Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME IF IT TAKES VERY LITTLE TO GET ME RAGING?
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Tracey the therapist joins Ross to discuss how keep your rage from ruining everyone's day. Find out how to talk to the "salty teenager" and other characters that live inside your head.
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
Those hard plastic cases. Oh, maddening. I will and I will say this. I want to meet the person who made this product case. I want to see them. And I want to talk to them about it. Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and my guest today is a therapist and a hero to Small Dogs Everywhere. It's Tracy.
SPEAKER_01Hi!
SPEAKER_00Oh small dogs. Yeah, you like them.
SPEAKER_01I do, I have one. She's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00And welcome everyone. It's been a couple of years since we have recorded some new podcasts, and we're glad to come back to you again. And today's topic is is there something wrong with me if it takes very little to get me raging? You know, we know, Tracy, that being a person in the world right now it can be difficult, frustrating, and you know, there's all the reasons for that, any reasons and all the reasons. For a few of us, though, even the smallest of frustrations can send us into a blind rage. Yeah. And I gotta tell you, yeah, I'm one of those people. I'm an unfortunate soul when it comes to rage. I've always been a rager since I was a little kid.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I was an angry child. There's pictures of me smiling, but they've been photoshopped. No, but I I it's really interesting because I don't rage in real life, but when I'm in a car, I feel enormous amounts of rage. But it's worse than that because that's pretty that's pretty common. Sure. I will yell at inanimate objects in my house.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like a computer. Sure. You know, sure. Furniture.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Why not?
SPEAKER_00Remote controls. Well, for sure. Robot chat agents. I will scream at them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it's funny. Sometimes I'll even laugh at myself because it's so funny. But it's also embarrassing. It's one of my biggest flaws. And I try to do this privately.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Every once in a while I'll forget there might be someone in the house. Oh. Because somebody's around, I won't do it. Sure. I just internalize it. Sure. You know, save it for later.
SPEAKER_01That's super healthy too.
SPEAKER_00I know, I know.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna push it down deep.
SPEAKER_00Just push it down. I'm really good at that. It was uh my best survival mechanism as a kid. Just push it down.
SPEAKER_01Push it down, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00Just suck it up. The house is on fire.
SPEAKER_01Don't pretend nothing's wrong.
SPEAKER_00Eat your dinner and shut up. Lay close to the floor and finish your sandwich. I know when I look around the world right now, I know I'm not alone. No. I've seen lots of rage out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I have to ask: is there something wrong with me if it doesn't take much to get me raging?
SPEAKER_01You know, I mean, it's not going to surprise you that I'm going to be like wrong, no. But interesting, yes.
SPEAKER_02It's very interesting.
SPEAKER_01Very interesting. I mean, rage and anger are, you know, we talk about them being secondary emotions, and that underneath them is usually pain.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And rage, anger, like they're they're drivers. They make us think that we could change something. There's something we could do. They're a driving emotion, whereas pain, grief, sadness, rejection, like those are just you just have to sit with those. And we humans are not so good at the surrendering.
SPEAKER_00What does that mean? Surrendering.
SPEAKER_01So the idea, you know, Buddhism talks about there's the pain and the suffering, and that pain comes our way and there's nothing we can do about it, right? Like stuff happens. Right. People die, people reject us, people do things, horrible things happen in the world, that there's nothing we can do. Somebody cuts you off in the traffic. Yeah. Right? Like that's painful. Things happen. Right. Is there anything we can do about that? Our suffering is our the effort we put into making that thing try to make it different. That we have some power over it.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01So rage, anger, all of that is is an effort to try and control something that's outside of our control.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And so is there something wrong with us? No. That we have anger, that we have rage, that we want to make something different than it is? Absolutely not. And it tells us that we're still learning about what to do with those uncomfortable emotions. And for some of us, you know, anger comes out and rage comes out. I mean, I have the same stuff, right? And there's, you know, sometimes you're like, oh, I don't want to stand in line at the DMV. This should be different.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, for me, if I'm in a long line, let's say it's for coffee. Sure. And I'm watching someone do that thing where they're at the card reader trying to pay, and they're doing that thing where they're looking at their card and then they're looking at their card and they can't make the machine. They're looking and then they're point pushing buttons. And it's like, look, you are not ready to be out yet.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00You have not had adequate training. You should not be pulling out a card. Yes. You know, write a check.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Count out the pennies, but don't stand there looking like you just landed here on a spacecraft.
SPEAKER_01So here's what's so interesting about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You can't hurt those people as much as you want to. I know, as much as you want to.
SPEAKER_01And I want I want to hurt them also. It's wrong. Okay. I feel very stabby with those kinds of people.
SPEAKER_00There are people who are stabby and there are also people who are punchy, but go on.
SPEAKER_01Whatever your version, mine is stabby. Stabby, but the stabby and punchy, but the someone's kicky.
SPEAKER_00You know, there's all kinds of cartoon that we just invented. It's the stabby show. Len and Snippy. Okay, go on.
SPEAKER_01So there's this book called Running on Empty that talks about the experience of childhood emotional neglect.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that when we've been given messages about who we're allowed to be in the world, and then it's inside us. Right. Then when we're standing in that line and that person is allowed to behave that way, they're not supposed to be able to do that. It's a burden to others. They're being a burden to others. They're getting in the way. They're taking too much space and too much time. They shouldn't be able to do that because we weren't allowed to do that as children.
SPEAKER_00Why why do people who are manifestly needy irritate me so much?
SPEAKER_01Oh, well.
SPEAKER_00And then it's Hello childhood. And it sounds like what you just said is like I wasn't allowed to be like that.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, same. I wasn't allowed to be like that either. And so they bother me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01They bother me a lot. Yeah. And if anyone shows up like my mom did in some ways, that is like, you know, taking from me or trying to control me or being confused in the world, or or being needy or weak in my estimation.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01That irritates the living daylight.
SPEAKER_00So when that happens, when that happens to someone when you're like, what you're online and you're watching someone like they've been standing online for 10 minutes and they get up there and now they want to know everything in the in the everything.
SPEAKER_01You were supposed to plan that already.
SPEAKER_00What were you doing? What were you doing all this time? Wait in a coma.
SPEAKER_01Hey there, Dad.
SPEAKER_00Right? When you find yourself doing that, how can you it seems like for me it's a runaway train? How do you interrupt it?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I in an ideal world, right? We have some more awareness and humor. One of my favorite lines for myself and when I'm working with clients is what if this was funny? Right? And I don't mean minimize it or dismiss it, but I mean like if I was watching this on a Netflix show, would I be laughing because it's so relatable? Yes. Right. What if this was funny? What if this wasn't like so? It's it's that like, I know where this comes from. And the more awareness we get of where this comes from, do I always catch this? No.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Like I myself sometimes stand, I'm like, oh, it's so like, and I'm like, oh, oh wow, I'm mad about that. That is really, I don't, I'm not having capacity today to not be ragy and stabby about that. That's so irritating. I'm like, oh wow. I don't allow myself to be a burden on others very much. I really judge myself for that. Sure am judging that person up there for being a burden on all of us. That extra two minutes they're taking is really gonna ruin everyone's day. It's not.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Right. So taking yourself on that into at the journey inside your head can reduce some of the tension.
SPEAKER_01You can still feel it, but you get to be like, oh, I see it. And the other one I do, like, I really like parts work. So parts work, some people it can also be called internal family systems work, which is by a guy named Richard Schwartz. But other people have done this over time, but he marketed it a certain way that's that's helpful. And it's the idea that we have all these parts in us. There's all these parts of us that get developed over time, and they continue to develop over time. And I think of them all being at a boardroom table. And my most evolved self is the chairperson of the board. And that salty teenager who, or that little kid who, right, it's usually a salty teenager who gets really rageful and mad. She is running the meeting, right? She's running that meeting in line. Right. And she's not really qualified to run that meeting.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01But what she does need is my empathy. Like, oh, I understand why you're upset about that. That makes a lot of sense. I see why, yeah, mom would never have allowed you to be that burdensome. Dad, are you kidding me? Dad would never have allowed you to be that burdensome to anyone else. There would have been a lot of emotional punishment. There's always the scared, vulnerable child, there's always the salty teenager, there's some kind of safety person, right? And all of these parts, and you can start identifying what they are. And you can be as complex or as simple about it as you want to. If you look it up and it has a complex framework, that can be useful. Or you can just think about it, like I mentioned before, around being like a boardroom table. And all these parts of us are there. So if it's the salty teenager, you know, I want to be like, yes, I see you. Hey, here's a snack and a soda. Hang on, watch. I've got this. If it's the child, the scared child, then it's like, hey, honey, here's a snack and a blanket.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I see you. I've got it. Watch, I'm an adult. You can actually trust in the room. And they're like, I don't know about that. You're like, look, we've actually grown into the adult. We can trust in the room.
SPEAKER_00That's really interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So that parts work piece, ideally, we're not doing that when we're in line. We've done that work prior to getting in line, like in our life regularly, we're like having awareness about that when we're not like on stage in line.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, that we've done the reps beforehand and that we can catch it. And when we feel it coming, we're like, oh, I know that feel oh, hey there, salty teenager. But does it come from childhood emotional neglect, it comes from the messaging we were given around what feelings we're allowed to have. We're certainly not allowed to be needy or confused or take up someone's time or not have planned ahead of time.
SPEAKER_00So for my road rage, I've tried this strategy. Yeah. Well, I don't know what you think about it. Instead of going out on the road expecting things to go well, I say, I wonder if today's the day where on this trip from A to B, will I see five weird things?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00I hope I do. I think that's I want today to be the record. And so when someone cuts me off, like there's one, driving really, really slow, and then when they get to the light, and then it starts turning, then they floor it and leaving me sucking on a red light.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Or the person who in a long line of cars sees some goob come up from a parking lot. It's like, oh, I gotta let them in and be nice. And there's dirty cars behind me who want to kill me right now. Okay. Right. So instead of being really mad about that, I say, Oh, good, there's another one.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And then sometimes I'll even say, and if I get to five, then I get one million dollars.
SPEAKER_01I think that's great. Here's here's what I hear you doing in there. That's something I recommend for others and think of for myself. So when I think of there's just these neural pathway superhighways in our brain, right? I think of them as like the super smooth eight-lane highway that, you know, when this when this switch gets flipped, we hop on that highway, right? And we're off to Ragetown. And what I think of that you just did was you slowed things down and said, Hey, there's an off ramp here. And I'm gonna anticipate uh ahead of time and be like, oh, actually, we're not gonna get on the six-lane highway, we're gonna take this off ramp.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So you you anticipated that you were like, hey, the exit's coming up, let's let's go there instead of staying and going straight. You you played with your own uh brain science, which is brilliant. And then I think, right, the more we practice that, when we do it just on the fly, we have a hard time not just staying on this super highway. Right. But when you plan ahead for it, it's kind of like being like, let's make sure we look for exit 14 when we're still at exit one, right? Let's keep an eye out for that, right? Because we're gonna go there instead of this other place we usually go. So you made it conscious instead of unconscious.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's interesting. It it doesn't always work well. It always works when I make that clear before I start driving. Yes. I can't I don't think of it if I haven't if I'm in the middle of it, it's too late. I have to plan to do it.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Another thing that that I've heard people advise that I've actually used in different contexts, but I want to know what you think about it, is to, without having anything else, no interventions, no reps, but to have this one thought is that when you feel the rage coming, yeah, to s in your inside in your head, you say, Wow, I noticed that I'm feeling angry as hell right now.
SPEAKER_01Yep. You just made it conscious versus unconscious, and now you're witnessing yourself and you're being curious about it.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01You're labeling it, right? You're allowing it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you know, you're not telling yourself you can't have it.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01That changes things.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Another one, I I know this person who said this one time, and for me it was sort of eye-opening. When when someone it's always someone else is pissing me off. Of course. So when someone is just acting in a way that I find just completely annoying, yeah. You know, they're being petulant, they're being selfish, they're being rude, whatever they're doing, yeah, or whatever I perceive them doing, if you think of them as they have are struggling so much, they can't even do their day. Yeah. They can't even be out in public without just melting down or creating issues or being angry. And when they said that, I go, oh yeah, because it's this expectation that people are going to be perfect like me. Right. They're gonna handle their business like me, right, and they're not handling their business, and that makes me so mad. But to look at them as, hey, they must be really selfish. Empathy.
SPEAKER_01You're using empathy.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's what it is.
SPEAKER_01That's called empathy. Yeah, you're tapping into empathy. And the other thing you're doing there is going back to that idea of you know, the family stuff that was passed down, like you're being rude, you're being petulant, you're being these selfish, you're being the you're not allowed to do that.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01So those people aren't allowed to do that.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01You just gave yourself and them permission to actually do that.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you had empathy for someone doing that like you needed as a kid.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's really powerful. You're gonna make me cry right now. But I'm gonna do it on the inside. That's what I do. I'm gonna keep it all on the inside. So, some psychologists, you've heard of these people, they say that this low tolerance for frustration, these rage reactions can have genetic or physiological causes. Some children are born more irritable, touchy, touchy, and easily angered. So those are the brats, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Or the kids with sensory processing difficulties.
SPEAKER_00Right. And these signs are present from a very early age. It can be, yeah. Anger is often regarded as a negative. We're taught that we're supposed to suck it up. We never learn how to handle it constructively. And then some research says that people who are easily angered come from families that are disruptive, chaotic, dysfunctional, and they, as a consequence, are not skilled at emotional communication.
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, I think a lot of that can be true. I mean, I think, you know, when we look at temperament of kids, you know, there are babies that are harder to soothe than others.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And then those parents who are trying to soothe those babies feel less successful and more frustrated with their parenting, which then interrupts those babies' ability to soothe more, right? And all of that goes on.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And sometimes that's for all kinds of reasons. Those babies have medical stuff going on that hasn't been identified, or they have sensory processing issues that make it harder for them to soothe. There's all kinds of those things. And then that gets a story that gets told about them that that's their temperament.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And then a lot of times parents just aren't very skilled at understanding emotion coaching for kids. And so then they're frustrated, and then they never got that, and then they have their own messaging around children aren't supposed to act this way because I wasn't allowed to act this way. So I need to make my child not act this way. Right. Right. There's all of that. And then anger is modeled, and kids aren't given tools for managing it. Also, you know, the movie Inside Out, like we put the comfortable emotions up on a pedestal, and we say the uncomfortable emotions are bad.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Whereas they're all just emotions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so, of course, we feel angry and we feel jealous and we feel rejected and we feel all envy and we feel all those things, just like we feel joy and happiness. And so then we give all kinds of messages around we're not allowed to have those feelings. And then there are families where it is chaotic, and people have impulse control issues or substance abuse issues or entitlement that has them control others and there's domestic abuse going on. Like there's all kinds of those things, and then those kids aren't given those tools. Society also models not great things around emotions.
SPEAKER_00And we're still there, like we haven't made that, we're still dealing with the same stuff. Even modern parents today who are trying very hard to be great parents and give their kids a great life.
SPEAKER_01But the problem, I think, is the pendulum has swung so far that what I say to parents a lot is one of our biggest jobs as parents is to help children learn to tolerate discomfort.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And we don't. We try and soothe them so much, we try and make them happy, we try and like we don't, oh, we don't want them crying, we don't want them unhappy, we don't them want them anxious, we don't want them all these things, as opposed to let me give them tools for tolerating these things and working through them and understanding them so that when they feel angry, they get to do what you've been practicing. Like, oh, yeah, I'm pretty angry right now. Oh, let me be curious about that. Where's that coming from? What does that mean? What am I trying to control? Oh man, look at me trying to, oh yeah, that's from my dad. And now I'm passing that on to the guy in front of me in the coffee line. Oh, what if that was funny? Look at me, right? Like having that internal dialogue to be curious about our own emotions as opposed to judging them.
SPEAKER_00Almost as soon as I notice what I'm doing, whether I yeah, I laugh at myself. Because sometimes at least half the time, the thing that makes me mad and rage out will also make me laugh.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00It just depends on how which switch I throw, you know? It's like which which button gets pressed today. And is it the fun? And just, you know, I will drop a glass in my house by myself, shatters all over the floor, and my reaction is right. Guess I'm not drinking that glas out of that glass. Right. And it's funny. Yes. And then that same thing can happen, and I can yell at all the shards of the glass like they're all of my dysfunctional children.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00So, so, but it it's like what I like about this is that just noticing what's going on gives you a chance, a fighting chance. A chance.
SPEAKER_01It slows things down.
SPEAKER_00Stop that volcano.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because it in my case, it really is. It goes there so fast and it's so comical. It's silly.
SPEAKER_01It yeah.
SPEAKER_00It reminds you said, you know, like we would watch it on a show and it would be funny. And there was a show Curb Your Enthusiasm by Larry David. And there's one scene that I just thought was so funny and accurate for me, where he's trying to open a hard, he's trying to get something out of one of those hard plastic cases. Yes. And he's stabbing it with a chef's knife, and he's screaming, ah, you know, and it's just so ridiculous. The behavior's so ridiculous and funny, but it was also like, I could have acted as so relatable. Oh, this those hard plastic cases. Oh, maddening. I will, and I will say this. I want to meet the person who made this product case. I want to see them. And I want to talk to them about it. And I'm just like, what is happening? It's so silly. Well, this has been very helpful. I appreciate the free therapy. Plus, I think it is relatable to so many people, especially right now where everyone seems to be on their last nerve. So thanks, Tracy, very much for being here and bringing your considered wisdom and experience to this age-old question. And thank you, everyone, for listening. Please contact us via email. The email is in the show notes. Find us on Instagram. We love hearing from you. And we hope you will tune in to another episode. Because whether you're cruising down the neural super highway or just watching another episode of Stabby versus Punchy, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody.
SPEAKER_02Bye.
SPEAKER_00Whether you are cruising down the neural superhighway. No, that's not what you said. Neural pathway superhighway. Is it the neural pathway superhighway or just neural superhighway?
SPEAKER_01You can choose either one.
SPEAKER_00And