Taming the Hulk
When I was a supervisor, a senior executive at a leadership training shared a story about his personal life and not managing his stress. He said it almost ended with him getting a divorce, but that he was able to save his marriage by getting help. He said before he learned to manage his mind, he would bottle up his emotions all day at work, then come home and explode when a child spilled a glass of milk. He said it was like the hulk would emerge. The rage had nothing to do with the milk; it was simply an inevitable reaction to the emotion that had been suppressed throughout the day.
As he shared his story, I thought “Oh my gosh, this is me...I’m externally calm at work but different at home” and I committed to finding ways to manage stress. I decided I did not want to continue to bring it home to my family. No amount of success in my career could override the damage I would do to my family by not taking responsibility to manage the rage.
Now, what is the difference between rage and anger anyway? Rage is uncontrollable anger. The key difference for me is the uncontrollable part. It felt uncontrollable when it came out of me. I know that it wasn’t, but at the moment it felt that way.
Early in my career, I learned to manage my emotions pretty well. But it changed again when I took a new role as a director, moved my family to a new state, began building a custom home, helped my kids transition to new schools and activities, and…, and…, and…, etc. . Those were all reasonable excuses that I could have used to justify rage at times, but in the end I knew I am the one in complete control of myself and my emotions. So I started searching again- what am I missing? What can I do to support myself during this season? And I knew there would never be enough baths, exercise, facials, etc. that could help me survive. I needed tools. I needed to get to the root cause.
What does an engineer do when they have a problem? They keep searching until they find a solution. That’s when I found my coach and a cognitive-based process to get to the root causes. It blew my mind. Each session my coach didn’t feel sorry for me or agree with me. She held me accountable and brought awareness to what I was thinking which was in turn, causing the emotion I was feeling.
Some common thoughts running through my head were:
I’m failing at home and work
Everyone wants something from me
I’m not enough to handle this
My coach taught me processes that I still use daily to use to coach myself. She helped me uncover what I was thinking that made me feel scattered; like I never had enough time, and like I was constantly behind. After working with her, I was able to transition my thoughts into feelings of being calm, focused, and energized. I learned to lead myself where I wanted to go instead of being reactive to my day.
Some of my newfound thoughts that helped me manage my mind were:
I am in control of my day
I intentionally decide what I want to feel today
I have plenty of time to do everything that needs doing
This changed my life so much that I decided to get certified in the process I had learned and used. It started as a way to simply educate myself even more so I could share it with my kids. I did not want my lack of emotional regulation skills to be passed on to my children. I wanted to teach them better ways to manage their little growing minds. And then the more I talked about my struggles and successes, the more other people related with what I had learned. And then that led to people wanting me to coach them.
Rage does not show up as much in my life now. When I feel it, I know it’s a warning telling me I need to stop and get curious about what’s going on. I no longer feel caught up in the cycle of stress -> rage -> shame -> stress that I had been in. My over-thinking and emotions are more controlled now (I am of course still human) so not perfect and always learning but thankful to be using it to help others who are where I had been.
