Leah Hadley [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Intentional Divorce Insights. I'm Leah Hadley, certified divorce financial analyst, accredited financial counselor, and the founder of Intentional Divorce Solutions. I'll be your guide through the complexities of divorce, finance, and emotional wellness. Join me as we uncover practical tips and empowering insights to help you navigate your divorce with clarity and intention. Welcome back to Intentional Divorce Insights. It is my pleasure to introduce our guest today. This is doctor Mort Ormond, who is a board certified internal medicine physician and a forty year anger elimination, stress elimination, and emotions mastery expert. And I know a lot of us who are going through big life transitions can use a lot of support in this area.
Leah Hadley [00:00:49]:
So I am thrilled that he's here. He has written 23 books on how to eliminate anger, stress, and other unwanted emotions without using drugs, relaxation exercises, or other traditional management techniques. He has also been the official sponsor of National Stress Awareness Month every April in The US since 1992. Doctor Orman is the creator of Angry No More, a 10 session quick anger elimination program and quick emotions mastery, a four hour online learning program to master anger, guilt, fear, worry, frustration, and sadness. His newest book, Doctor Ormond's Life Changing Anger Cure is now available on Amazon, and you can learn more about Doctor Ormond at his website, DocOrman.com Thank you for being with us. It's great to have you.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:01:42]:
Well, Leah, happy to be here. Actually, since it's, we're in the middle of, National Stress Awareness Month right now. So it's something I created over thirty years ago, and it's been going, well every year.
Leah Hadley [00:01:53]:
Fantastic. Perfect timing. So how did you get into this work?
Dr. Mort Orman [00:01:58]:
Well, I was a physician, and, when going through medical training, internship, residency, and and the first few years of my practice, I mean, I had a lot of stress. I had a lot of anger. I had a lot of anxiety. I had a tremendous fear of public speaking, and I would have never agreed to do anything like this.
Leah Hadley [00:02:15]:
Okay.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:02:16]:
It would have been really just I would have been a basket case back then. So I had all these problems, and I was trying to get rid of them. And I I mean, I was pretty good at solving most problems I faced in life, but these stress problems and emotions problems and real And then I also had a lot of relationship failures one after another, because I didn't understand my emotions, didn't know how to deal with my anger and all that kind of stuff. So I I ran into a lot of my own personal problems that I couldn't solve, and it was frustrating. And and then I'm taking care of patients. You know, as as physicians, we we quickly recognize the angry patients from the not so angry patients in our practice, and we follow them over time. And you get to see what happens to to the whole group of patients that you follow. And and, you know, you quickly you quickly see, as most doctors see, the angry people in your practice have more health problems.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:03:08]:
They have more heart attacks and strokes and high blood pressure and other illnesses. And then they come in, they tell you about their divorce, where they get addicted to something, you know, where their kids won't talk to them anymore. You know, you you see this train wreck associated with anger, and you're sitting there with your own anger. So I said, I don't wanna end up like that, you know, like a lot of my patients were. And so that that drove me kinda get involved at personal development work where, after a while, I had put some things together and got some insights into what was going on with me and emotions and relationships also. And, was able to solve those problems finally. I was able to really cure my anger problems, cure my pub obviously, I'm here. Cure my public speaking fear.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:03:51]:
And, and my wife and I just celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary. So I cured that, you know, relationship failure problem as well. So, and it's been great the last forty years compared to, you know, the earlier part of my life where I had all those problems. And I've been helping people ever since I discovered how to, you know, fix my own problems, to share that information with other people over the last four decades. So I've been privileged to be able to do that.
Leah Hadley [00:04:20]:
Well, that's fantastic. And it's great too that you have the experience of really understanding the emotions and how they impact your life both personally and seeing it professionally. I think that gives you a very unique perspective on things. I'm curious. What are some of the harmful effects of anger during and after a divorce?
Dr. Mort Orman [00:04:40]:
Well, firstly, a lot of time, anger can lead to the divorce. You know, if it peep when you don't know how to deal with your emotions, anger in particular, but other emotions too, that can be part of the problem that led the to the arguments and fights and hurt feelings and all the stuff that eventually had people say, that's it. I'm done. And then and then you go through divorce, and, of course, there's all kinds of things that can make you angry when you go through divorce, you know, people behaving badly, doing bad things. You know, you got lawyers involved. You got judges making decisions. You've got other ancillary people affecting your life, affecting your kids, affecting your future. All of that can get people very angry.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:05:22]:
And then then your anger can generate anger in your ex and vice versa. You know? And the lawyers, you know, kick in and do their thing, and stir stir up the pot. So and then after the divorce, you're still usually gonna be connected in some way, particularly if you're co parenting, with your ex. And you're gonna be interacting, and there's still gonna be that lingering anger that keeps popping up every time you you're in the presence of your ex or you see a picture of your ex or somebody's talking about your ex. You know, you you could get you could get, triggered with with anger. And and chronic anger is just not good for us. You know? I like to think of anger in two big buckets. There's the unwanted anger, and there's wanted or good anger, you know, anger that's beneficial.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:06:10]:
And I would say 80 or 90% of the anger we experience is unwanted and unhelpful and unhealthy in many ways. So it can affect our health, as we talked about. It can affect our sleep. It can affect our our feelings of self worth. You know, if you can't when you can't control your emotions and you can't stop yourself from getting angry, you don't feel so good about yourself, you know Absolutely. Compared to when you know how to do that. So, and and it causes all kinds of relationship problems. You know, it's not just your divorce, but whatever your next relationship's gonna be or whatever other relationships you have in your life, friends, coworkers, you know, bosses, things like that.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:06:49]:
If you don't know how to handle anger in relationships, it's gonna cost you in terms of the quality of those relationships. And some of those relationships may dissolve, for one reason or another. So so it has a lots and lots of not to mention the fact that you can, you know, get into legal trouble. You can, you know, if you get angry and you you act out and you hurt somebody. Sure. Your kids can be impacted by your anger. So it's it's not a it's not a a good emotion most of the time. Now every once in a while, it's good.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:07:25]:
And sometimes, you know, people need to get good and angry before they take action. And and that may be beneficial kind of anger. But once you've taken the action, you don't need it anymore.
Leah Hadley [00:07:34]:
That's right.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:07:35]:
It doesn't have to linger, and you'd be better off without it. And whatever else you have to deal with, you deal with. But it's better to be deal with those problems in life or those relationship, or even divorce negotiations or, you know, ongoing, you know, interactions, without having all that anger coming into the picture and mucking things up.
Leah Hadley [00:07:56]:
Such an important point, right? Because our judgment is really clouded when we're feeling angry. Yes. And especially when it comes to divorce negotiations, you really wanna be able to approach them with a clear mind.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:08:07]:
Yes.
Leah Hadley [00:08:08]:
Yeah. What are some of the main things that people misunderstand about anger?
Dr. Mort Orman [00:08:12]:
Well, I think the biggest thing and remember, I was a medical doctor, so I was well trained. I had four years of college. I had four years of medical school, three years of internship and residency. Plus I had studied psychology on my own, you know, and actually took some psychology programs after medical school. So I had a I was very well educated, and I did not understand my emotions. I I misunderstood my emotions. Just like everybody today, you know, you turn on the TV, you scroll social media, you see people getting angry all over the place. They do not understand what's causing their anger.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:08:45]:
They think they do. They think it's all the behavior of other people that's making them angry, or the behavior of the government, or something outside of them that's making them angry. And not to say that isn't a factor, but what's really going on is our brain is creating the anger, and we don't understand how that happens because it's invisible. You literally Unless somebody shows you what the process is that's going on in your brain when you're angry, you would not figure it out on your own most of the time. So that's something that I fortunately, again, doing personal development work, I eventually figured out what my brain was doing every time I got angry. And once I knew the mechanism, which isn't really complicated, by the way, but once I knew the mechanism, then I could say, okay. Now I know why I'm angry. Now I know what I can do to defend myself against what my brain is doing, how it's making me angry.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:09:32]:
So our brain is we but we don't one of the things we don't understand is our brain is constantly filtering everything before we experience it or see it or interpret it. Our brains, millions of years ago, realized that, you know, there was too much information coming into our senses just in terms of volume. So the brains had to figure out how to, sorta chunk things down, filter things out, reduce the amount of information coming into only that which was important to keep us alive or to achieve our goals or whatever we were focused on. So the brain got very good at filtering and leaving stuff out and and only presenting to us our awareness that which it felt was important to us. So that's our brain's been doing that all along for millions of years. And ever since we've been alive, it's doing it every day, all the time. And and all emotions come from several filters, the ways our brain tells us to look at things that happen. And when you stack those up together, and and you believe what the your brain is telling you to believe, then you're gonna get the emotion that goes along with that.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:10:38]:
So there's three primary filters for anger, which most people are not aware of. And they're very simple. You don't have to be a genius or a psychiatrist or anything like that. So the first filter is that somebody did the way we look at things, the brain tells us to look at things is somebody did something bad and wrong they shouldn't have done. So there's a negative judgment about somebody's behavior, or it could be a thing. You know, your car could malfunction or something like that. Somebody's doing something it it it shouldn't be doing. Unjust, unfair, wrong, you know, unconscionable, horrific, however you wanna label it.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:11:14]:
There's a negative filter about what they did. Then there's a second filter, which is as a result of their behave their negative behavior, somebody was hurt or harmed or negatively impacted or could be negatively impacted. And then the third filter that generates anger is what I call it's a filter of blame, but it's what I call unilateral blame. So it's very narrowly focused. We only are looking at and our brain only lets us look at, when we're angry, the behavior of the other person or the person that we think did the bad and wrong thing. And it it blocks out any other causes that might have been involved. So if we played a role, it won't let us see that right away. And if other factors played a role in that person's life, we won't we'll only just see what they did or didn't do.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:12:02]:
And we'll we'll use that to judge, you know, and blame. And so when you get those three filters and by the way, people should write those three things down. You only need six words to write these down on a sticky note or an index card or on your cell phone. Bad, wrong, negative impact, unilateral blame. That's how your brain makes you angry. It gives you those three perspectives on whatever happened. Right? And it tells you they're true. And if you believe it, then you're going which most people do, then you're going to get the emotion of anger.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:12:37]:
Now if you have another emotion like anxiety, for example, that's that also has three filters that cause the emotion, but they're different. So each emotion has its own sort of, footprint or its own formula for how the brain creates the emotion and makes us see things and believe things. And when we do, then we get the emotion. Okay? And a lot of times, most of us have had the experience of getting angry about something because we believed what our brain was telling us, and then later on we found out, oh, that wasn't quite true.
Leah Hadley [00:13:08]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:13:09]:
You know, I I assumed this, or my brain told me this was going on, or or this person was doing something for this reason or motive. And it turns out I found out later on it was completely different. And then your anger is because in that moment, you find out that what your brain was telling you was false, your your anger disappears. So that's kind of the secret for how you eliminate anger rather than manage it. You know, when you manage it, you're just dealing with the symptoms. But if you to eliminate anger, you gotta know what's causing it, and it's those three filters. And then remember, they're invisible. So you need a little cheat sheet like I just gave you.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:13:43]:
Alright? Where you can pull it out at when you need to remember what those three and and after a while, you'll you'll have this memorized as to what they are. But in the beginning, you'll have to practice a little bit in remembering what's causing your anger. But that's and it doesn't matter. Your anger is caused by those three filters. My anger is caused by those three filters. If you have an ex, their anger is caused by those three filters. If you have kids, their anger is caused by those three filters. Anybody who gets angry anywhere is getting angry because their brains are doing the same thing and telling them, you know, look at the look at whatever happened through those three filters and believe they're true.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:14:20]:
And they're all the brain's also saying, and don't question it. You know, don't question what I'm telling you. I'm your brain. I wouldn't lie to you.
Leah Hadley [00:14:28]:
That's a good point, though. And, lastly, I think when people are going through the divorce process
Dr. Mort Orman [00:14:34]:
Yes.
Leah Hadley [00:14:35]:
They're very quick to respond in an angry manner.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:14:39]:
But we all are we all are because these brain mechanisms are conditioned, and they're they're automatic. They're knee jerk. You know, we're not we don't think those thoughts. We just it happens, like, instantly. We perceive through those filters, and it just looks like that's reality. And if if that's reality, then we feel justified being angry.
Leah Hadley [00:15:01]:
Right. Yeah. Right.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:15:03]:
Yeah. The problem is if you ask if you start digging in and asking, are each of those three things true? You'll often find out that a lot of times one or more of them is missing critical information or got things wrong or distorted your view or gave you a you know, or maybe you judged somebody unfairly, to be doing something wrong when they really weren't or not to the degree that you thought they were. You know, there's all these mistakes that our brain is making in terms of judging other people's behaviors. And if you really start digging around, you'll find them, but you really have to start asking the questions to do it. Sure.
Leah Hadley [00:15:40]:
Yeah. So why do you think that men and women have such a hard time dealing with anger during and after a divorce?
Dr. Mort Orman [00:15:46]:
Well, it's just there's just so much stuff that that's there to be angry about. You know, there's so much bad behavior from a lot of different parties. You know, you've got people who are incentivized to act badly, the people incentivized to stir things up. And and, lawyers in particular have no, fidelity to the truth. They can say whatever they want. They can make up all kinds of false accusations, accuse you of things, bring charges against you for things that you didn't do. And and that's that makes people crazy when they're falsely accused. And then you've got spouses, you know, getting angry with each other and then wanting to punish each other, and then each one feels, you know, innocent, and they're be unfairly, you know, victimized by the other.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:16:34]:
And then you got kids in the middle and bad behavior about how kids are used, you know, by one party or another. So, you know, you got judges making decisions that you may not agree with. There's so many things, and the emotions are so high. And the people involved who are supporting folks going through the process usually don't understand emotions either. So they can't really help you deal with your your your issues. I've had a couple divorce coaches come to me and ask me to teach them that my methodology, these these three filters and how you use them to make your anger go away because they realize how, they wanna be more helpful to their own clients that they're working with because the anger is so hot and heavy, you know, that they really feel a need for if they had the tools like I have to help people work through their anger issues and get past them, then they can make a huge impact on their lives, the lives of their kids, and on their next relationship they're gonna go into and stuff like that. So, yeah. It's the reason why we have a difficulty is because we we haven't been taught to understand these how our brain makes us angry because it's invisible.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:17:45]:
It's very easy to see, but all the bad behavior that's outside of us, that that's not invisible. We see those causes or those triggers. But we can't see is what's going on, what our brain is doing, and how it's causing us to judge those and interpret them that's making us angry. And until you have those puzzle pieces, you don't you don't have a chance to get free of your anger. You know, you can tamp it down. You can run five miles. You can punch a punching bag. You can do anger management stuff, But you're still gonna be angry.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:18:14]:
You know, it's still gonna be stirring you up and maybe interfering with your sleep or affecting your, choices and things like that. And also, if you get into a retribution type, you know, framework where you want you you feel wronged, and now you wanna, you know, get back at somebody. And that's gonna just create a spiral of, you know, of of events that's just gonna bring more and more anger into your life.
Leah Hadley [00:18:39]:
Sure. And I love how empowering it is to think about eliminating anger completely rather than just managing through it.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:18:48]:
And that's another misconception people have. People don't think that's possible.
Leah Hadley [00:18:52]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:18:52]:
They think the only thing they can do is manage anger because that's what they've been told. You know? Right. But if you if you start playing with these three filters like I've been talking about and you start examining your own brain's functioning when you're angry and questioning it, you will discover that, oh my god. I can make my anger go away just by realizing my brain was tricking me. Right. And then when it happens, when you when you do that and your anger just is gone, you go like, oh my god. You know, you really can. You know, you can make anger go away.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:19:25]:
You know? And we've all had the experience. We've all like, for example, one common example I use is, you know, we've all had situations where we've made arrangements with someone to meet us at a place at a time, and it told them it was very important they'd be there. We were depending upon them for something, transportation or whatever. And we're make we make sure we're there plenty early, and we're there, and the time comes for them to show up and they're not there. You know? And a couple minutes go by, and they're still not there. You know? And we're starting to imagine all kinds of scenarios that our brains telling us, oh, you shouldn't have trusted them. You know? They're they're not responsible. They didn't take it seriously.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:20:02]:
You know, they didn't you know, you got all this stuff going on and it's making you angrier and angrier. And then they show up a few minutes later, and they tell you what happened. You know, they were they were very conscientious. You know, they left a half an hour early. They got caught in a massive traffic jam. They couldn't get out of it. And as soon as you understand you get those missing pieces of data that you didn't have, that your brain didn't have, as soon as you understand what the reality was versus what your brain was telling you that they were just irresponsible and, you know, you shouldn't have trusted them in the first then your anger just goes away in a flash. You know, we've all had that experience.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:20:36]:
You know, it's just we don't think we can do it on on command or on, you know, on demand when we want it when we wanna be free of the anger, but you can. And the processes that we just talked about, you understand the three filters, you remind yourself what they are, and then you start questioning them. You start interrogating them. And you try to figure out where they may be incorrect or have blind spots, left out critical stuff or stuff you didn't know, or that you maybe assumed. And then and then you'll find when you do that, oh my god. You know, my brain was not giving me the whole story. Yeah.
Leah Hadley [00:21:09]:
I think this is gonna be super helpful for a lot of people. So I really appreciate you taking the time to share this with us, doctor Orman. Yeah. I know you have a free resource for our audience. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Dr. Mort Orman [00:21:20]:
Yeah. I have a PDF a free PDF that you can download. It's called the best anger elimination method you can find. And it's basically well, it gives you more information. It gives you some information about anger more so than what we've talked about. It goes into more detail about how I coach people in my coaching programs that when I help them, you know, go through, like, a 10 session program to really just to completely change their relationship to anger so they don't aren't prisoners of their anger anymore. And then at the end of it, there's a there's a a little blurb about my book, which people can get, which also goes into more detail than what we've talked about today on this whole three filter thing and the process and all that, how you use that information. And you get that by going to theangersolution.org.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:22:06]:
That's the angersolution.org. And you can also find out about me through the website that you mentioned, www.DocOrman.com is my main website.
Leah Hadley [00:22:18]:
Fantastic. And we will include those resources for you all in the show notes so you can make sure to take those check those out, take advantage of the free resource. Check out doctor Orman's book, especially if you really are struggling with anger right now. These are great resources where you can really proactively do something about it and really, really have a positive impact, not only on your own life, but your interactions with others as well. So doctor Orman, again, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.
Dr. Mort Orman [00:22:45]:
Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you, Leah.
Leah Hadley [00:22:47]:
Absolutely. And for our audience, we look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you for joining me on Intentional Divorce Insights. It's a privilege to share this time with you. I hope each episode offers valuable guidance to navigate your journey. If you find our content helpful, please leave a review to help others discover the benefits of intentional decision making in divorce. Until next time, take care and continue to embrace your path with intention.
