a child, they don't have the words, the result is a crash out. He just can't ask for what he needs in a way she can hear it.

Feeling Wheel To The Rescue:

Communication changes when my guys get this tool in his hand. This is the reason I call The Feelings Wheel the cornerstone of speaking Connection 101.

Key Insight

Notice Gloria Willcox's model only has 6 emotions in the center.

That’s not random. There is actually a means to madness around the color scheme and structure of the wheel. This post does not provide space to address that here.

However, just consider some scientists report a hundred or so feelings. The power of Gloria Wilcox’s model is that it contains just six feelings in the center. In my case, less is more for helping my guys learn to speak a new language of connection.

The Nervous System

Less options helps calm the brain and body of my guys. .

Simple brain science tells us that the need for the brain to feel safe matters. Clarity under pressure brings calm.

"All disconnecrtio is a performance anxiety is an issue" .

When any of us is triggered:

The Grinch begins to Grinch
Our thinking brain goes offline
Who needs 100 emotions

The Dance of Disconnection That Causes Our Parter To Walk Off The Floor:

Disconnection Happens & Secondary emotions:

Criticism
Contempt
Defensiveness
Stonewalling

These behavirors are known as Gottman’s four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Consistently engaging in these tactics predicts divorce over 90%. Due to low emotional self-awareness and the inability to speak the language of connection, men cause their cycle of disconnection to spin faster and faster, causing their partnner to walk off the dance floor.

The dance is the metaphor for broken relationships.

HERES THE HOPE:

I haves successfully used the babystepssaq mental method dozens of time to help my clients identify and stop their dance of disconnection.

Best selling author, negotiator and teacher, Chris Voss describes:

There is power in emotions. During a negotiation, "....don't ignore emotions. Identify and influence them.”

That’s exactly what my model does.

Here is are some of what my client's learn

A. Identify & Stop The Dance

The Crash Out: