In this podcast, Tricia and I explore how anger can sometimes be a protest—a cry from someone who doesn't feel loved, valued, or respected by the person closest to them. At its core, anger can be a cry for attention: a longing to be treated as someone special and to hold a meaningful place in the life of a loved one. Anger can also arise as an attempt to protect those we care about deeply. We may feel angry when we see a loved one heading toward harm, making choices that could bring pain, or missing out on opportunities to grow. In these moments, anger reflects our desire for them to be safe, successful, and fulfilled. Yet, when anger shows up—whether in ourselves or in others—it's often difficult to recognize the love beneath it. Instead, we may see only hostility or hurtful intent. In this episode, we challenge those negative views and invite our listeners to look deeper, to uncover the positive intentions hidden within anger. Finally, we encourage you to channel anger in more constructive ways: to clarify the loving motivations that fuel it and to express the care and concern that lie beneath.

Welcome to the first episode in our series exploring the many facets of anger. Today, we want to emphasize that anger itself is not bad. It's a natural, healthy emotion designed to enhance our chances of survival. In fact, without anger, we probably wouldn't have made it this far as a species — it helps us protect ourselves and assert boundaries when we're threatened.

Anger's core purpose is to keep us safe and prevent others from harming us. However, when anger becomes excessive or uncontrollable, it can turn destructive.

Many of us carry childhood traumas that shape our perception of others. These past wounds can lead us to interpret people's words or actions as threats, even when none exist. We might make negative assumptions about their intentions and feel a strong urge to defend ourselves against imagined dangers.

At times, we may feel small or powerless, believing we need to yell or lash out to be heard and respected. But instead of resolving conflicts, this often causes pain for others and triggers their anger in return.

When this happens, we can unintentionally create a cycle of negativity that keeps us from building the closeness we desire with the people we care about most.

The concept of the "inner child" typically refers to the part of ourselves that felt unloved and unimportant during childhood. This inner child embodies trauma, pain, and a desire for love and appreciation.

As children, we yearned to feel loved and connected to our caregivers. We sought their approval and often tried hard to please them to earn their love. When we didn't feel important or loved by them, we carried that sense of neglect into adulthood, where we continue seeking love and acceptance.

Even as adults, we continue to pursue love and significance, seeking the nurturing and validation that we lacked as children from our loved ones. This desire to feel loved and treated as we wished to be treated in childhood can complicate our roles as parents. Without realizing it, we may want our children to fulfill our unmet emotional needs. We hope they will obey us and succeed in validating our importance to them. Consequently, when they engage in behaviors we disapprove of, we may interpret these actions as a sign of a lack of love for us.

In this podcast, we aim to raise awareness among parents about the importance of giving rather than receiving. We need to examine our relationship with our children to ensure we aren't expecting them to please us to feel loved. Additionally, we should refrain from punishing them as a means of expressing our feelings of unworthiness or lack of importance.