While I believe frame control is really important, I don’t believe frame control is the same thing as controlling other people. It doesn’t mean that others aren’t allowed to do what they want or have their own ideas, and it doesn’t mean you have to be so rigid that nobody can ever convince you of a better idea. Rigidity is Read More

Emotions have a use-by date. You have to release them very quickly after they arise — otherwise they start to go off. They begin to decompose. However, they don’t go away. They just turn into something else. Anger can turn into violence and rage. Sadness can turn into depression. Fear can turn into chronic anxiety or panic attacks. You see Read More

It’s not anger that’s bad. It’s reacting in an unhelpful way to anger that can be bad. When I’m violent, when I throw a tantrum, or I scream and shout—or when I spiral into self-loathing and depression—that’s a reaction to anger. That’s not anger itself. Anger doesn’t get the blame for that. One way to see this is to notice Read More

I was missing assertiveness. Missing boundary setting. I’d never stood up for myself. I never went for what I wanted. I didn’t say what I really thought—because I was too afraid. I didn’t have an override that kicked in and said, “Nah, fuck it, you need to say this.” I didn’t have that “Nah, fuck it, do it.” I didn’t Read More

There’s constantly this theme that anger is some sort of evolutionary fuckup—that when it shows up, you just have to kind of get rid of it, like it’s some waste product. Yet, if that’s the case, why—after 150,000 years of human evolution (and that’s just for Homo sapiens)—do we still have anger, if it’s such a mistake? Let’s look at Read More

I wanna talk about a new way to look at anger. Specifically, I want you to let go of the idea that it’s bad or wrong — that anger is somehow a failure, an emotional weakness, that a fully enlightened, great person would never experience anger, that confidence and anger don’t go together. I want you to let go of Read More

A lot of people wonder, “Why do I self-sabotage? Why am I stuck? Why won’t I get my ass to the gym?” Or, “Why don’t I finally go for that promotion?” ‘Cause you’re not angry enough. Your situation doesn’t piss you off enough — or you’re not allowing yourself to be pissed off about it. You know, one of my Read More

It takes a lot of practice, but I guarantee you: there is a use for every type of feeling. There are activities that suit certain emotions better than others, and if you can train yourself to see these, then eventually there’s no such thing as a bad emotion. They’re all useful. You just have to work with what you’ve got. Read More

You don’t need to say, “I’m angry with you.” You can say something like, “I’ve got a lot of tension in my upper chest after you said that.” You’re actually portraying yourself a lot more accurately. It may feel like you’re saying, “I’m out of control,” if you say, “I feel angry,” but if you just say, “I feel tension Read More

Recently I got asked this question: How do I learn to just be with emotional pain? I’d say the question needs to be more like: How do I make it okay to be emotional, rather than trying to avoid the pain side of it or trying to rewrite the narrative side of it, even with words like “sadness,” for example? Read More

You might’ve been raised in a culture where anger is expressed as getting into a fight or punch a hole in the wall. Perhaps you were told that this was a good idea. Know that you don’t have to do it like that, nor should you. You can write that letter to your boss who’s been pissing you off. You Read More

It can be a helpful step, in becoming emotionally shameless, to actually stop using labels and start describing the physiological sensation. Describe what you are feeling, instead of trying to categorize what you’re feeling. Sadness becomes “pain in my chest, tension under my eyes”. Anger becomes “heat in the back of my neck and an agitation of my muscles”. Anxiety Read More