All About The Joy
All About The Joy is a weekly hang-out with friends in the neighborhood! We share insight, advice, funny-isms and we choose to always try and find the positive, the silver lining, the "light" in all of it. AATJ comes from the simple concept that at the end of the day we all want to have more JOY than not. So, this is a cool place to unwind, have a laugh and share some time with friends!
All About The Joy
The Anger Myth & Mind-Blowing Happiness: Trish Ahjel Roberts on Leading with Joy
What if happiness isn’t a mood spike but a skill you can train? We sit with author and coach Trish Ahjel Roberts to explore how transformational leadership, nervous system tools, and a new relationship with anger can change how you work, lead, and live. Trish shares her path from two decades in corporate America to founding Mind Blowing Happiness, and we dig into why so many organizations still run on a military model - uniforms, top‑down orders, and performative input - and how that breeds quiet quitting, burnout, and disengagement. The alternative is both practical and human: lead with authenticity, empathy, and joy.
We break down the five foundations Trish teaches: healing, spirituality, community, self‑love and authenticity, and transforming anger - and map them to everyday situations at work and at home. Yoga shows up here not as a performance sport but as a set of tools for regulation: breath, posture, and attention that shift your emotional state in minutes. From there, we go deep on The Anger Myth: anger as a mental habit, its “cranky cousins” like frustration and resentment, and a simple A.N.G.E.R. method to acknowledge, breathe, imagine, act wisely, and recognize your success. You’ll hear real talk on boundaries, honest feedback without cruelty, and why anger often feeds us bad intel that leads to worse decisions.
If you’ve been craving a more humane way to lead teams, navigate conflict, and feel like yourself at work, this conversation delivers clear language and actionable steps. Take the Anger Myth quiz at mindblowinghappiness.com, pick up the book, and try the A.N.G.E.R. method the next time you feel that familiar spark. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend who leads people, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth
DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.
Hi everyone, welcome to All About the Joy. This is the private lounge, and in the house we have just Cynthia. Cynthia, you took off your just Cynthia. I did, I did. And our guest, we are so grateful to have Trish Agel Roberts in the house. Um, you are the founder and CEO of Mind Blowing Happiness, and we're gonna get into why you called it that in a minute. But I also want to say you also you are also the author of three amazing books who are backed by, I mean, I can't believe how many I read all the comments. I was so 12 steps to mind blowing happiness, um, which was endorsed by Jack Canfield and Ianla van Sant, and I know her from the Oprah show. That's where I remember her from. I'm like, go ahead, girl. Uh thinking outside the Chrysalis, Chrysalis. Chrysalis, thank you. And your most recent book is The Anger Myth, which is critically acclaimed and was just released internationally in 2024. So um you spent 20 years in corporate America and then left. And I wanted to find out why and how you came, just get a little background on who you are before we pepper you with every other question. Welcome to the show.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. So, you know, I grew up, my my parents are from the Caribbean, and I grew up in Brooklyn. And uh I really grew up with this idea that you could kind of be like a doctor, a lawyer, or a business person. So I didn't think that I had a whole lot of options when I went into corporate. And um, you know, I had some great experiences. I worked as an account executive, account manager for many years in telecom. I was a financial advisor for many years, but I always felt like I was only bringing a small portion of myself to the table, and I was only using a small portion of my talents and my capabilities. And, you know, if you have spiritual beliefs at all, you know that um sometimes spirit or God or whatever you call that will kind of guide you, sometimes in ways that you don't love. Okay. I was kind of ushered along a path where I was able to step away from corporate and start my own business. And it's been almost seven years now.
Carmen Lezeth:So I've um yeah, can you um def well I read that it was trans transformational leadership? Can you explain a little bit of what that means for people like me who didn't really understand what that meant? I mean, I kind of couched it under life coach, and I think that's not doing it a good service. So could you explain what it is that you actually do to our audience?
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Yeah, so I run a personal and professional development company, which is called Mind Blowing Happiness. So I work with organizations and um also corporations as a speaker, bringing programs for their leadership, um, so that you can learn to lead authentically, learn, learn to lead with empathy, lead with joy. Most of our corporate models are based on a military model, which a lot of people don't realize. So yeah, so you show up in uniform, right? Right, at least it's gonna go. Do we have our guns or something? I'm so good. You show up in a in a uniform, you know, the dark suit or conservative or whatever. And there is a model where you know the CEO tells everybody what to do through the ranks. And many times um you can't question authority, you're kind of a soldier, you're following directions, and it works until it doesn't work. You know, what we found is that many people are quiet quitting, you know, they're doing other things on the side, they're not really happy with the structure where, you know, you might be sitting in a meeting, somebody asks your opinion, but you know that they really don't want your opinion. You can't really speak up and say. So um transforming leadership has to do with being able to have authenticity as leaders. Um, it's not only for corporations or organizations. I think most of us are leaders, you know, whether we're leading in our families or we're leading in communities or we're entrepreneurs like me. Maybe we are leading in corporations as executives. Anytime we have somebody looking up to us, we're leaders, whether whether we want to be or not. So there's there's a lot of really good, empowering work that's there for the individual to come more into themselves and more into their own um authenticity and sovereignty, and then also to create space for the people who look up to us, whether they're at work or in our families, to come into themselves as well.
Carmen Lezeth:Cynthia, do you want to jump in or go ahead?
Cynthia:Yeah, yeah. Actually, um, so I was reading, you know, the website and everything, and it says that you also teach yoga. I do. Did you start with yoga? Like, did you how did that come about in the office?
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Yeah, if you went on my website, you probably saw a lot of things because I I actually do a lot of things. I I like to feel like it all comes under this umbrella of people becoming better and growing, you know. But yoga, the first time I took a yoga class, I was pregnant with my daughter in 2000. Um, and I remember at the time thinking, yeah, okay, yeah, this is whatever. I I just didn't think it was a big deal. Um, and then years later, I got into running. And then I kind of circled back to my yoga because you know, running makes you tight, and they say, Oh, yoga will stretch you out. So I was approaching it more from just the exercise standpoint. But what I realized when I started practicing yoga regularly is that when you change the position of your body, it changes your emotions. So if you've ever, yeah, so if you've ever seen um people prostrate, you know, we see this often in the um is in Islam in Muslim things. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 04:Yeah.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Oh so that is also a yoga pose called child's pose. So it just gives you an idea that that is a posture for surrender, for grounding, for prayer. Um, and they're just there are just so many poses where I would notice, ah, when I change the position of my body, I change my emotions. So that was kind of my my first aha with yoga. And then I just started practicing more. Um, many people don't understand that there are what they call eight limbs to yoga, so it's the philosophy as well as the practice, and then meditation, and then breath work and concentration. So there's so many elements to it. It's not a religion, but it is a beautiful uh way of becoming more embodied, you know, more understanding your own physical body as well as your spiritual self.
Cynthia:So it's kind of funny because um, like during COVID, I work at the hospital. So during COVID, they had little um mini seminars like during lunchtime where you can do chair yoga for like 10 minutes. And a lot of it was breathing techniques, and it did help, you know, calm me down or just kind of be aware of my space and things like that. And when I was telling Carmen about it, she's like, I don't like yoga. I said, No, yoga can only be like 10 minutes if you want. She's like, Really? So I thought it was really cool that they actually incorporated that to kind of help the employees, too.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Yeah, and I'm glad you said that too, because I've had so many people who are like, I don't like yoga, but you might have one experience with one type of yoga. So even the physical practice of yoga, there's all different types of physical practices. So there are things like chair yoga, there's of course power yoga, you could stand on your head. That's usually what scares people. But there but there's slower types of yoga. What they call yin, where you hold postures for like three to five minutes. There's restorative yoga, which is almost like lounging in your easy chair, but it really calms your nervous system. And then there's what they call yoga nitra, which is like yogic sleep. It's like a little bit of a meditation visualization type thing. So there's so many different kinds of ways to access that.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, I'm still not a fan. Yeah. I mean, I think there's more to it than that. Like, I mean, you know, I grew up as a dancer and as a performer, and we did a lot of Pilates. And so I think there's also just kind of the contrast where it was just for exercise. I think my issue with yoga when I think about it exercise-wise, it's it doesn't work for me, right? But I do get the meditative part of it. I just don't do it in yoga. I I do it, I write in my journal every day, right? That becomes my meditative space. And so thank you for making me look bad to our guests, Cynthia. Yeah, but I've got I I've just never I've tried every single kind of yoga. Um, because I I really thought the hot yoga would be the thing that I would really get into. It just never worked for me. And I think that's okay too. I think everyone can have their own. And maybe one day you'll take a class with me. And then maybe I'll win.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Cynthia gonna take it too now. Yes, sure. I'm teaching in Costa Rica in January. Are you really?
Speaker 04:Oh well.
Carmen Lezeth:I think I think we have to make a trip, Carmen. All of a sudden, I'm like, it's all about, you know, I'm trying to be more like all into it. Um, let's talk about mind-blowing happiness. Where did that great name of your company come from?
Trish Ahjel Roberts:So, how did this start? Okay, so I guess maybe around 2018, 2019, I had been studying uh Buddhist philosophy for years, and I had been studying yoga for years, and I had learned so much, you know, going through things I've been through in my life. And I remember one night I got up, it was like three o'clock in the morning, and these 10 ideas came to me, and I had to write them down. So I wrote them down, I went back to bed. The next day I looked at them, I added two more, and I said, Oh, I've got to teach this. So I was writing um what I thought was gonna be like a little booklet for a retreat that I was putting together. And I was really obsessed at the time with the idea of the butterfly because I was transitioning from like corporate life into like really feeling like I could be myself. So I titled the book, Thinking Outside the Chrysalis. And then I realized nobody knows what a chrysalis is. I don't know what a chrysalis is, so I didn't know how to say it. Yeah, nobody knows what it is, nobody can pronounce it. I feel better now. I feel better. So the feedback that I got was really great. You know, my readers were like, oh my gosh, these concepts are amazing. We'd like something like another book that's more like a journaling book that we can work with. And I thought, okay, great, but I got to do something about this chrysalis thing. I kept talking about self-actualization. Okay. And I realized nobody knew what I was talking about with that either, Carmen.
Carmen Lezeth:I do know that. That one I do know. That one I do know, right?
Trish Ahjel Roberts:But but the masses don't necessarily know what that means. So I was thinking, okay, how can I describe the concept of self-actualization, which is basically, you know, reaching your fullest potential, right?
Carmen Lezeth:Right.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Um, how could I incorporate that into another word? And I didn't want to say happiness because happiness seems so fleeting. You know, it's like I have a nice cup of coffee, I'm happy. I take a walk in the park, I'm happy. I have a good day, I'm happy, you know. So I wanted to find the word that would make that really ignite. And I went from mind blowing. Yeah. I love that. And I like mind blowing, it's a little sexy. And who doesn't want their life to be a little sexy, right? This is this ain't no regular happiness. You know, this is mind-blowing happiness. And that's where that's where that came from.
Carmen Lezeth:I love that you just talked about happiness in the same way that I think about happiness. Um, right, Cynthia, you it's verbatim what I say about happiness and joy. And so for me, joy is innate. Joy is something we actually can control, um, and that we can learn to, anyways, not about me, but I'm just saying I love that's exactly I always say I eat a piece of chocolate cake, I'm happy. I get a bonus at work, I'm happy. You know, um, that's sustain it.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Um I'm sorry? No, I said, but how do you sustain it, right? How do you maintain that feeling? And that's what you do all day, right?
Carmen Lezeth:Right. And that's what you do. You help people gain that ability to do that, right? Through all of the different um avenues that you work as. So you're a okay, you're a black woman, a Buddhist, a coach, a strategist. Um, how do those identities inform your work, right? How do you use all of those pieces to help, let's say, a group of a team of like five people in an office? Can you give us kind of a tangible thing that you would do with that group?
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Yeah, so when I work with organizations, typically we will create something that's designed to meet their needs. Um, I can say that my signature talk is Unlocking the Secrets to Mind-blowing happiness, which starts with the five kind of essential or foundational ingredients. So it's the first five steps in the book, right? The first one, you know, and a lot of times these things don't come into the office. Like the first step is healing. 70% of workers who are in corporate spaces have some trauma that is unhealed, right? So that's what the data is looking like. It's not something that's someplace else, right? And those things show up. They show up in the way that communication may take place at work, whether people are able to take critique or feedback, you know. Um, so it shows up in a lot of spaces, but the healing is the first one. And sometimes, you know, you're not gonna get healed at work just because I came up to talk to you for 45 minutes. But what happens is that the the awareness opens up. Yeah, you know, the realization that you're not alone. Everybody's had some form of trauma, whether it's you know, trauma with the big T or trauma with the little T. Um, but once you have that awareness, even for the organization, then it can be something that more attention can be given to, right? So um healing is first. The second one is spirituality, which is another thing that at work everybody um kind of pretends that we're these robots in business suits. Right, you know, and then at the end of the day, you go home feeling really depleted because nobody is really seeing or connecting with you, maybe the way that you want to be connected with. So, whatever your belief system is, we can look at data and understand that we have a physical body that we can see and touch, and we also have a non-physical body that now we can measure with equipment. You know, we can see not only heat, but also electromagnetic signals that come from our bodies. We have a field, an aura, right, around us. So these things exist, they're not arguable. Well, you could argue, but you'd be wrong, right? Right, you know. So the second step is understanding that there is a spiritual self. People are walking around sad, lonely, bumping into things, angry, yelling at the people around them, in part because they don't understand that they have a spiritual self. They may think that they are inherently bad or there's nothing inside them worth unearthing or acknowledging, right? So those are kind of the foundational. And then the the next uh step goes into community. We need community, we need to have a sense of community, whether it's the places that we work or communities that we build outside of our organization or team building, you know, that we may set up as leaders within an organization. Um, so those those are the first three. I could go on, but I don't want to. No, I know.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm I'm so sorry, I'm like fascinated, right? That's why I'm not saying a word.
Speaker 04:I'm like, really, really?
Carmen Lezeth:Because I'm thinking you could come to one of our clients' offices and have a conversation with some people. But you must you must work with people, and then it's a it's not a one-day event, it must be a long-term thing to get into all of that stuffage. So for respectfully, that's just my word. I'm sorry.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:No, look, I told you, I love this stuff. I could be here all day, I could be here all day with the stuffage and all the things.
Carmen Lezeth:So, but yeah, so if I do, if did I insult you, I didn't mean to be insulting. No, no, no, not at all. I'm I'm loving it. Oh, okay, but that's deep. Look at Synthia's like, you insulted her.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:No, no, no.
Carmen Lezeth:No, listen, I'm changing energy. I love made-up words. So just that's I that's one I have like seven of them. That's one of them stuffing. And it is deep. It is deep. It is deep stuff. And I I'm thinking about I am thinking about the offices I work for, and I'm like, wow, I don't do any of that. Yeah, I I I probably need it myself, you know what I mean, as you're speaking.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:So yeah, I mean, it's so needed. So many people are unhappy. If you ask most people if they are happy, for the first thing they're gonna ask you is, well, what do you mean by that? What does that mean? You know, and they might even be suspicious, like, what are you trying to do? What are you trying to say to me? You know, so the the need is definitely there, but to your point, yes, it's I can go in and I can do a talk for 45 minutes and leave. And people might say, Oh, that was really interesting. Let me grab a copy of her book, or we'll leave behind a copy of the book. This one um is a it's a journaling book, so it has 12 steps, five prompts per step. You could work through it all year.
Carmen Lezeth:And this is the mind-blowing happiness book because we have the audio as well. So I want to make sure that people realize that you were holding up that book.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Oh, yes, yes. That was 12 steps to mind blowing happiness that I that I was showing you. So for like a single talk, it could be something like that. But if I were going into an organization to do some work, typically it would be a workshop and then either some group coaching calls, you know, that would be on Zoom for maybe three months or some period of time that we agree on to give the opportunity for me to teach more and for people to get their questions answered, you know. Um, but yeah, it's it's um that's like my life's work right there. You know, I think that if each of us were even like 20% better, like if we just felt maybe 20% better about ourselves, so we could be maybe 20% more authentic and maybe show up with confidence, 20% more, you know. Like we're not gonna be whole new brand people or brand new people, but if we could just get a little bit more, um my pet peeve is that we have a lot of um people who are emotionally not intelligent, without great intentions, who have large platforms and big voices, and even a lot of followers, right? So these malintentioned folks are making a lot of noise and doing a lot of things, and then we have very lovely, nice people who are at home gardening and they will not share their opinion or speak up, you know.
Carmen Lezeth:So can you talk a little bit about what emotional intelligence is? Because I don't think I don't think a lot of people understand what emotional intelligence is. I'm so sorry.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:No, no, no. So uh so emotional intelligence deals with things like self-awareness. So, do you know how you feel? Do you have the words? Like there is a chart, I can't think of the name of the chart, but there's a chart with all the words for all your feelings. So, can you even verbalize your own emotions? Can you uh develop self-awareness so you're aware not only of how you feel, but how the way that you behave impacts other people? So developing some of that language and some of that self-awareness is really the root of what emotional intelligence is. Right. I love it. Go ahead, Cynthia.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm sorry.
Cynthia:So I actually took your angry myth quiz online and it came out 50%. And I was like, um, okay, I'm 50-50.
Carmen Lezeth:So can you explain what what that is? I know it's your third book and it's the book that's currently out. It came out in 2024 internationally, but can you explain first what the book is and then answer Cynthia's question? Again, audio. I'm always like I'm the producer over here. Yes, yes, yes. Go ahead, go ahead.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:So I started off talking about the foundational concepts for um unlocking the secrets of my willing happiness, right? So we talked about um healing, we talked about spirituality, and then we talked about community. The fourth step is self-love and authenticity, and I touched on that a little bit. The fifth step is transforming anger. So it's really about peacefulness, learning to transform your anger into either calm, you feel fine, nothing's bothering you, or constructive action, not violence, right? An action that is gonna be constructive. It's the kind that we've thought through, right? Right, right. So I used to do a lot of interviews on uh the book 12 steps of mind-blowing happiness, and people would say, Well, you know, we don't have time for 12 steps. It's like what you were saying, Carmen. This is a lot of work. What is the one thing that I can do to be more joyful? And if I had to choose one, it is the anger, it's this idea around anger. So that's why the book that I wrote most recently is the anger myth. And the subtitle is understanding and overcoming the mental habits that steal your joy. It wasn't until I started studying Buddhism that I started to understand that anger is a mental habit. It's a habit, you know. I didn't know that I didn't have to be angry when people did things that I did not like. You know, that was kind of like the only way that I knew to react to something was to be angry. But when you think about it, you know, if you've ever been around small children, like two-year-olds, you know, if you do something they don't like, maybe you take away their toy, you tell them no, whatever it is, they'll like let loose, you know, fall on the ground, scream, cry, whatever. As we get older, well, we can't really get away with that, but we'll still do like the grown-up version of it. You know, I'm not speaking to you anymore, or maybe I'm screaming at you, but in some kind of way, acting out and never, you know, we don't really learn how to process it. So the book teaches you how to process it, um, but it also brings attention to subtle versions of anger that we don't recognize as anger. Um, so in the book I call them anger seven cranky cousins, and they are um disappointment, annoyance, okay, frustration, jealousy, impatience, guilt, which is really self-directed, and then resentment, which is just you know, anger extended over a long period of time. Because sometimes we get stuck in the disorder.
Carmen Lezeth:Angry cousin, okay, cousins of anger. I just got it. I'm like, what? Just like cousin. What am I talking about? I'm so sorry. I hey, if I'm thinking that way, there might be other people who are losing. Oh, sure.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Like, why do cousins get involved with this? No, no, I totally get it. So when I first started saying Buddhism, and they um, you know, shared kind of this philosophy around what anger is, and then I understood that there are subtle versions, you know, like we don't necessarily go from zero to a thousand. We'll be on this low simmer. And you probably know people like this who are like just simmering, they're maybe complaining a lot, they're always just a little cranky, nothing really maybe makes them happy, you know. Okay.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm just fixing my hair. I'm not pointing at you, Cynthia, at all.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:And it's like we think that, you know, like I'm driving someplace and I'm stuck in traffic, and I'm thinking, you know, I'm too good for this traffic. Don't they know that I'm coming through? You know what I mean? It's like and it but it seems normal to us, right? Until you realize how ridiculous you're being. But you have to pause and kind of think about it and work through it. Like, well, you know, everybody else is in this traffic too. They all have places to go too. I can't be the most important person on the road right now, right?
Carmen Lezeth:So, um so are you saying anger? We shouldn't. I mean, just to be clear, because I want to I haven't read the book yet. I did just order it. Did I just order it? I will be ordering the angry myth. Well, I don't want to.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:The anger myth.
Carmen Lezeth:The anger myth. Okay. Are you saying that it's not okay to be angry? Or that you don't get angry at all?
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Or I'm just curious. I'm glad you asked this. No, this is a perfect question. Because it's not that it's not okay to be angry. Being angry, disappointed, frustrated, jealous, all those things are normal emotions, right? So it's fine to feel your emotions. And the the first step in the what I call the five-step tame and reframe approach to process your anger is to acknowledge it, right? So whatever you're feeling, you want to acknowledge it. The thing is, you don't want to live in it. Some people are living in it, they're living in the jealousy, they're living in the frustration, they're living in whatever variations of anger they're experiencing, and it's hurting them. Like, look, I'm gonna pick on Cynthia.
Carmen Lezeth:I think that would be helpful. Go right ahead.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:So if Cynthia is angry all day long, it doesn't affect me. It's that you know, it's only affecting her, even if somebody did something terrible to her, like a deep, deep betrayal, right? And she's angry all year. Every day she wakes up angry over this betrayal. And listen, I've probably been there, so don't think you know, we've been through stuff. But say every day I wake up, I'm so angry over this betrayal. After a while, the reality is the person who betrayed me is sleeping in their bed having a great time. You know, I'm the one who's dealing with this fire in my chest, in my belly that will literally, or I shouldn't say will, but can literally make you physically ill.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, absolutely.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Can give you um mental health issues as well, right? And it's not fun, you know, it's keeping you from having the relationships you want to have with other people, with yourself, you know, from doing things that you like to do, you know, just just from having a joyful life. So it's not that it's not okay to be angry and feel your emotions. It's just as we we talk about things like self-awareness, you know, you want to say to yourself, well, how long do I want to be in this uh uh space that doesn't serve me, that doesn't benefit me.
Carmen Lezeth:So when Cynthia took the quiz and she said it was 50%, what does that mean?
Trish Ahjel Roberts:That means that she's she's um I want to say she's healthy, but she has some work to do. It makes me think that the material is probably a little new for her, you know, which it is for most people, right? This this idea that we have options, that we don't have to be angry. I know it was new for me, but I thought that like I told you, I thought that if somebody did something I didn't like, that that was what I should be feeling. And I didn't realize that it hurt me.
Cynthia:I mean honestly, I think sorry, um, I think if I would have taken this test maybe like five, six years ago, I probably would have been at like 75% because I did, you know, have anger issues and things like that that I have worked on. So now that it's at 50%, I feel a lot better about myself that it I'm working on myself and you know. It's it's getting there.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Yes, yes, yes. No, fifty is not bad. You know, most people are not going to like score really well because for most folks it's a different way of understanding um what anger is and how it works. Right.
Carmen Lezeth:Like you can want people to be able to access uh the quiz so they could go visit your website at is it it's mindblowinghappiness.com. Yeah. And they can find the quiz there um as well as so much more information. You also have a podcast as well. Um, do you do that podcast just monthly, though? We're on a little hiatus for the podcast right now, but when I do it, I do it monthly. Still, I listened to two of them. It was such it was you have some guests on there, and it's just a wealth of information. So it's mindblowinghappiness.com. Uh please go visit the website and get the quiz if you'd like to score better than Cynthia.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Don't pick on Cynthia. I love that you went on the quiz. And I will say as well, that is self-awareness, right? That is the willingness to do a self-assessment, to look at yourself, to learn, because most people won't do that. I like you, Cynthia. Don't worry.
Carmen Lezeth:Okay, well, it was nice having you on the show. Um, I think one of the things I I'm not most proud of, but I think I deal with anger pretty quickly. And Cynthia, you could you could say I don't or whatever, but I get angry, I get mad, I tell people, and then I'm done. And and I move through it. And I think it's I have issues too, and I'm gonna take the quiz and see where I score. But I think one of the things that I have always found interesting about being angry is that people really hold it in. Like they don't want to admit that they're angry. I'm so glad you said that.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Yeah, I'm glad you said that. Because that's because you know, I think that with my work, people do get confused and they think that it's about repressing, so that you're like, well, somebody does something ridiculous, and you're like, oh, that didn't bother me at all. I'm just fine. I'm just fine. And that's why you're biting your tongue. That's not what it is, you know. Um, or they may feel like they can't defend themselves, like if somebody is verbally attacking you, I can verbally attack you and keep my nervous system calm because I'm pretty good at this, you know what I'm saying? But yeah, so don't but but that takes practice, right? Um, but yes, it doesn't mean that I only speak flowery words all the time, or that you can come and say whatever you want to me, or that I don't have boundaries, or that I won't even physically defend myself if I need to. So you can do all the things that you need to do. It has more to do with um what's going on internally. And actually, I can take you guys through the five steps so you understand. Um, that'd be great. Okay. So, and I love this because it um I use the acronym anger, so it'll actually spell anger to kind of help us remember a little bit. So the five steps, right? So if somebody, I don't know, cuts you off in traffic, flips you the finger. So what you don't do is speed up and bump into the back of their car.
Carmen Lezeth:That would be violence.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:So we don't go for violence. So the first thing, you acknowledge your anger, like I was saying before. So you're like, okay, I'm pissed. I see you. Okay. Um, second step is notice your breath. So this is a big one. Cynthia, you were talking about that when you did the yoga segment. Yeah, you could just take, you know, three long breaths. Inhale to the count of three, exhale to the count of three. When I when I get intense, like I may not be breathing at all. So it's like so remember to breathe. The G is to gear up your imagination. And for many of us, we had imaginations when we were kids, and then somebody told us, stop daydreaming, get your act together, and we just don't really use our imagination anymore. So you want to kind of open up your imagination. Okay, this person cut me off, you know, gave me the finger. Maybe they're running from the cops, right? Maybe their mother just died.
Carmen Lezeth:Um just come up with a story that you don't know.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Maybe they're having a heart attack, right? Yeah, or they have some disease that makes them flip their finger. Like, I don't know, you know, I don't know what's going on. That is a great imagination right there. Yeah, or my my favorite is maybe they just had a very poor upbringing, you know, they were raised by wolves, and thank god I'm not them. Right. So, whatever that thought process is, it takes you away from following something that you don't need to get involved with, right? Right, and then the next step is um, oh I'm like, wait, but what are we supposed to say?
Carmen Lezeth:It's the being angry, that's why. It's so sorry. This is good, this is good, okay.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:It's anger, yeah, it's anger. So it's the E. So the E is okay, well, what are we gonna do now? So, in this scenario, when you're driving, you can just entertain yourself. You don't have to do anything. You can call a friend, you could turn up your um radio or podcast, whatever you're listening to, put on an audio book, you could start singing, whatever. Just do something to entertain yourself, and you know, you can do it. So, freedom or entertain yourself. It depends. So, this is where it gets a little something. So, for small things, you entertain yourself. You can't always entertain yourself. Sometimes somebody might be in your face, or it might be something that requires more, it could be a work issue, whatever. So it's either entertain yourself, educate yourself. Sometimes you need to do some work and learn some stuff. That's good, and and then sometimes, like when you have issues that are like social justice or war or you know, all the isms and all those things, education may not be enough. This is when I say enlighten yourself, it kind of circles back to that. The spirituality, finding something that will make those types of things make some sort of sense for you.
Cynthia:So that's the action. Do we also use EA for edit? Like maybe edit the way you would change things.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:I mean, if you like edit, I'm I'll go for that.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm gonna have to put this co-author on my next book.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:But I like that symptom, if that makes you remember something for you, then go for it. Because that the E is the action. Like, what is the action that you're gonna take? Are you gonna entertain yourself? Are you going to make a note that you need to learn something later or address something in that way? Or are you gonna have to go straight to spirit? Because sometimes you gotta go to spirit, you know?
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, entertain. Um, what were the three E's? Because there was three. Entertain, I guess. Um educate, enlighten, or enlighten.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Yeah. And then R. And then the last one is R. So once you've done whatever your process is, right? You acknowledge your anger, you took a breath. Um, you use your imagination to think about, you know, generate some compassion, some empathy for whatever someone else might be going through. You figure out how you're gonna take your action, whether you just entertain yourself and move on. And then once you do that, it sounds like a lot, but this can all be split seconds once you practice it. So once you're done, you just like recognize your success. Yeah. You know, I didn't get into a car accident, I didn't ruin my own mood for the next 30 minutes or for the rest of the day, right? Um, I de-escalated, maybe something that could have escalated, whatever it was. You want to recognize your success and be like, hey, like how you were saying, Cynthia, like I'm not, you know, I may not be perfect, but I'm not where I was five years ago. Right? Or even yesterday. So recognizing your success is actually really important because when we try to change our habits, and remember I was saying it's a mental habit, we need to have something that is like a reward, you know. So if we are trying to start a new habit where we run every morning, you know, you might want to have a nice little cup of coffee when you're done or something, so that you have something to look forward to as your reward. So you want to recognize your success. And it could be as simple as a smile, you know.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm laughing because I'm sorry, you said running and then coffee as your reward. I'm like, girl.
Speaker 04:She's like, I have coffee.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:What did she say? Do you want cake again?
Speaker 04:It'll be chocolate cake. Chocolate cake.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm like, that's that's not really good reward. That must be like a Buddha thing.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:No, I'm just gonna reward me. But I will I will also say this, right? Your reward could just be talking nicely to yourself. Yeah, for sure. Which a lot of people don't do. Yes, most people, the voice in it, you know, because I work with individuals, I also work with organizations, but I do a lot of work with individuals. And one of the things that comes up a lot is this voice in our head that's like always yelling at us, we're not good enough, we didn't do it fast enough. What were you thinking? You know, so sometimes just that pause to be like, look at you go, you did the thing, or however you talk to yourself. That's how I talk to myself. You know, just having that is huge. And then over time, you know, people ask me a lot about how do you build confidence? Over time, becoming the person that you want to be builds your confidence.
Carmen Lezeth:I think it's hard for me, like especially when I'm thinking about how I deal with my anger, and I it's the been the way I've always done it. I have no rhyme or reason, and I'm not saying I can't improve on it, but what ends up happening is people are and get upset with you, or you're too blunt, or you're too mean, or you're too, you know, like people do all that stuff. And then so that's a whole other thing I work on, which is like not, it's not that I don't care what other people think, because I think that's a facade that nobody cares. Yeah, I don't care what anybody thinks. The minute you say that, you've just acknowledged that you care that other people think. But I feel bad because sometimes when I'm angry, I let people know right away, and then people are then upset because I said it too hard or too mean or I'm too blunt. And how do you how would you answer something like that? How would you deal with the backlash of being a backlash of being your authentic self and doing your best to deal with anger in a better way?
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Yeah, so I think that you can be authentic without being um mean, bitchy. I was gonna say abusive. And I was like, I don't want to offend the house. You can say it. Okay, I'll I I'll open the door. Go ahead. Yeah, so I think well, yeah, so I think that you can be authentic without being yeah, mean or or abusive, right? And you can, I'm telling you, those five steps work so well, they almost sound too easy sometimes. People like ah, now if you have um some like a clinical anger management problem, right? Because some people from childhood traumas may have um the the way that your brain gets rewired in a certain way, and I'm not a clinician, so I can't go too deep into that. But if it's not um something that's completely out of your control, and you can pause long enough for that breath before you pop off, right? Because I used to, you know, I used to just go straight to whatever came out my mouth at a certain time as well. But if you can pause before you do that, and then use your imagination, right? Because, you know, I almost named that book um Anger Lies. And my my literary agent was like, What are you talking about? It goes back to the whole sort of Trish with what are you talking about, Trish? But the thing is, anger gives us false information. So in that moment when you're angry, you really cannot make a good decision until you calm yourself down. So, you know, you may be talking to someone that you love and say the meanest thing to them to hurt them, just in that moment, you know, you forget that you even like them in that moment. It's like in that moment, they could be the one person you hate the most, you know. Yeah. So allowing yourself to pause, just finding a little bit of space, and then the breath is not only a pause, you are literally bringing oxygen to your brain where you're gonna need it, you know, and then tapping into that empathy because you figure, okay, somebody did something really stupid that that pissed you off, right? What were they thinking? Was was their goal to make you angry? Did they misspeak? Did they, you know, like only from that place can you figure out, okay, like how many how many um disconnections take place from miscommunication?
Carmen Lezeth:Right.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Right.
Carmen Lezeth:That's fair. That's fair.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Yeah. So um I'm gonna go down. Go to go to small heart.
Carmen Lezeth:No, no, I know, right? I don't know how this alliance between you and Cynthia came, but I'm kind of over it. I feel like, you know, when it comes to anger issues for myself, I I feel very confident in how I deal with it, but it's always difficult to watch how people react to because I um I do not practice everything you just said. It's a learning for me, what you just said, and I am grateful to kind of learn that stuff. But like I do things a little bit different. Like, so if somebody's mad at me on the road or cuts me off and I get upset or whatever, I will then wave at like I've trained myself to be like, it's okay, you know, and it usually throws people off, you know, like and so that's a there are some things that I'm doing that I've incorporated because I don't like being angry, I don't like feeling mad. And I think because as a kid, I remember feeling mad and alone all the time, right? So you talked about trauma, whatever. And so, like, I do other things, but I love what you're teaching and what you just shared because um I feel like I just learned some other skills that I've never even thought about um that I think might help me in my process. So thank you so much. Um, Cynthia, do you have any? I was gonna say last words as if like anything else before we wrap up. No, no. Yeah, this has been so enlightening. Um, so thank you for being here. I want to mention again, it's mindblowinghappiness.com. The book is the anger myth. Did not listen to me from earlier. Um, please go check out the website. Please purchase the book. Is there anything else you want to add? I mean, maybe I'll ask you one last question before we finish. If someone is listening and feeling stuck, where would you tell them to start besides going to your website and getting your book? What would you say they should start at? Maybe taking the quiz or if they're feeling stuck.
Trish Ahjel Roberts:Um, well, there's a there are quite a few opportunities to engage with me. Um, recently I put something, I created something called a small step one-on-one laser session. Uh-huh. So it's you can get on a call with me for 30 minutes on Zoom and you know, tell me what you're working on, and I can make recommendations for you. It came up because I do a lot of one-on-one coaching. I coach for businesses, I coach for speakers, I coach authors. Um, and I've been doing this for a long time now. And sometimes people, they're not really ready, they don't even know maybe what a life coach type relationship looks like. Right. They might just have questions, like what you were saying, like, where do I start? So, yeah, so I have a 30-minute session. If somebody wanted to book me that way, they can do that. Um and they can find that on your website as well.
Carmen Lezeth:Okay. Well, thank you so much for being here. It's been such a pleasure. And again, um, we'd love to have you back if in the future you would like to come back and hang out with us, and maybe we'll invite Rick, our other person briefly. Um, but thank you so much. And everyone, remember at the end of the day, it is all about the joy. And I hope you got that from this wonderful, wonderful interview today. Thank you. I've learned so much. I love when that happens. Thank you, everyone. Bye. Thank you. Bye bye. Thanks for stopping by, all about the joy. Be better and stay beautiful, folks. Have a sweet day.
