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May 20, 2025 14 mins
In this episode of #FeelingsMatter, hosts Heather Hampton, Michelle Stinson Ross,  and Tina Schweiger explore the emotion of aggression - that feeling of wanting to attack or argue with someone. The conversation moves from personal experiences with aggression to the challenges of handling aggression in children, particularly neurodivergent children. The hosts discuss how aggression can be contagious, creating escalating cycles, and share insights about maintaining calm in the face of others' aggressive behavior.

Episode Highlights:
  • Heather shares how she experiences aggression primarily while driving, using her car as a "safe space" to express feelings she wouldn't verbalize face-to-face, and recounts working through persistent aggressive feelings after a friendship breakup using EMDR therapy
  • Tina describes living with three neurodivergent males and observes how aggression tends to escalate as a "one-up emotion," creating power struggles that can trigger anxiety in bystanders
  • The hosts candidly discuss the challenges of parenting children with aggressive tendencies, with Tina sharing vulnerable stories about managing public meltdowns and the importance of finding compassion despite being tested
  • Michelle reflects on witnessing and helping Tina during a difficult parenting moment, highlighting the value of trusted community support when dealing with aggression, especially in public settings where others lack context
  • The conversation concludes with insights about the contagious nature of intense emotions like aggression, with Tina noting that "advanced emotional agility" involves staying mindful enough of your own emotional state to avoid unconscious reactions to others' aggression


Podcast theme music by Dubush Miaw from Pixabay

This episode of the #FeelingsMatter Podcast was recorded and produced at MSR Studios in Saint Paul, MN.Copyright 2025, all rights reserved. No reproduction, excerpting, or other use without written permission.

This episode is sponsored by 
FeelWise - bridging the gap between reflection and resilience, offering practical tools to help people overcome obstacles, embrace change, and grow stronger emotionally. https://www.feel-wise.com/

Don’t miss a moment of the conversation, subscribe to the show on your favorite podcasting platform

Podcast theme music by Dubush Miaw from Pixabay

This episode of the #FeelingsMatter Podcast was recorded and produced at MSR Studios in Saint Paul, MN. No reproduction, excerpting, or other use without written permission.

This episode is sponsored by 
FeelWise - bridging the gap between reflection and resilience, offering practical tools to help people overcome obstacles, embrace change, and grow stronger emotionally. https://www.feel-wise.com/

Don’t miss a moment of the conversation, subscribe to the show on your favorite podcasting platform
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Do you have trouble talking about your feelings?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
You're not alone.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
It's a topic that can make even the most powerful
people somewhat squeamish. You're listening to Feelings Matter, where our
mission is to demystify everything about emotions so that we
can all get more comfortable in talking about them. Join Heather, Tina,

(00:29):
and Michelle as we unpack a new angle on emotions
and the psychology of human nature.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Feelings Matter.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome to Feelings Matter.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
I'm Michelle Finton Ross and I'm Teenish Wiger and I'm
Heather Hampton.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, Heather, do you have an immension to share her
with us?

Speaker 5 (00:57):
Yeah? So today the emotion that I picked was aggressive.
So aggressive is the feeling like when you want to
attack someone or you want to argue with them. This
is an emotion that I feel very frequently when I'm driving.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, people who.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
Drive with me will comment that I swear like a
sailor when I'm in the car because I just feel
like there's so many idiots out on the road, but
also like my car is my safe space, and so
I can say things in my car that I wouldn't
really say to a person face to face, and it's

(01:44):
a good release for me.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
I don't otherwise.

Speaker 5 (01:49):
I don't often feel aggressive, Like if I feel attacked,
whether emotionally or physically, I tend to go into a
retreat mode instead of so I go inwards instead of
expressing outwards.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
But I did have.

Speaker 5 (02:06):
One situation where I had a breakup with a friend
who was very narcissistic and who was very manipulative at
the end, and I left the relationship feeling like I
didn't have closure and that he got the last words,

(02:30):
and that caused me to continue to have a lot
of aggressive feelings towards him, and I did a lot
of work to try and process that because I was
never going to get closure with him, to the point
where I actually had to enroll my therapist and we
did some EMDR therapy around it, and that was the

(02:51):
thing that finally allowed me to let go of that.
And actually, in doing that EMDR, I found gratitude in
a way that I had not been able to find
it on my own before. And I feel like that
was really what caused that healing for me. I just
needed a different way to access to that gratitude.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
In order to have that closure.

Speaker 6 (03:17):
That is really cool and I'm sorry about your friends.
And friend breakups are really hard. Oh yeah, And but
what a self awareness to be able to tie that
back to noticing that you have aggression with that and
then to bring that to gratitude because you could always
when you feel those that it's an intense anger of feeling,

(03:40):
but you you've learned something from your healing of that
lack of closure and get to a place of healing
on your own is really truly how you can get
through that.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
And that's just beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, I's gonna see
you for that.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Feelings Matter is brought to you by feel Wise. Most
people can identify three emotions sad, mad, and glad.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
But there are over one hundred and fifty.

Speaker 7 (04:16):
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Speaker 3 (04:20):
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Speaker 2 (04:44):
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Speaker 3 (04:46):
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Speaker 6 (04:56):
I have a houseful of myself plus three other rodivergent males,
so aggression happens almost naily in my house, I observe it.
And one of the things that I notice about aggression
is that I don't like is the escalating of aggression.
Seems like an aggression at emotion is a one up emotion. Yeah,

(05:21):
I'm aggressive, but I see you're aggressive, and I arrange
you my aggression to topple your aggression, and it becomes
this aggression power struggle. And that's where I get more anxiety,
because that becomes terrifying in the environment when you're witnessing
escalating aggression.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Between two other humans that you love.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Yeah, and unfortunately for you, you've had to.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Bodily put yourself in the middle of a child's aggression.

Speaker 8 (05:53):
And.

Speaker 9 (05:55):
That's I can understand why it would cause anxiety.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
I saw you, you get anxious and want to subtle
that situation as quickly as possible.

Speaker 6 (06:05):
I must have given myself a hot flash thinking about her.
I don't have a problem talking about this. At one
point in the future, I will do some parenting emotion
processing and emotion emotional resilience for parents, because aggression in

(06:26):
your neurodivergent children, young boys, especially around the age of seven,
particularly six to eight, have an a large amount of
aggression and for one of my children. What it looked
like was trying to inflict wounds upon parents with objects

(06:46):
and the hurling of objects and the hitting, violently hitting,
and for a while there, when you have a seven
year old, you can out strength your seven year old.
So I'd put a little cage, like a little physical
cage or around the little guy. He's got an arm
sticking out here, and this hand is reaching for a shoe, and.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
That foot is trying to kick me away.

Speaker 6 (07:09):
And I definitely was injured through that process, but that
aggression was.

Speaker 4 (07:17):
Not one.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
It caused me.

Speaker 6 (07:19):
Fear because I felt like I was worried that it
would bounce around. But it also I felt compassion because
that's just this inability to really understand and regulate that
that's just where a child is in their maturity and growth,
and that's how they express their frustration is through this

(07:40):
intense aggression. It can be very difficult for a parents,
and you can so easily lose your temper.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
And want to fight back.

Speaker 6 (07:49):
But what I had to really manage through that on
the anger side, it's making distance between you and what
is the object. In this case, I had to make
a physical distance between my child and like the object
of what they were angry about with a physical little cage.
I had to do that for my child because they

(08:09):
did not have the skills. Yet most of us don't
have the skills. Like we really have to work on
these skills. I don't want to say that, like with
the assumption that we have all these skills, that's why
we're here. Yeah, yeah, oh, poor little guys. That they
grow out of it, they do and they get more mature.
But the childhood aggression with particular neurodivergent boys and probably

(08:33):
those who are just not neurodivergent even, but it can
be intense. But I was able to find compassion. But
boy didn't test my patience.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
Oh, especially when that comes up in public, and not
only you're even having to deal with your child, but
also the judgmentalism of everybody else watching this happen with
zero context.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Oh gosh, that I had a lot of these memories.

Speaker 6 (09:00):
Michelle, my older one, when he was seven, we were
at like the fairy.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
On Coozamel, like coming off of the ferry and I
don't know what it was. He didn't want to do.

Speaker 6 (09:12):
It was something and he is sit down and he
was taking his flip flops and throwing his flip flops
at other.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
People coming off of the far faking.

Speaker 6 (09:25):
So I had throw a flip flop, and then I
just I had to send everybody off, and I'm like,
I'll just sit here with this little guy and go
and grab the flip flop. And then I'm trying to
hold onto the flip flops, and then he's trying to
get the flip flops from me so he could hurl
them at someone else.

Speaker 4 (09:42):
Oh, I put these out of my memory. I hopefully
it's okay to bring some of this up. Like I said,
boundaries stop me. No, it's good.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
I liked it because it's life. We're good friends.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
Yeah, And I had to witness you actually intervene in
one of these moments with one of your children in
a restaurant and just the level of compassion that I'm like,
oh my gosh, I wish I could just laugh around
to everybody else and go, you have no idea.

Speaker 6 (10:14):
I can't remember the situation, so I've definitely blocked that
one out.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
And it topped off.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
Because both of your children were there, and unfortunately, while
one child.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Was having a moment, the other one was like freaked out.
And panicked about it, and.

Speaker 8 (10:29):
I'm like, dwiden conquered, Tita, you get that one, and
I will try and do this as much as I
can over heew So, even though I'm not normally the
adult involved in your parenting situations, Tina and I have enough.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
Of a relationship and enough trust with one another that
she can trust me to handle a situation like that
where dividen conquered needs to happen.

Speaker 9 (10:54):
Oh my god, I'm not for back that. I'm not
going to make this situation worse. If anything, I can step.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
In and provides to the support that shouldn't help it
get better.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
It takes a community, it does, it really does.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
But it was one of the weird moments where the
community around us in that moment had zero context of
what was happening right now.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
And of course somebody viewing this from the.

Speaker 4 (11:18):
Outside the first time with zero contact, of course they're
going to react in ways they're like, if it's not
helpful right now, But whatever, I have to say.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
I love the neighborhood that you live in because it's
just full of.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
Really wonderful, thoughtful mindset people and for the most part,
the thing that.

Speaker 9 (11:38):
Could have become a really bad SIGs just never did
because everybody else around us was like, Okay, that.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Lady's doing one thing.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
The other lady that was with her is doing this,
And honestly, I think just.

Speaker 9 (11:54):
Mean modeling, being very calm and very this is this
doesn't have to be a big deal. I think really
was important in that moment because it wasn't just you
they were watching. They were watching like us as a
great and to see me be really calm and go
this is just the thing. It would be over momentarily
whatever I think was unfortany for the rest of the

(12:17):
strangers around us to look at and go.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
You bring up such a.

Speaker 6 (12:20):
Good point, Michelle, and I need to dive into where
that was because I still can't remember.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
But the good the point there is aggression is a.

Speaker 10 (12:27):
Very intense emotion, and more intense the emotion, the more
contagious it is, whether it's thinking for any other thing,
or negative feeling or in like just a hard motion.
So this difficult emotion of aggression is like, when one
person exhibits aggression, the people around are gonna be Like
evolutionary psychology or biology just teaches us that if somebody's

(12:51):
exhibiting aggression, You got to pay attention. You might then
feel their aggression or you might have like an intense
reaction to theirs, And that's where we get into I
would call it like advanced emotional agility, would be can
you be in the presence of a person that has
aggression and be mindful enough of your own emotional state

(13:17):
to not unconsciously react, Because if you can do that,
you could be a great service to those who struggle
with aggression that are in your lives and be able
to have.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
A space for them by

Speaker 6 (13:32):
Not taking it personally.
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