Unapologetically Angry with psychotherapist Jennifer Cox

0:00Hello and welcome to the Women Kind Collective Podcast, where we bring you an eclectic weekly mix of fun, education and a faux far. This is the place where the light bulb moments happen. We are your hosts, Lou Hawking's Thompson and Jinti Shearing, and along with our guests we will be spilling the tea on themes such as health, well-being and the extraordinary tales of everyday life. What is baffling our hormones and the laundry? The hustle doesn't have to hurt. If performance pressure is making it hard to breathe, growth therapy helps you navigate stress, set boundaries and actually feel like yourself again. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. There are no subscriptions,

1:03no long-term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, growth therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans, including Medicaid in some states. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com slash start now to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. Growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Hey, this is Paige DeSorbo from Giggly Squad and today I want to talk to you about boost mobile. Quick question, why are we letting our phone bills bully us? Here's a money tip. Stop paying a carrier tax. When you bring your own phone and switch to boost mobile's $25 unlimited forever plan, you can unlock up to $600 in savings. That's real life money, not money trapped in a pricey phone bill. $600 is a trip, a shopping spree or paying something off. Your money belongs in your life. You get unlimited data, talk and tax for $25 a month with no

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3:07That's you and everyone out there. Yes, exactly. If you are, that's if you're listening on the day that we drop. If not, I hope you have a good International Women's Day. Exactly. We've got a good one today, haven't we? A great one for International Women's Day. So coming up, we are joined by the fantastic Jennifer Cox author of Women Are Angry, who will she'll be spilling the tea on what's really behind women's anger. We'll ask her why so many women are turning to rage rooms. How to tell the difference between burnout and anger, what suppressed anger looks like in our bodies and lives and how we can turn rage into something useful. Plus not only that, plus her advice for women who feel furious, but at the same time, flippin exhausted. Where do you put it? Oh well. There's a lot of places you can put it. Exactly. In general, tell you exactly how firstly can we say, can we let you know that you can still buy us a coffee? Your donations truly help our podcast keep going.

4:12The link is in the podcast show notes. It's just a little coffee thing and you can just, you know, buy us a little long tray, lose a latte, and I'm an Americano, and it just kind of helps us kind of keep the bits and bobs working. Keeps it down. And big machinery, that we call women kind of well oiled. Luckily, we don't have to pay for our own oiling without our HRT is, you know, half well. It's a bit paid for the new equipment isn't it? Yes. So luckily, that keeps us oil too, Lou. It does. How's your week been? Well, it's anything made you angry? Well, yes. Well, yes, yes. Actually, I watched and I don't know if anyone else has. I wasn't going to talk about this. I had something else to talk about, but I've just thought about anger and and and Jen and what, you know, dirty business, channel 4, it's a it's not called a documentary. It's not a mockumentary. I can't remember what they call it now. Doctor drama. Doctor drama. Thank you. God, you're on the floor today. It's a mix of drama and documentary and with real-life footage as well in photos.

5:18So it's about water companies and the privatisation of water companies and the absolute shit show that they have become quite literally. And I was so surprised that we England are the only country in the world with privatised water. Who the fuck privatises water? Margaret Thatcher. I know. It's corrupt, isn't it? It's total corruption. People are dying. People are dying. People are getting sick. Yeah. I'm term sick. I'm very yes. I am very proud of what we are doing here in Exmouth. So Joe Bateman, Joe Bateman, Joe Swimmer. We are all collectively. I'm one of them. I don't know if you are Lou. We are all collectively suing our southwest water for not being able to use our own water here in Exmouth. To swim. Doleish Warren, if you've watched

6:20dirty business, Doleish Warren, where the poor girl in 1999 Heather Preen actually dies of E. coli, that is literally across the water from us. And they fobbed that off. Yeah. I mean, we would use, I sit there having my coffee in the morning. I look straight up to Doleish. It is just there. Yeah. Yeah. And they fobbed that family off and the environmental, I'm raging. The environmental agency not fit for purpose. They're CEO. Then goes and joins Welsh water. Yeah. It smudged and fobbed off every option. It's corruption on the highest level. Yeah. It absolutely is. So we all need to watch that and we all need to be angry about that. We need to be able to sign every petition. There's some amazing people doing some fantastic work and some brilliant whistle blowers and, you know, brave whistle blowers. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you bought that up. So go and watch it because we need to sort this out. It's been going on far too long hasn't it? It's privatisation. The system, I don't think, well, it was great before

7:22and it was broken. It needed, it needed money and infrastructure. And rather than the government putting money in to update and get everything where it needed to. No, let's just sell it off. And it was a huge American bank. McGuire's wasn't it? The Australian Bank. I don't know one of the terms and then has now links to southern water as well, I believe now. But yeah, if you want some hard hitting facts, then God, yeah, we've been sold a lot of lies about our whole sewage system. So yeah, you really need, yeah, really need to watch that. Yeah. Anyway, that's my, I wasn't going to talk about that. I was going to talk about public adverts, public service adverts from the 1980s, but that's going to wait till next week. Oh, my God. I need to talk about that. Petunia. Yeah, let's hold it on next week. That would be a great deal. I just want to quickly mention because I just want to ask you, Lou, I read an interesting article after we talked last week. If you didn't listen to last week,

8:27we talked to Justin, Justin Bassett about ageism and particularly gender, gender days, ageism and she's younger. So she gets a lot of stuff about being younger. You can't talk about ageism. You're in your 30s. So we talked about the benefits of mixing different generations, didn't we? Well, I read this article called We're Back Flat Sharing in our 60s and it makes financial and social sense. It's both by Radhika Sangani and it says the number of flat shareers aged 65 plus has tripled in the last decade. Oh, I love that. I loved my flat share. Yeah, according to figures from flat share site, spare room, while the proportion of 55 to 64 year olds flat sharing is more than doubled under 35s in a flat share market is in decline while those age 35 and over are rising. How would you feel about flat sharing in my 60s? If I didn't have my husband, if God forbid, anything happened, I don't think I wouldn't mind

9:27a tool because actually financially, I think a lot of our generation, we've paid a lot out for the kids that parents may have left money or which is absolutely what it should be because they should spend it. But I think there's a lot of people because we were in that 80s generation where we haven't got, we haven't got a practically a pot to piss in, a pension, or haven't paid enough into pensions, but you want to travel and you want to do stuff. So actually a flat share makes people having children later. So you're paying, you're still paying out, having to work, everything. Yeah, you look at our economy, there's another rant, you look at our economy and we are so much worse off than our parents' generation and goodness knows our children's generation. It's great to have company, isn't it? Yes. And even if you had someone 20 years younger, it would be, it would be good, wouldn't it? Yeah, I mean, I like my own space, but I think as long as you've got your own room and you've got somewhere to go, there's a couple of little living areas.

10:30Loneliness kills, doesn't it? Yeah. Well, we know that. And it also, you know, it's one of the risks of a big risk of Alzheimer's and dementia is loneliness. So it's, yeah, I think it's worth it. You would, yeah, I think I would, I would with you, I mean, it would be very choosy, you're a little friend group, I wouldn't share with any old. Are you saying me and Adam did, would it be? Yeah, I'm just a choney, it would be. Yeah, a couple of dogs, a couple of dogs, a couple of cats maybe. Yeah, I think it would be fun, wouldn't it? Because you have, you also have, there's, I think it's Denmark that has, well, yeah, I'm going to get corrected on this night and rightly so, but they have a woman-only areas, don't they have like blocks of flats? Yeah, yeah, and little communes and stuff. And I would love that. Yeah. Because you're going to be with like-minded people. Yeah. And not necessarily, again, going back to what Jacinta was talking about last week, the benefits of being

11:30multi-generational, a huge aren't they? Yeah. I see all these, we've talked about it before, see all these played places for only 50s and over, only 60s and over. I look, I, it's a privilege to get old, I don't mind getting old, but I don't want to only mix with older people. I love it, when I meet my, you know, our daughters, friends, and like when we went, went to your daughters, wedding, and it was just mixing with the young people. Yes, loving. Energising, isn't it? Yeah. And they have such wonderful energy. They do, and a lovely, and a fantastic point of view. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, so I would let us know, let us know what you look at that reminisce and an apt bit of anger and a bit of reminiscing. But it all going on, and I tell you else has got it all going on. Oh, Jennifer Cox. She has the sister from another mystery. Exactly. Absolutely. So let's, let's meet Jen. Today, we are talking about something women are often told to swallow, soften, or smile

12:32through anger. Our guest is Jennifer Cox, psychotherapist, feminist thinker, and author of women are angry, named the times self-help book of the year 2024, praised as a game-changer and a revelation. This book asks a radical question. What if you're not depressed, burn out or broken? What if you're just angry? So Jennifer draws on decades of clinical experience to explore how women are conditioned from childhood to stay quiet, be nice, and not make a fuss. And how that repression doesn't disappear, but shows up in our bodies, our mental health and our lives. From small daily irritations to systemic injustice, women are angry, reframes rage, not as a personal failure, but as a deeply rational response to the world we live in. Jennifer also, co-hosts women are mad with a wonderful Salima, am you, mailless? We've been on there, Lou, have a way. And regularly speaks on feminism, mental health, trolling,

13:38climate, anxiety, and the emotional cost of modern womanhood. Where, not where, we are wearing. We are wearing. We're so excited to talk about why women are angry, whether that anger is growing and how we can use it without burning ourselves out, or particularly apologising for it. Welcome, Jen. Welcome. And it's so lovely to see your lovely face. Oh, gorgeous. Thank you so much for that wonderful intro. It really fired me up. I made me kind of emotional too. Yeah, we don't, you know, we don't sort of realise how much we've done, or how much, you know, what people think, do we? No. We sort of hear something. And how much good something you've done is doing as well. That's a big thing. So going to that, your book, Women Are Angry, was there a moment or a personal, professional, professional one that made you realise this book needed to be written? And was there a particular pattern you kept seeing when you're

14:41in the therapy room as well? It's two questions, sir. Yeah, there was a moment, there was a definite moment. There'd been a building pattern that I was sort of growingly aware of, but couldn't name. I just kept feeling this same sensation in the room with women. I think really from the start of working in private practice, because when I first started out in my kind of psychotherapies, psychology journey, I was working in forensic units, so with offenders and really violent men, a lot of the time. So I got used to feelings of fear, like my own fear. And I needed to find a different way of working, where I felt safer. And this was sort of psychological and physical. So I started my own private practice,

15:42and mostly it would be women coming in, because it's mostly women that seek psychotherapy, I mean, ironically. But what I was really stunned by was that so many of the feelings sitting with these women in that room were really similar to the feelings I'd experienced with really scary men across those years. And that's what really started to get me thinking. So they're coming in with all these different symptoms, you know, anxiety, depression, OCD, eating disorders, you name it everything. And they were all coming from completely, this was a diverse practice, like I work between South Fall and, you know, Halston. So these are women from very different backgrounds, culturally, ethnically, racially, professionally, from a sexuality point of view. You know, this was a wide sample of society.

16:44And there was this theme, there was this theme that kept coming. And it was that, no matter what the symptom, I was experiencing discomfort and kind of that prickly kind of fear. And I started asking questions firstly of myself, why is it so similar? What is going on here? And then of them, what do you think it is that's happening in your lives that might be sort of essentially bringing about these feelings of, I guess, aggression, but totally suppressed. Like they'd be coming out that these, the sensations for them would be coming out in myriad different ways. Like I'm saying, with the symptoms, or maybe a certain sort of uptightness even, a certain way of not saying something that they definitely want to say. And it's almost like once I lifted the lid on the permission to talk about these really negative, really angry experiences and feelings

17:49they were having, it was like floodgates opening. And suddenly you would see symptoms starting to clear, like really quickly, far, far quicker than in any other, in a way, approach I'd sort of tried out, you know, the more traditional, just waiting a long time, hearing, listening, feeling that psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy really encourages, it works, it's fantastic, but it's slow. This sped things up in a way I've never seen before. Oh gosh. So get into the, so find in that route. Yes. And that route there was very commonly anger or aggression, which they would have been completely unaware of. Totally unaware. Yeah. And it's almost like then this language opens up, like a vocabulary. And I was having to learn it too because I haven't grown up with it. You know, I don't think really many of us have.

18:55And I would say that from what I've seen that does kind of travel across multiple backgrounds. And then during the pandemic, I started working much more internationally because everything went to zoom. And so that meant people from all over the globe were able to find me and work with me. And so I was then testing this against kind of international women cultures as well, going into different cultures, who have been brought up in different cultures. Yes, exactly. Because even if women that I was working with in clinic were from, you know, ethnically really diverse backgrounds, they were still brought up in the UK most of them. And so that is culturally a very specific set of, you know, expectations and schooling and all the rest of it, isn't it? So yeah, this was a real opportunity to see what happened when these same conversations were allowed with women from different countries. And so I started to

20:01write and I just, and I just allowed it to sort of flow out of me. And I think what then began to happen was that all these other experiences, all these other stories I've heard started to kind of knit themselves in. And I realised, I really realised that at sort of very cellular level, just how much of a spectrum we're on. So those moments, you know, that we all know about, from when we're younger or in our teenage years, harassment, boys men taking things too far, the rude not too stuff, the feelings like we can't say no. And then you sort of follow that continuum. And this is where it can lead. And my brain couldn't handle, couldn't compute the extremity, the, you know, the depth of that. And so I think this really helped me to ground

21:01the, I suppose some of the facts of it in, where does this stuff come from? Where is this stuff born? And yeah, suddenly I had a book sitting on my laptop and I didn't know what to do with it. But in a way, that was the beginning of the women on mad movement because I just, I didn't know how to get a book published. I didn't know anyone in that field. And I just thought, well, I can't waste the time because this message is too important to powerful. Yeah. Yeah. People need it. We talked, we're going to, we're going to ask you about rage rooms in a moment. But while we're on this subject, what we talked before we started recording a little bit about empathy, didn't we? And how we were all sort of feeling about absorbing other feelings and carrying that right around, especially around Christmas. But really, all the time and how we do carry other people's feelings,

22:01were you finding that as well? And it through, through your work. Yeah. I mean, I've sort of crashed out at various points in smaller ways like where I've just known I've got to have a break because I think it's funny, anecdotally, I've heard that a lot of therapists start getting hearing problems in their older life. And I think it's almost like, I can't hear another thing. Yeah, that is, that is so true. So you know, I need a switch. I've got to just turn it, turn it down or turn it off for a little bit. Yeah, exactly. And so I, I don't think I've been very good at turning it off early enough. And the, for me, the pandemic was absolutely, I don't know, I could only just,

23:05I sort of clawed my way through it. I don't know how I did it because it was dawn to dusk. It was just in that first lockdown when we didn't even have zoom. It was all just on the phone. So I would be on the phone from literally 7 AM to 10 PM at night, you know, back to back calls. I just left the curtain shut because I didn't want to know about the sunshine. I couldn't know about the sunshine. And, and then obviously my own kids at home that all of that, I mean, it totally crystallized for me. And I think was also obviously a contributor to the book starting to be written, just how much women have to do anyway. And it really amplified it, didn't know. Yeah, how much they, we carry, we carry all the time without being able to let go because it's, we'll talk about society in a minute, but yeah, but it's, you, you've got to keep it together, haven't you? Because if you let, you sort of feel if you let go, the whole family's done.

24:10Yes. You know, so you do, you do keep it together and keep it together. Is that why rage rooms are booming? Because I was reading about 90, I don't know how true this is. I did fact check it and it sounded about right about 90% of customers of rage rooms are women. Yeah, I just know 100% I'll be honest. Who would that tell us? Yeah, he was that good about where women are emotionally right now. It's, it's smashing plates, cathartic, symbolic, or is there something deeper going on? Is it, do we just have to get it out? It's so, I mean, this is so fascinating to me because I am, so once this report came out about the rage rooms, I was like, um, well, yeah, who was surprised, but in a sense, I think what it was as well was my book came out in 2024,

25:11like you said, and I think it's taken this long for people to be brave enough to have the conversation. Look, without sounding like an arrogant twat, I think not many people were talking about this. And do you know the pushback I was getting when I first started talking about it? Before it was published, I would say it was so controversial, like 50-50 when I talked about it, this is what I'm seeing, this is what I noticed as a pattern, and I've started writing about it, I'd get half what, what are you talking about? I'm not angry, like, but really aggressive tonight. I'm not angry, why are you talking? Who do you think you are? Exactly! And it was very, and I'd be like, oh, okay. And the other half were apps of fucking Luley. Why aren't we talking about this? This is so urgent. So the fact that it's sort of taken this long to percolate and get

26:18into the national conversation, the international conversation now, and I think this year people keep saying, oh, there's loads of movies coming out with that at their core, you know, female rage, and how it looks, and what we do about it. I feel as if I've been steeped in this stuff now for, I don't know, maybe five years in terms of, you know, from very beginning to where we are now, and I, I suppose, I feel like, thank God the world is waking up to it, but also, yeah, of course this is the case, and I think, yeah, I'm also not surprised that 90% of people in those rage rooms are women, I cannot believe what we have to contend with on a daily basis, as well as in these far more terrifying places that the world is taking us to. And I'm really frightened

27:20of what the future holds. I'm really frightened of, like, reform, for example, at every level. And obviously we've seen the States. What's going on there? I went on book tour about a year or a while, maybe eight months ago to the States. And I was so frightened. In fact, I think the largest feeling in me since writing the book has been fear. Like, I didn't realise how vulnerable I was making myself, I had no, I was so naive, I had no idea. Do you put your head above the parapet and you're thinking true, so aren't you? It proves that everyone has a society, they've just repressed for, yeah, I mean, some of the rage is for you to feel quite in it, but in a way, in hindsight, do you almost wish to have their days where you wish you hadn't? There are days where I really, really don't know about regret, but where I think

28:25it is just more, I didn't know that this would happen. You know, I didn't plan tour as box, that's what you're talking about. Exactly. And I was really, I was a bit blind, I would say, in terms of thinking that people would just be able to take the message and almost ignore me, but they haven't done that. They've wanted, they've wanted the witch, frankly, and they've wanted to burn her. Like, some people, it's been the opposite and it's been, it's been like the new Messiah, which in itself is pretty terrifying and weird. Here's how to stay alive longer, so you can enjoy Boost Mobile's unlimited plan with the price that never goes up. You're not mistake a wasp nest for a piñata. Stay alive and switch now at Boost Mobile. After 30 gigs, customers may experience lower speeds, customers will pay $25 a month as long

29:25as they remain active on the Boost Mobile unlimited plan. The hustle doesn't have to hurt. If performance pressure is making it hard to breathe, growth therapy helps you navigate stress, set boundaries, and actually feel like yourself again. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and get started in as little as two days. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, grow therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans, including Medicaid in some states. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com-startnow to get started. That's growthherapy.com-startnow-growtherapy.com-startnow-availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

30:30And then on the other hand, it's been really scary and really unpleasant. It seems to me, just listening to you talk, and looking back over our conversations, Lew and I, and probably all my friends, all our lives, we've discussed rage at some point, or another, or anger, whether that be, I've got really bad PMT this month, don't come and see me, or whether that be, I'm so fucking angry at my twin husband for doing this, or the kids are driving me. We've always talked about rage within our health, within that. With the difference I can see now, which your podcast and your book is part of this movement, is we're not accepting, so years ago, I've got PMT right, what you need to do, you need a bit of Primrose oil, or you need to do this, we have to give rid of our rage, whatever way, because it wasn't, had to dampen it, that rage was wrong, rage, anger is wrong, so we were advising

31:36each other how we could get rid of, how we could, now the difference is, you're angry for this reason, you're angry because of this, all these reasons you say in your book, you know, all these reasons, Sarah Everard, one woman, three women killed, and the statistics, even in this country, so that's the biggest difference for me, we've got a right to be angry, and I'm not, you know, we shouldn't be suppressing it, should we? No, and it's really bad for our bodies, and I think that's the point, isn't it, that in a way, and I suppose that's the book I thought I was writing, and this is the funny thing that's happened for me, is that suddenly I'm this sort of mouthpiece for feminism, and I would say that was a bit of a shock, because I was just trying to show people, again, naive, I accept that, but I was just trying to show people what happened when we repress our rage, what has happened to the women in my clinic, at level of body, at level of mental health,

32:38like this stuff kills us. Also immune, isn't it? Also immune diseases. Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, everything from, yeah, I mean, the stats are scary when you start kind of deep diving the databases, in terms of how women suffer with basically every condition, in a massively amplified way to men, and why is that? And that's the question I started to ask, and that's what the book really goes into, obviously, but it's not really, I would say, the focus of what, let's, the public has sort of jumped on, and I think it's almost like, you're right, it's Pandora's Box, and it is, it's as if we have suddenly been given permission to think about the systemic stuff that we've just assumed is our job, and what we're stuck doing,

33:41and we've begun to question it. So before we can even think about, and what's this doing to our body, I think we're in this first phase of... We're waking up. Yeah. Yeah. We are, we are definitely waking up, and actually, it, I think it makes us more angry, but then it also feels good, because we're identifying stuff now, aren't we? Yeah. But maybe even just a couple of years ago, we would have just gone, oh, well, got to get on with it. Got to get on with it. Who else is going to do it? Yeah. Yeah. So, when we look at, when you're, because you're book, what if you're not depressed or burnt out, what if you're angry? How can we tell, actually, if we are angry, what's the difference between the depression and the burnout and the anger? Where does that anger sit? So, I think this is the most important question really, because it's that we just haven't asked that before. We've never asked what if this isn't. We've always just gone, oh, I'm feeling

34:49low burnt out. I mean, burnt out is obviously quite a modern diagnosis anyway, but we'd have called it something else along, exhausted. People used to have nervous breakdowns, you know? And now, what I think we need to ask is not, I think that's the secondary stuff. I think we need to ask primarily, are we angry? Or women just need to ask that. And I think we need to assume that we we are. We will first question. Am I angry? Yeah. And what am I angry about? What am I really angry about? Because we blame ourselves, we end up feeling guilt, shame, all the rest of it. It's my bad. I did this wrong. It's my fault. And that is all another way of cutting ourselves off from that question. What am I really angry about? And oftentimes it's who am I really angry with?

35:51And that might end up being institutions or people from very early on in our lives that we've never really let ourselves feel the thing we should feel about before. Yeah. So do you find that women are angry with themselves for allowing that? Is that where they start with, I'm angry because I allowed or this happened? And so again, it's that blame, isn't it? Yeah. I'm just stupid. Yeah. Why do I put myself in that situation? Why couldn't I speak up? Why couldn't I say no? Yeah. Or just angry for being angry at somebody. Or I shouldn't be angry at them. They only put that cup in the wrong place or the only, why am I so angry at them? Then that's your fault as well. Yeah. What's wrong with me? When you burrow it down, it's not because they've not put their cup in the dishwasher or they've not, there's, there's, you've got to burrow down a little bit further. You got it. You got to. And that's where the kind of psychotherapy thing comes in, I think, because obviously so many people can't afford proper long term deep psychotherapy. But I think we

36:58can all get much better at doing it to ourselves and doing it with our friends and asking those deeper questions that we couldn't, we couldn't do that. We're all capable of doing that. We've been taught to stay on a very surface level. It's much more convenient for other people. If we don't ask the questions and if we decide, oh no, it's, it's my problem or I've got depression. But actually, depression is a social problem. There's, we create it in each other as much as people, you know, as individuals ending up suffering with it. And I think those are the things we need to look at. And you think as well as women, we are so good at talking to each other. Aren't we? We go, we have a coffee with our friends, we go for a walk with our friends. But when we're doing that, we actually need to ask those questions or to talk about those feelings a little bit more and be a bit more vulnerable, don't we? I think we do. And I think we have to dare to ask the questions

37:59as well. The more difficult questions of each other. Yeah. You know, like we always do listen to, oh my husband's done this, done this. He's a real twat. But actually, some people shouldn't be with those men anymore. You know, there is a reality that there are a lot of women in relationships that are actively harming them. And, you know, maybe not in obvious ways, but in the ways that we as women understand and have seen and have helped each other with. But perhaps we just need to start drawing more lines. Yeah. Yeah. So if somebody can't afford to have therapy, but they're kind of recognising that what's like a first sort of step that they, you know, to go a little bit deeper, just sort of start with their anger and then just start and ask him, right, why am I upset with that? Or, or, or, yeah. I think that is, I think that is what we have to start. I think we just have to, and it's very simple. I think it is about just, again, it's the giving yourself permission, it's the tuning in, it's the not brushing something away or pushing something under the carpet,

39:02is actively saying, okay, well, what if I don't shut that down? What if I do keep asking questions about it? Why is it that I don't know, school always phone me when one of the kids is ill and I have to come out of meetings or I have to leave work. What can we do about that? If it's a sort of simple assumption and like, habit that has formed, again, because it's so much easier for everyone else, so that's the way it looks, then can we make adjustments to it? Are there things that are simpler to work out? That actually, if you did that for 10 things in your life, could you, as an aggregate, end up feeling much better by the end of the month? If someone else is, I don't know, making the lunchboxes or you change the email address on all the forms coming from school. I mean, those are, you know, the obvious kind of mum squashed things, but if we take it further,

40:02it's things like being a daughter and the expectations on us by other family members, oh, you'll take mum to this. Oh, you're better at, you know, picking up the phone and speaking to the GP on her behalf, like, where are the brothers? Where are the uncles? Where are the men? Can we just expect a little bit more of them? They doesn't need to start with the little boys and the ones that we're bringing up. It can also be the other men that, you know, people can change, people, and a lot of men want to. Yeah, they do. They do. They don't want to see this struggle that we have. No, because we are the default setting, aren't we? And all, like, you said, everything you were talking about, it is the woman when I was at school, I, Steve, never got called when they were poorly. It was always me. Always the mum. Yeah. If they don't know, we can't know to do anything about it. No, you're right. We said we had to educate them as well as ourselves, don't we? No, which is another bloody job, isn't it? It is another job. No, I mean, we don't have to.

41:05Maybe we could just, we'll give them your book. That's the thing. We'll give them your book, and then, you know, then, you know, you can help educate them. Please, with pleasure. Hand over over here. It is like, I am surprised by how many men are reading it, and I receive messages from them that are really moving, and it's, and it really is like, I had no idea. And especially things like, there were some quite gruesome bits, obviously, about things like miscarriage and what happens to women, you know, at level of body, threw so much of their lives in medical settings, but also, you know, on the train being harassed. And there are, you know, that's very eye opening for a lot of men, because they just have never had to think about it. Yeah. You know, not being part of their lives, you know, we tell them, then, you know, how, how, how do they, how do they know? Yeah.

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43:13you're facing, grow therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plants, including Medicaid in some states. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com-startnow to get started. That's growtherapy.com-startnow. Growtherapy.com-startnow. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Something that's come up with for me, I'm going to lift this up. So something has come up for me personally, but I know many women will recognize it. More women are now being diagnosed as autistic later in life, which is changing how many of us understand our emotional responses. That's particularly for me, I've noticed that hugely. Do you think we need to talk differently about anger and emotional regulation for autistic women, particularly when anger can show up as sudden, I won't even go there, sudden intense,

44:20but short-lived as it is often triggered by sensory overload or unexpected change, rather than something specific that we were talking about like an interpersonal sort of conflict. Yeah, I mean, this is so important, isn't it? I do think the way that we now, there is a better conversation going on in terms of how do people, women as well, as individuals differently cope with incoming stimuli of whatever kind. So there is a better conversation happening about neurodivergence and how different brains are wired to experience different experiences differently. I think we have to really bear that in mind, or we're talking about larger societal, emotional events and kind of the type of feelings that, potentially,

45:28are very, very powerful and overwhelming to experience within ourselves and within our bodies and within our own individual minds. I think we have to try to be more compassionate than even this conversation allows us, you know, the one that has opened up. I think we have to push ourselves and challenge ourselves further to go, okay, but what if we layer in a different type of mind to this? Like, how could this be person be experiencing this specific event in their lives or the fact that someone shouted at them on a busy tube? Like, that isn't going to be the same for everybody. And I think listening to ourselves is key. Like, that's the thing I think we all need to get better at. And this is back to this point about, if we can't afford therapy, we have to honour ourselves better in terms of how we really are compassionate,

46:29first of all, with us as a human organism living inside of ourselves. Why did I struggle with that? And can I find even more empathy for myself that that was really difficult? And I think when we get really the best we can at that, we get better at articulating it to other people because, again, without wanting to give ourselves more of a job to do, I think we do want other people to understand us. I think that's the human drive, isn't it, connection and feeling really heard. And so it can do no harm to be as good as we can be at talking about what is going on in ourselves to other people. I think there has been a bit of an issue with blaming other people for not understanding us properly. And that's where the conversation I think goes offline or goes off track a bit in terms

47:32of different minds and different wiring because we can't expect everyone to understand what it is that we are going through. And we have to take responsibility for ourselves. And I think that's the other thing that therapy teaches us is to listen to ourselves initially, to take that seriously, to take the finding seriously, and then to take responsibility for articulating that to other people. And to then expect to have high expectations of other people. And to think that they can understand if they want to. And if they're going to be a good friend in our life or someone that is going to be a good, helpful support to us, then we should expect that they will make their effort to understand where we're coming from. But I think in general, good communication across the board has to start with communicating well with ourselves. Completely. We can't ask other people. We can't set our boundaries if we don't really know, if we don't understand ourselves or we don't understand our own needs and what affects us.

48:37Exactly. And take that seriously. What does productive anger look like? Can you talk about that a little bit as well? What, what, you know, so you're you're turning all that rage into something productive, yeah, focus it, focus it, yeah, I mean, I think again, this starts with being able to really tune in to what we're feeling in ourselves and trying to identify what it is that that feeling might have come from. So when you said this, I felt so it's not you made me feel this, but when you said this, I felt this. Can we talk about that? And I think productive anger is essentially when we've understood something well in ourselves about maybe not fully, but well, about how we've responded to something. And we then can articulate it or express it in a way

49:41that is constructive and moves things forward. Because what we don't want is a bunch of angry people just seething in their own minds and lives about, you know, how they've been hard done by and how this person didn't understand it. What's the point of that? It's just so it doesn't get us anywhere. So to move the conversation forward, like with other people and to get ourselves in as healthier places can be, I think we need to see these feelings as really useful and their signifiers and they show us things need to change. And when we take that seriously and respect it and try and find the words for it, which can take time, we have to practice and we can kind of, it can be a bit clumsy and clunky and we might have to do it a bit, but we can get there and we can do it in very simple ways, I think. And that whole sort of I feel as a sentence starter is so useful. I know it's quite

50:42trite, but it's really useful because you're not accusing them of, as I say, making you feel that way and you're not saying this is truth. You're not saying, I'm this and therefore that's the kind of reality we're running with. You're just saying, I feel this way. And let's see what they feel. And that's the productive bit, I think. Yeah. Well, you've been, I mean, you've turned your fear and anger into this book and there couldn't be anything more productive, really, in a sense than that. And I've just got to see something else, which is, I was going to make a point there. You've got to make them to say on that later. I might not know because I'm just going, yeah, yeah, I'm just agreeing. It's going to say defensive because if you accuse, so say if you sort of talk even just in an argument or even on a bigger scale, if you're writing an email to, you know, something systemic that's annoyed you that you want to try and make change, if you're accusing people, all people do is get defensive

51:46isn't it? You're not, you're not going to be that productive. Are you kind of, so how do we, and is there a way of sort of almost stepping back a little bit from your anger so we don't do and say things we regret and that really there's no coming back from? Yes, I think there is a way. I think, I think a good tack is being curious, is staying curious. And I think, not, well, I think two things, one, not taking ourselves too seriously. And I know that that is really difficult when, as you say, it might be something systemic, it might be something really bad actually. But we need to take ourselves, we need to not take as a person, we need to take ourselves out of it a bit, because it probably wasn't realistically, probably wasn't personal. It probably is just a kind of shit aspect of this system or the thing that the institution we're caught up in, it probably isn't targeted to actively harm us. But that doesn't mean to say it isn't harming us like, you know,

52:54accidentally, maybe it is. So we need to make sure that we take action. But I think again, it's the tuning in, it's the identifying why and ourselves that might be the case. And then letting the person know, because first off, they might just need to be told, oh, this, by the way, when this happened, just letting you know that actually several people felt this way about it. And then I think if it doesn't get resolved on just drawing attention, I think it is about this curiosity thing, just wondering, yeah, this happened, and I'm just wondering whether there's something we can all do about it. Can we make a change somewhere in this system? And maybe even offering the self up as a kind of, as a voice on why it's harmful in this way. So I think this is where things like lived experience and service user contributions to whatever

54:01systemic enterprise is going on, you know, whether it's in the health service or in education, is really useful and things like feedback is really useful because if someone isn't being defensive and can hear it, then that is how change can happen. And I think we should expect and anticipate that people want things to work for as many people as possible and they don't want to exclude and they don't want to push people out. So how can we, in positive ways, ourselves contribute to making that a reality? And I think staying in that kind of lighter, more curious place and place that is a bit more humorous sort of like anticipating that everyone's on the same page and that we all just want to have a good time ultimately, that I think is a good approach to take. Yeah. Yeah. Less, less blame. Yeah, less blame, less aggression and less persecution.

55:04Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And sort of that kind of belief sometimes helps me is that believing, and it's not always true, I know, but believing that everybody is doing their best, you know, it might not be the true, isn't it? I mean, honestly, that's what I really was struck by when I first started working in psychology. Well, gosh, I mean, this is, we're talking like when I was a child, but really was this, this, this understanding of, oh, yeah, everyone is just pretty much trying their best. Most people are pretty good people in inverted commas. They don't want to be nasty. Like, even the really terrifying offenders I worked with, they were full of remorse. They, a lot of the time, not all the time, a lot of the time. And they, they felt guilt and they wanted to change and they wish they hadn't done what they'd done. And, you know, then working in private

56:04practice with so many women who are just trying to get by, you sort of see, again, this, this theme across human kind, that is just wanting things to be better than they are. And, you know, thinking of the offender example, she was done to them. This doesn't come from nowhere. You don't get people born evil. I don't believe that. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, yeah, it's what, what happened before was society and everything they, they've been through. Yeah. So finally, Jen, for, for all the women listening who feel furious, but also exhausted, what's one permission you wish more women, women would give themselves when it comes to anger. I think feel it. Just feel it. Don't, don't

57:04knock it away. Don't turn it into something else. Don't explain it away. Don't apologise. Just feel it. Like that. Yes, it with it. It's the whole apology thing, isn't it? We've spent our lives apologising and particularly apologising for our anger. Or if something comes across in the wrong way, and it might hurt someone's feelings, it's that if such a terror, isn't it, of hurting someone else's feelings? And they've hurt yours. Yeah. They've hurt yours, but they've hurt your feelings, but you got you don't want to do that back. But again, it goes back to what Jen was saying. They haven't hurt your feelings. It's how you felt, isn't it? You've got, we've got to stop this. Okay, some people do do things on purpose, but we've, we've kind of got to stop that narrative in a way. Yeah, I agree. It's really interesting, sorry, I know you don't want to, you know, have me wanging on. I really love you hanging on. But we'll just say this. And it's funny,

58:07because I'm writing something at the moment. I think I'll put it out on sub-stack tomorrow, because it's really been in my brain. But it's about how other women are so cruel to each other, so much at the time. And again, I think if we can look at in ourselves those qualities, those tendencies to be so harsh and really judgmental on our own processes, I just, I just do wonder if we would get better at shoving it onto other women. Or rather, we'd do it less, because I think it is we don't listen to ourselves and we don't, we don't really respect what it is that we're feeling. We haven't been given that permission. We haven't been taught how to do that. So I think if we can learn that, everyone might end up being in a better position.

59:07Yeah, it's all these unspoken rules that we've been brought up with, you know, since since a teen ages really, or even younger, you know, keep your legs closed, you can't sit like a boy, you've got, you know, and all those things that then we feel we've had those played by those rules, and that if we see someone else not playing by those rules, anger, it angers you. And instead of maybe questioning why you think, oh my god, good for them. Yeah, question, why am I angry at her? Why, you know, good for, and then you might come around to actually good for her. Yeah, good for her. And good for me. And she did that. And that means I can do that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, bring those rules. We need to break those, break those cycles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Very, they're very ingrained. They are. Jen, that was brilliant. We didn't talk a lot about autoimmune stuff. Maybe that's for another, but we did mention it, didn't we? How it mentioned sort of physically, but yeah, that's, that's, they can read about that more in your book.

1:00:12Yeah, they definitely can. I mean, they're so much to say. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Jen, thank you so much. It's been a wonderful time. Oh, thank you so much. Perfect. Thank you, Jen. No real books this week, because I am having trouble motivating myself. Are you? And are you having trouble motivating yourself? Because you're not reading any, you're not reading fairy porn. I'm not reading fairy porn. That might be. I can't get back into it. It's been aware. I can't get back into my book of dust. Probably once I pick it up, it will be all right. I just don't know what motivated. It's not his best, not I'm putting out there is not his best. Oh, what shame. I don't, I personally don't think it's his best and I absolutely love Philip Pullman's writing. Yeah. But I found he, I think he needed to wrap the whole story up. Yeah. And but there's so many characters to remember and ones that come back from the past.

1:01:16Yeah. And then there's ones actually in the book. And I, I found that a little bit. I've never struggled with his books before. But this is, yeah, maybe that's been so long. This is the other one. But it, it's a thick bugger. It is a thick bugger. So there's a lot about three books. Yeah. One is to read the fairy porn. I'll get, you get, I'll, I'll borrow your first fairy, fairy porn. If you got a thought for us this week, Lou. Well, we are going to have a little moment from Jen. So before we wrap up, I want to leave you listeners with this. If you're feeling angry, it doesn't mean you're failing at life. It may mean you're actually paying attention. Anger isn't the opposite of peace. It's often the beginning of clarity. Yes. Which is just what we were talking about earlier, isn't it? Yeah. So instead of asking what's wrong with me, maybe the better question is, what is this anger trying to protect? I love that. Because anger can be a signal of a boundary, a truth teller. And when we listen to it rather than bury it,

1:02:17it can become fuel for change, connection and self-respect. Everything Jen said, yeah, and everything we've just said about that bloody water company. All wrapped up in one little thought. Absolutely. Have a think, have a think on that. So anyway, thank you for listening to Women Kind Collective this week. We will be popping up in your podcast library again next Sunday. But until then, keep spilling the tea, keep supporting one another. And remember, you aren't never alone in this. I just remembered. I've left my Bourbon biscuits at home. Oh, you twat. Got it. Got it. Anyway, let's see. I'm going to get Bourbon. Bucking angry at that. Yeah. He needed a good Bourbon talk. I did. See you next week. Bye. Boost Mobile is now sending experts nationwide to deliver and set up customers new phones. Wait, we're going on tour. We're delivering and setting up customers' phones. It's not a tour.

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1:04:39Visit bill.com slash proven to get started. And grab a $250 gift card as a thank you. Terms and conditions apply. See offer page for details. Spilling the tea with Women Kind Collective was written, presented, and produced by Gentian Lou. If you enjoy listening and you'd like to support us, you can do this at kofi.com forward slash Women Kind Collective. The link will be in our podcast show notes along with any links that may be mentioned by us or our guests in this week's episode. Thank you for listening.