The Gift of Anger

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

You are listening to the Sage Hill podcast with Dr. Chip Dodd. Sage Hill is a social impact organization that helps people see who they are made to be so they can do what they are made to do. In this podcast, Chip sits down with his long time friend, Stephen James, to answer a question sent by a podcast listener about the importance of anger in our lives. Well, Chip, importance of anger in our lives. Well, Chip, these podcasts, amen, are like, people are listening to them. Really? You really? I know. It's surprising. I just like talking to you. I love it too. You do this anyway. Unless you know I like talking to you. Record it. Yeah. And we're actually people are starting to send in questions. Somehow found a way to email us and sending in questions. So an old friend of ours, Jeff Pope from, Erie, Colorado. So Jeff's this great question. He said I'll he discussed with Chip his statement. I wake up in the morning and pray for my anger quote. And Jesus was the angriest man I've ever known. Yeah. So See, he remembered me saying that. So, either Jess would get us in a lot of trouble or it's gonna help other people. Yeah. There's a context.

If if you don't mind, let's start with anger. Yeah. Let's do that. Well, terribly misunderstood and often misjudged, and there are a lot of shoulds. You and I did a podcast on shoulds Yeah. You know, the critic. But, anger is a feeling that expresses vulnerability. So automatically, we're in confusion. But anger is a feeling that expresses that we've been touched and we care about something. It's like what matters to me, I'm gonna be angry about if it's going away or if it doesn't work. And also it expresses a desire for something. Mhmm. So anger is the desire feeling and it exposes us ex to others and they know and see what we care about. So so if a person is angry for something, they clearly are vulnerable to being known, seen, mocked, humiliated,

ridiculed, and on and on and on. Yeah. And and I've learned for me and as a for me and me working with people as a counselor is that anger is often overstated as other feelings too. Like, all of these fields get wrapped into anger. Yeah. And what you just said is so clear that anger is real actually, this very thin feeling. Mhmm. It's that, like, says something's happening. Mhmm. But it doesn't really all always say, like, what to do about it or Yes. What else is going on. But everybody crams all their feelings into anger. Yes. Anger, you know, and we we, you know, hurt has anger related to it. Like, if I get hurt, I record Right. Wish it did. Fear has anger. Fearlessness has anger. Help me. Help me. Fear. Sadness has anger. Oh, I wish it hadn't happened. Yeah. Long standing. Exposed. There's anger in that. Anticipation of rejection. Longer says so those are the kinds of anger that are are see, because anger is the energy of our own voice. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like if you if you don't have anger, you don't have a voice. Alright? So we'll get to rage in just a bit, but maybe. But so anger ultimately then, if we had to choose synonyms for anger now anger is a great word. Okay? But if we had to choose synonyms, it would be yearning, desire, longings, hope Passion. Hunger, thirst. And ultimately, all those things wrap up in terms of the gift of what the emotion gives us is passion, which is a willingness to be in pain for something that matters more than pain. So passion, the gift of anguish said that really fast. Please say that again. Passion is a willingness to be in pain Okay. For something that matters more than pain. Thank parent. Thank mother. Thank Jesus. Jesus, if I had to put one word under the cross of Christ, the empty cross of Christ, I put passion, a willingness to go to any length. Alright? A willingness to go to any length. A willingness to be in pain to go to any length for what matters to me. Wow. Yeah. So

Man, so why does anger get such a bad rap then? Well, I tell you why do you pray for your anger in the morning? Well, that's a good question. I wake up every single day. And I over the years, I've developed a ritual. You know, a ritual is something we do that's repetitive, but it's the movements that represent something deeper that sometimes even an ineffable. So years ago, I developed a ritual of daily surrender. So I get up in the morning and I pray and I may journal and sometimes I just kinda don't. But I I 99% of the time end no matter what my condition, when I get on my knees and I give myself to God. Because I know one thing for sure, I'm powerless over the day. So I have proper fear. I wake up every day knowing I'm powerless. I'm afraid. So but I know where to go with fear. I know who to go to because there's a relationship there with me, with God that's been going on for some time. And so, I say, I give myself to you to do for me what I cannot do for myself. And then it's like, give me my desire. Let me walk in the vulnerability of what matters to me. Let me walk in caring. Let me walk in hunger and thirst. Let me step into a willingness to be in pain for something that matters more than pain. Like a reminder to yourself of all the things you care about. I bow to you in fear, I rise up to you for you to give me my anger. Because it's like, I'm willing to be vulnerable for something that matters to me more than what someone would say about me, ridicule More than my comfort. And my security is in the one yeah. Even more than my my comfort. So anger actually is a form of vulnerability. So when I say Jesus is the angriest man I ever met, not only am I saying that I met him, which sounds sort of weird, so it's a spiritual discussion. But it's like, the man came and he did it. And it's like, so wherever he goes, I wanna go. I'm following. He he gave it all. It worked. He let us know what mattered to him, and he did whatever he had to do to get to that expression. So, he showed us what he cared about and went to any length to express that care. So anger is creative, anger reaches, and anger is vulnerable. It's not hard, it is creative. You know, fiery perhaps. Now people in most of our lives, we've been mistrained to believe that anger is actually rage. And even there's biblical words that will to parse the two that I mean, do you have cultural words? Yeah. Constant words. Yeah. That rage and anger don't have anything to do with each other. They honestly don't. It's the difference between it's as far apart as the East Coast from the West Coast. That rage is actually a an attack on something to prevent myself from experiencing vulnerability. Rage attacks what threatens it.

Is it is it just fair to say, and if it's not, fix it, that that rage is, you know, we we know it's impaired fear. But is it the hijacking of my anger? It's the hijacking of my voice to avoid my voice, believe it or not. So it's like I start screaming out at something whether internally or externally to hide the voice of how terrified I am of something happening. Rage really is about about an overreaction or to something that happened in the past. Rage rage is is like it it happens like, okay, I'm afraid. I become anxious. My anxiety becomes need for control. And when I can't get control, rage is the result of anxiety. It reminds me of something happened before and I'm not gonna let that happen again. And we know that anxiety is about sort of the sense that something terrible is going to occur if I'm not hyper aware. Right. So people have been rendered helpless many, many times in their lives.

And so the defense against helplessness is rage. And when that thing that I'm afraid of happening again starts to look like it's going to happen, I move from anxiety to rage. And it's and it's really a reaction to terror. I mean, it's trying to stop something from happening that's already happened. You know? And anger is about going for something knowing what the risks are. It's gonna hurt. That yeah. So it's a willingness to have hurt, a willingness to have sadness. You know, it's like, am I angry enough to love you? Am I angry enough to attach? Am I angry enough to say what matters? Am I angry enough to tell the truth about my hurt, my sadness, and so on? And then when I love you my whole life and you're gone, am I am I caring enough that I attach enough to have the sadness of you being gone? Anger is Anger connects to everything. Anger is focused and creative.

Rage is unfocused in many ways. And then murderous. And murderous. It is. I will have control no matter what it takes because I will do whatever I gotta do not to feel. Anger says, I'm willing to feel whatever it takes to get to where my heart hungers to go. Yeah. Do you see the difference? Oh, yeah. It's amazing. And so when, you know, Jesus always gets some credit for being righteously indignant in the temple, I say that Jesus was angry, stayed angry, remained angry, but was angry from in the beginning, in the middle, and the end. And it's like, He had a focus bigger than just that moment of fear. Like, it was his focus was bigger. His mission was bigger. His idea of who he was and whose he was was bigger than than the threat in front of him. Yes. Yeah. Well, that's well said. Thank you. Garden Of Gethsemane.

Yeah. He he said, if if you can take this from me, if you could take this from me, please take from I do not want to do this. Everything in me doesn't, but your will be done. Yeah. Like, that is angry on both directions. Right. Like, god, please. No. And yet, I love I will. Whatever. And I know for me, I can oscillate between anger and rage and fear and rage and anger Yeah. Dread. Yeah. Like like, you know, 20 times in twenty seconds. Right. Especially when it's things I care about, like my kids or my marriage or, finances, like all kinds of things that worry me. Mhmm. I also have passion around, and they kinda start interweaving. And all of that Isn't that something? I mean, our you know, we've we start talking about all our mistakes, which is it's just inevitable.

Well, failure? Yeah. Failure the gift of failure. Right? Absolutely. Coming back to asking questions. Yeah. You will know. Mhmm. And repent. But I noticed that that when I say I'm going to make this, keep this, stop this from happening, that most of the time is pre rage. Because I'll do whatever I got to do to stop him, her from getting to this place. It is about terror. That thing I'm trying to protect actually becomes the problem that I'm gonna squash. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And that's how we end up taking away, Stephen, the anger of our children. We rob them of their voices through rage. Mhmm. Our need to, have things the way we want them so that they won't end up making choices we don't want them to make. Right. Puts them in a position of being afraid to show how much something matters to them. So once we take their voices from them, they become terrified of having them, and then they are set up to rage too

instead of have anger. So you're saying that my rage is my parents' problem? And and will be our children's problem. Amen. Better preach. You know, Stephen, I don't like this either. But, and you and I have known each other for eighteen years. Yeah. Long time. Do you understand that that's as long as some people have been alive? Your children aren't even 18 years old yet almost, you know? Right. And and my oldest, son is only six years older than that. So it's like, you and I have known each other eighteen years. And I just now are am coming into a very sad acceptance and also anger and recognition. It takes a lifetime to learn how to live. It's like, that I really did not think I really didn't think that that was as true as it is. I really do know that life is about practicing.

It's more true than you wanted it to be. Yeah. Ugh. Yeah. I'm I'm more of a witness to it versus a believer in it. You know, a witness is somebody's like like, felt it, seen it, you know, was part of part of the the situation. There's this sneaky, arrogant part of me that watches you Uh-huh. And goes You'll do better. I'll do better. Yeah. And the minute I say that, it's like, oh god. Like, I've set myself up to do worse Yeah. In so many ways. But Yeah. But it's like to have watched you do such remarkable job with your sons. And by that, I mean, create an environment where they come back to you and tell you how you failed. Yes. Right? Mhmm. It's like, I can say I want that. Uh-huh. You know, but I think my sons are gonna do it better than yours. Yes. Which is so scary. Isn't that so? Oh, god. I know. I'm so scared of that. Yeah. Yeah. And what And you're doing it with great humility and great heartache. Mhmm. You know? But but that thing in me that is really a refusal of my own grief in a lot of ways about I don't wanna face what I didn't get. I don't wanna face what they're not getting, And I don't wanna face what I don't have to give them, like I mean, that's it all sudden breeds this place of arrogance and self righteousness and terror and Yeah.

And you know what, Stephen? That that is ultimately has been my rejection of grace needed and mercy received or grace received and mercy needed. I did not want to need that mercy or that grace. And so therefore, I could if I worked hard enough, even surrendered hard enough, ward it off. And if therapy got smart enough. Right. I would wind up not being human. Wrote good books about it. Yeah. Yeah. I won't be human. You know, so much of so much we're sitting in a room with which has a lot of the the early days of us, forming the spiritual root system and, you know, voice of the heart. Dreaming about spiritual. Yeah. And, I really believe that so much of what I've written is, me after, wanting to live fully, love deeply, and lead well. You know, myself first. I'm the first learner. I'm the first failure. You know, I'm the first human, that, you know, of the of the spiritual root system. Mhmm. You know, I I'm the one that gets to fail at it first. Because It's just great idea I can't live up to. Well, of course. And see, that's why it's it's a spiritual root system. Now people are focusing on system, which means there's a system that I can apply that's gonna make me not human. But I I did the thing more than even knew, talk about the spiritual nature of life is rooted in a certain way. And if we grow as human beings emotionally and spiritually, the roots, the thickness, the drinking, the neediness of drawing from the water, Jeremiah 17. Keep bearing fruit. You see it 17. The roots will bear fruit, and they will not bear perfection. Even when bad things come, I have something to offer. System is like sewer system. Okay? Oh. Okay? So Spiritual root sewer. There there is no yeah. Spiritual there is no institutionalization of becoming human. It is a daily experience of being in need

and no longer practicing. And the closest we get to is metaphors that that talk about it, images that speak to it Yeah. Expressions out of it. Yeah. Yeah. So guess what we get to grow into? If we will receive, you and I, if I will continue to receive mercy and grace, which means being in need, then I may get to become, the greatest a human being can become, healthy, capable of seeking forgiveness, versus continuing to seek justification. The healthy people seek forgiveness. Unhealthy people seek justification. Healthy couples can seek forgiveness from each other. Unhealthy couples will continue to war over the rightness. Unhealthy parents will say I did the best I could instead of saying I failed at this and I'm sorry. You know? Mhmm. So that that is one thing. I will not claim it perfection. I'm just saying there is one thing I have never said to my sons. I've never told them I did the best I could. Because, even in the times when I was doing what I thought was good or even great, there was still on some measure to try to be what you plan to be better than me. Yeah.

My gosh. I know. Isn't that something? Yeah. We're never Is there a difference between I did the best I could and I gave all I had to give? Or I gave what I had what I had to give? Yes. I think there is a very real difference. So I did the best I could is saying, therefore, your feelings are somehow, off base or too much or wrong versus I gave you all I had and I'm so sorry. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. And now I'm living with, not being able to and I'm so sorry I wasn't. Mhmm. And I can't do it twice. Mhmm. I only got one shot. And so forgive me for missing the shot. You know, then that's back to life is a series of daily practice. So the the

the more you come into admission of our own failures, the more we're in need of grace, the more grace received. Yeah. Yeah. I wish we could get that grace without having to, like, walk in. You know, I just wrote a blog just recently. You know, I wish I would I wish that I were a better writer. I really do. I mean but I I end up having, like, seven ideas and and I attempt and I need to stick with one and I just kinda like but that connects to that. But I I I wrote about vulnerability, I think it was. But I talked about Newton and Spafford who wrote, All is Well with My Soul. Okay. I believe both of those men would have almost given anything not to written those hymns. Mhmm. I do not believe they were inspired by glory. I think they were inspired by grief. Oh. Amazing grace. How sweet the sound. You read the history of Newton and Spafford and it's like one lost almost everything, his family, and the other one was a participant and making sure that other people lost everything. Yeah. But it was he's Newton with slave trade. And, his father Newton's father, according to I don't know how accurate the biography is. He's he's very long ago. But Newton's father was a a very harsh man. Mhmm. Pop probably a rager. Terrified of his own human

being. And his children's human being. Uh-huh. And, raised his son to be a man. Took him on the ship at an early age, 10 years old or something to that effect. And, so let's say, Newton paid for Amazing Grace, a song that's sung by millions and millions of people. I suspect he would have gladly not written it. Just needing grace? Yeah. Needing grace. It's there's a price that he paid. Oh, and and that the heartache and tragedy of life, if surrendered to the process, is not wasted, that becomes creative. And that's the beauty of a parent or person who can seek forgiveness. Is actually saying that I cannot earn this. I just know I need this. And so He's a parent. I think of coaches too. How many coaches have harmed athletes Oh, god. In the name of by by not taking responsibility for I've screwed up that game. Like Mhmm. I, like, I didn't prepare y'all for this or Mhmm. I made a bad substitution or Mhmm. I called the wrong play. Mhmm. Like,

you know I'll tell you what what that gets into the should be. Politicians. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Like, I'll tell you, we we need we need a whole battle against the word should. You should this, you should that, you should know, you should have been able. It's a word of of piling up commands that are impossible and regrets that'll never be finished. I mean, you should have known. But I did and I didn't and I couldn't and I, you know, think about the number of times, especially teenagers, adolescents, whatever they're called today, because they kinda have the shape of adults, you know. Yeah. Somehow, they're expected to know how to do things they never had any experience doing. This is so you need to think ahead. What's that? I mean, do you know we we're we're and so we should all over them. Of course, they back away from us in terms of and and or or try to be good by feeling bad about themselves. Mhmm. You know? K. So it's good to be angry. It's important to have your voice. Because anger brings our voice. And it's important to hope and wish and hunger and thirst and reach out And persevere. To create Get up again. Be resilient. To desire that change. And passion, if I had to choose between passion and gladness, I'm taking passion every time. Because the world is not shaped for happiness. The world is shaped for people who care.

This is Stephen James, the executive director of Sage Hill Counseling. Thanks for listening to the Sage Hill podcast with doctor Jim Dodd. If you or someone struggling with addiction, anxiety, depression, or burnout, please reach out to the Center for Professional Excellence for help. For more than twenty years, CPE's long term residential treatment programs have been helping professional men recover their lives, marriages, and families. To find out more, visit cpenashville.com. Further, if you're a therapist, a pastor, or professional that works with people, and you'd like to be better equipped to help them live fully, we invite you to learn more about Sage Hill Training, an in-depth experiential training to help you bring your heart to the work you're called to do. You can visit Sage Hill Training to register.