E129 Bronwyn Schweigerdt Channeling Out Anger
Let’s Be Well Together Podcast - Episode 129
Date: July 16, 2024
Participants: John Webster, Elise Seifert, Cameron Earnshaw and Sheila Webster
Guest: Bronwyn Schweigerdt
Start Times and Segments:
[0:00:16] What’s On Your Mind: A Martina Navratilova resonates with us: “The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.” We learn so much on the way, and when we don’t win.
[0:08:16] Expanding Minds Interview: [Mental Wellness] We welcome back Bronwyn Schweigerdt, a psychotherapist who helps people reconnect to their anger and heal their relationship with themselves. We often don’t recognize that we have supressed anger – disassociate anger. She helps people to stop letting anger stagnate in their bodies, but to channel it out. Validation is a kind of mirroring. We are blind to ourselves. We need someone to mirror us and say, “You know John, you actually have a good reason for being angry and I don’t blame you one bit.” When you validate, suddenly a person can think, “Oh, it’s okay to feel this.” We can also start to do that for ourselves. We can start to be that mirror for ourselves. When we have a healthy relationship with ourselves, we are attuned to ourselves, we validate our own feelings, we prioritize our feelings and know they are significant and there for a reason. We learn to channel out feelings out in healthy ways, with boundaries and assertiveness. When we do all that, we don’t get depressed. We are true to ourselves.
[0:28:17] Running Popup / Adventures of the Starving Artist: Popup - John likes the expression that running makes him love the feeling of living. On a recent run he realized that he’s living when he’s running. Artist – In one of Cameron’s live performances during a busy stretch, a traffic light was perfectly in synch with a shift in the tempo of the band’s song.
Quotes and Take-Aways:
Bronwyn – We often don’t know we have supressed anger – disassociated anger. I sure didn’t. My mother withheld empathy from me. Internally, I would say little Bronwyn, or inner child Bronwyn, was so angry, but without being consciously aware about how infuriated I felt at the time. I disassociated from that.
Bronwyn – What we say is important. We’re really curating what we say. We filter a lot of things we could be talking about, especially in a therapist’s office. Every word a client says is very meaningful.
Bronwyn – I didn’t feel heard by the first therapist I saw. All she did was listen. A good therapist and a good friend and a good partner is a mirror for us. They can give a true reflection of ourselves back to us. That’s what I do.
Bronwyn – In one experience I realized I betrayed myself to win someone’s approval. Betraying ourselves is a surefire way to end up in a depressive episode.
Bronwyn – When we have a healthy relationship with ourselves we are attuned to ourselves, we validate our own feelings, we prioritize our feelings and know they are significant and there for a reason. We learn to channel feelings out in healthy ways, with boundaries and assertiveness. We stop to train ourselves. When we do all that, we don’t get depressed. We are true to ourselves. That’s better for everyone.
Bronwyn – I help people not to let anger stagnate in our bodies, but to channel it out with real time. For example, I could say, “Hey, that’s not okay. I’m not okay with that.”
Bronwyn – Validation is a kind of mirroring. We are all blind to ourselves. We need someone to mirror us and say, “You know John, you actually have a good reason for being angry and I don’t blame you one bit.” When you validate, suddenly a person can think, “Oh, it’s okay to feel this.” We can also start to do that for ourselves. We can start to be that mirror for ourselves.
Bronwyn – We stop trusting ourselves usually in early childhood, when we have experiences with a parent that makes us second guess ourselves. It’s usually around attachment issues. When I say attachment issues, I mean rejection or abandonment issues. Sometimes parents send signs that they will abandon a child in some way if the child feels anger The child learns to shut off, quash and disassociate from her anger, because anger comes to equal abandonment.
Bronwyn – You don’t need to give in to validate your child’s feelings. Imagine a child who is getting very angry because you won’t let them have a cookie now. You could say, “You’re going to get the cookie later, but I want you to know I see your anger and your feelings matter to me.” I don’t think of it as giving in. There doesn’t need to be a winner and a loser.
Guest Information: Bronwyn Schweigerdt is an evocative psychotherapist with a master's degree in counseling and nutrition. She helps people reconnect to their anger and heal their relationship with themselves. Her goal is to elicit feelings people are ashamed to have. She knows that even though feelings are invisible, they don’t evaporate, but store away in our bodies until processed. According to Bronwyn, these feelings haunt us and cause mental illness until we express them into words with someone who can hear and validate them. She hosts a podcast called Angry At The Right Things, sharing information as a marriage and family therapist.
Bronwyn’s podcast link: Angry At The Right Things
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Thanks for joining us,
(-(-_(-_-)_-)-) Your wellness check-in team
John, Sammy, Cameron, Sheila, Elise, Isabelle, Noura, Julie and Riley