No Choice As A Sign of Regression and Rage Part 2--Lesson 48

Arnold said,” I have too many bills to pay and a kid in college and another about to graduate from high school and go to college. I can’t quit my job. I just have to grit my teeth, suck it up and stay at a job that really sucks.

When working with a person who really feels and thinks that they don’t have a choice I first have to help them see their regression, deal with the triggers that are sending them back in time, explore the emotional memory and hopefully facilitate a discharge and release the pent up, stored energy whether it is rag or sadness.
Once this is accomplished then I can help them see the choices that have been right in front of them all along. Now a friend can offer suggestions, their pastor can recommend books to read. But if their well-intentional help is offered before the person comes out of their regression it all falls on deaf ears.

I’m sure you’ve had these frustrating conversations with friends who tell you about a crisis or a problem they are having and you pull out your best advice, lovingly give them options and choices and they respond with, “You just don’t understand,” “No I can’t do that,” “I wish it was that easy.”

Question: What areas of life do you often feel, "I don't have a choice?"

In Lesson 49 we will explore the brain chemistry behind feeling like you don't have a choice.
For more information go to johnleebooks.com and read The Anger Solution: The Proven Method for Attaining Calm and Developing Healthy, Long-Lasting Relationships, Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately, The Missing Peace--all available on Amazon.com.

No Choices--Sign of Regression,rage and anger--Lesson 47

When I asked Charlotte why she didn’t leave her verbally abusive husband, she said, “Because I don’t have that choice.” When I asked Arnold why he doesn’t quit the job that offered no chance for advancement or increase in pay, he too replied, “I didn’t have a choice.”

When an adult feels like they have no choice they get angry or enraged and are usually in a regressed state. It often takes someone else (who is not regressed) to offer them choices, point out options because the regressed person can’t hear them, see them or act on them.

When working with a person who really feels and thinks that they don’t have a choice I first have to help them see their regression, deal with the triggers that are sending them back in time, explore the emotional memory and hopefully facilitate a discharge and release the pent up, stored energy whether it is rag or sadness.

Question: Can you remember times where at the time you felt like you didn't have a choice only to come out of regression and finally see multiple choices?

In Lesson 48 we will continue looking at "No Choice."
For more information go to johnleebooks.com and read The Anger Solution: The Proven Method for Attaining Calm and Developing Healthy, Long-Lasting Relationships, Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately, The Missing Peace--all available on Amazon.com.

The Disproportional Reaction, Regression and Rage--Lesson 46

I’m sure everyone reading this has either said or heard someone say to them, “Where is all of this coming from?” “This” being all of their excessive energy about the problem or issue being discussed. The disproportional reaction feels overwhelming for many and just plain scary for others.

Those on the receiving end often feel they are being flooded by the speaker’s words that make up unfair accusations, insinuations and criticism. This torrent of energy is not usually enthusiasm but rather judgment and shame. Therefore, the listener tends to feel pushed away or wants to run away. But most of all they feel confused. “Why is he talking to me this way?” Jill asked me one day during a consultation, “It’s like he’s talking to someone else and he doesn’t even see me. Sometimes I think he’s shouting at his first wife or his mother.” I asked her how this made her feel. “Scared and angry. It pushed all my buttons and I feel like a little girl back in my parent’s house where I never felt seen either.”

Question: Have you said or has someone said to you recently, "Where is all of this coming from?

In Lesson 47 Feeling Like We Don't Have A Choice--another sign of regression that often leads to rage.

For more information go to johnleebooks.com and read The Anger Solution: The Proven Method for Attaining Calm and Developing Healthy, Long-Lasting Relationships, Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately, The Missing Peace--all available on Amazon.com.

"Child Time" Part 2 Sign of Regression and Rage--Lesson 45

For the son or daughter who hears, “Wait until your father gets home,” time stands still. In the giddy fifteen year old waiting for her first date to show up, time is stuck in molasses. As mentioned earlier the parent waiting for their son or daughter to come home, time is an enemy. The wife waiting for the husband to call from his hotel feels like time actually wounds her heart and soul because she relives the time her first husband cheated on her.

When we regress time also contracts. If you reading this are newly in love or remember being newly in love you may recall that time collapsed in on itself. The brand new lovers have “fallen” in love. We don’t say they have “progressed” or moved “forward” in love. No, we fall right back to our childhoods. We leave adult time and descend into that oceanic oneness we experienced in the womb, or at our mother’s breast. When we fall we begin conversations with our loved one at 8 p.m. only to come out of the ecstatic trance at 2 a.m. with one of us saying something like, “Can you believe what time it is? We have been talking for six hours. Where did the time go?”

Same couple ten years later…The wife says to the husband, “Honey, we need to talk.” The husband looks like a surprised or angry deer caught in the headlights, responds spontaneously, “For how long?” “Oh just thirty minutes or so,” she says. “Thirty minutes,” the husband equates to dog years, regresses and says something like, “And I suppose you want me to listen the whole time.”

Question: When do you fall back into "child time"?

In Lesson 46 we will explore how "disproportional reactions" are almost always a sign regression is happening and rage may be coming.

For more information go to johnleebooks.com and read The Anger Solution: The Proven Method for Attaining Calm and Developing Healthy, Long-Lasting Relationships, Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately, The Missing Peace--all available on Amazon.com.

"Child Time" as a Sign of Regression and Rage--Lesson 44

A four year old says to their mom or dad, “When are we going to go see grandma?” The look of excitement and expectation turns into desperation when the parent replies, “In two weeks.” Two weeks is an eternity for children. You may recall how summers lasted forever and Christmas never came.

That four year old, forty years later goes to the doctor on Monday because of some condition that produces concern and anxiety. The doctor speeds in, checks them over and on his way out says, “We’ll have these tests back on Friday and try not to worry.” Monday to Friday feels how long? Like an eternity. It is almost exactly the same feeling that children have because the adult has regressed and is back in Child Time, which is full of worse case stories.

When men and women regress, time gets weird. Regression leads to time being compressed or expanded where time is more dreamlike. Minutes feel like hours, hours feel like days, days seem like months and months, well months can be decades. But the good news is once you know this to be a sign of regression you catch it and bring time back to its normal feel and thus reduce anxiety and fear.

Question: Do you remember the last time an hour seemed like a day, a day seemed like a week and you were anxious, small, little, angry, maybe even raging?

In Lesson 45 we will continue to explore the phenomenon of "child time".
For more information go to johnleebooks.com and read The Anger Solution: The Proven Method for Attaining Calm and Developing Healthy, Long-Lasting Relationships, Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately, The Missing Peace--all available on Amazon.com.

Story Time Part 3 A Sign of Regression and Rage--Lesson 43

Cheri is a stay at home mother. Twice divorced she has trouble trusting her current husband. Her first husband died in a car crash and her second one cheated on her with another woman. While she has worked on her anger and grief, she doesn’t quite trust that Thomas, who she says is fine man, will not eventually leave her.
Thomas had to go to Chicago on a business trip. He told her he would be in his hotel no later than 10 and would call her no later than 10:30. Cheri waited by the phone like a teenager waiting for her first crush to call. Ten thirty came—no call, ten thirty-five—still no call. Cheri has had a good deal of therapy so she didn’t regress until 10:40.

“I wanted to know where he was. I bounced between anger, rage, and fear like a tennis ball. I started thinking something bad had happened to him; perhaps a car accident or the plane went down. I couldn’t stop the terrible pictures that flashed through my mind as I waited for him to call. I saw him lying helpless or maybe dead in some ditch somewhere or in an emergency room. I was panicking. Then all of a sudden I pictured him with his secretary who went with him to that meeting and I thought that son-of-a-*&%# better be dead in a ditch because if I catch him with his secretary, I am going to kill him!” she was crying and laughing at the same time as she told me this story.

Question: Do remember the last big, dramatic story you made up about a person or a situation and released a little or lot of anger and rage only to find out you weren't even close?

In Lesson 44 we will look at "Child Time" as a sign of regression and rage.
For more information go to johnleebooks.com and read The Anger Solution: The Proven Method for Attaining Calm and Developing Healthy, Long-Lasting Relationships, Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately, The Missing Peace--all available on Amazon.com.

Story Time Part 2 as Sign of Regression and Rage--Lesson 42

When we regress we almost always create worst case stories. Interestingly, Story Time is a regressed attempt to self soothe, but this attempt backfires and the end result is more anxiety—not less—and deeper regression. These fictitious stories from the regressed mind are a way to calm our fears. Ironically, it is these same stories that increase fear, anger, rage and regression because they are appearing in living color from that part of the brain that is illogical and irrational. These semi-paranoid parables can get quite extreme ranging from the temporary belief that someone is plotting to get you to conspiring to control or even perhaps annihilate you.


Question: What worse case story do you tell yourself way too often?

In Lesson 43 We will continue or look at "story time" as a sign of regression.

For more information go to johnleebooks.com and read The Anger Solution: The Proven Method for Attaining Calm and Developing Healthy, Long-Lasting Relationships, Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately, The Missing Peace--all available on Amazon.com.