Finding Joy: Breaking the Cycle of Anger in Parenting

In this final episode of 2025, I’m sharing something deeply personal - my relationship with anger, where it came from, and how I’ve worked to change it. This is one of the most vulnerable solo episodes I’ve ever recorded, because anger is a feeling so many of us carry quietly, especially in parenthood.

This episode is for the parent who feels ashamed after snapping. For the one who feels tense all the time. For the one who is scared they might repeat what they grew up with. Your anger does not make you a bad parent. It makes you human. And change is possible.

I discuss:

✔️ How anger showed up in my early life and why it became my default response

✔️ The moment with our puppy that forced me to see my patterns clearly

✔️ How stress, trauma, and burnout can pull old reactions back to the surface

✔️ What I learned through coaching, therapy, and eventually EMDR

✔️ How this work changed my nervous system, my parenting, and my day-to-day mindset

✔️ The brain science behind anger and why your body reacts before your thoughts do

✔️ What often sits underneath explosive reactions

✔️ How your window of tolerance affects everything

✔️ The real tools I use when I feel overwhelmed

✔️ How I teach my kids that feelings are allowed, but hurtful behavior is not

00:00 Scary parents are scared parents
01:10 Why anger shows up in parenting
02:49 When anger becomes a problem, not a protector
03:09 The moment I knew I had to change
05:44 Trauma, motherhood, and why anger came back
06:59 How therapy helped me find peace
08:48 Fear, the nervous system, and the science of anger
10:59 Breaking the cycle while raising kids
12:14 Tools to handle anger in the moment
14:13 Teaching kids that feelings are ok, harmful behavior is not
17:03 Repair, progress, and modeling growth
19:48 When to seek support and why it matters
21:41 You are not broken, change is possible

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