For more information on how to control your anger, visit angersecrets.com.

In this deeply moving episode, anger expert Alastair Duhs shares the powerful transformation of Cameron—a husband, father and successful businessman—who took brave steps to change the legacy of anger in his family.

After a painful outburst left his daughter afraid, Cameron realised he was repeating patterns he swore he’d never pass on. What followed was a journey of self-awareness, emotional growth and quiet victories that began with enrolling in The Complete Anger Management System.

Key Takeaways:

-Recognising anger patterns—especially those modeled in childhood—is the first step toward breaking them.

-Emotional abuse doesn’t require physical violence; creating an unstable environment through tone and reaction can be just as harmful.

-Small, conscious shifts—like responding with calm empathy instead of anger—can rebuild trust in relationships.

-Early warning signs of anger offer an opportunity to pause and choose a new response before things escalate.

-Cameron’s story highlights the power of self-awareness, reflection and learning new emotional skills—even later in life.

-Online anger management allows for flexible, private and personalised growth at your own pace.

Links referenced in this episode:

angersecrets.com — Learn more about anger management

angersecrets.com/training — Watch the free training: Control Your Anger in 7 Days

angersecrets.com/course — Enrol in The Complete Anger Management System

Imagine you glance across the dinner table and your child recoils at a simple noise, their shoulders tightening, their gaze avoiding yours or your partner hesitates.

Caught between needing to share their feelings and fearing your response, the shame creeps in.

The realization strikes how did it come to this?

If moments like these feel all too familiar, know you are not alone.

And more importantly, this doesn't have to be your story forever.

Today you'll hear the raw, vulnerable transformation of Cameron, a successful businessman and father who saw himself in these same patterns.

Struggling with guilt after an outburst left his daughter retreating in fear, Cameron enrolled in my powerful online course, the Complete Anger Management System, and took his first brave step toward change.

This episode offers you proof that even years of ingrained reactions can be rewritten with awareness, effort, and the right tools.

By the end of the story, you'll learn something powerful.

Empathy for yourself, a clear path forward, and the hope that healing isn't just possible, it's within your reach.

Hello and welcome to episode 145 of the Anger Secrets podcast.

I'm your host, Alistair Dews, and for over 30 years I've walked alongside the thousands of men and women who, just like you, wanted to control their anger, take responsibility for their actions, and build calmer, happier and more loving relationships.

If you want help right now to control your anger, including a free training on how to break the anger cycle, head over to my website, angersecrets.com.

there's a link there to access that free training.

Or if you'd like to chat personally with me about your situation, you can also book a free 30 minute anger assessment call with me.

I look forward to talking with you.

Okay, with that said, let's dive into my conversation with Cameron.

I am a business owner of about 30 years.

I've been married for 15 and I've got three kids, one in college, one in high school and one in junior high for the first time.

And what brought you to this anger course?

The realization that I've been ignoring something for a long time and never really looked into what tools there might be available.

I've been to.

I've done counseling before, but I've never really specifically focused on the terms anger management.

I always thought that was for folks that always just broke out into an uncontrollable rage.

I never really aligned anger management to the issues that I was dealing with.

I was stern and swore and scared my daughter during a conversation.

She got real quiet and physically retreated and I knew at that point it's the first time I'd done that and felt Tremendous guilt by doing it.

Recognized patterns that I always wanted to break myself because I'd grown up in that kind of environment.

Never wanted to do that.

That was the first time that I had done it to my daughter.

And I had seen behavior that I never wanted to be identified as me.

It's not the memory that I wanted to create.

That's not the environment that I wanted to create.

That's not the situation I ever wanted her to see or mimic or be a part of.

And I just started googling, what can I do?

And I came across your podcast, and I started listening, and I.

To be honest with you, it was the first time I really realized there was a tribe out there that sounded like me and looked like me and felt like me.

It's the first time I identified with something tactical and practical that I could actually identify.

And I just started listening.

Are you able to say a bit more about the effect of anger on either your daughter or your family, or just elaborate on that a little bit?

Yeah.

So I am learning now that my understanding of how to handle frustrating situations, uncomfortable situations, is to get louder and to be more demanding and to attack or yell.

That's a pattern behavior that I'm now learning.

I just.

I always saw.

I mimic.

Right.

That's how I always learn to address controversy.

And the impact on my home life has been an inconsistent level of happiness in the marriage.

There'd always been a yo yo effect where she would start to get closer, be trusting, become more vulnerable.

I'd react maybe once or twice a year, and that would push her away emotionally.

And then every time it happened over the years, it would be harder and take longer for her to come back to that point of vulnerability and trust.

And so it's.

It just got to a tipping point where I didn't see her actually coming back into that vulnerability and trust.

And that, on top of the feelings that I had with that one particular episode, made me realize that there was a lot of repetitive behaviors.

There was a lot of things that, even though I said I didn't want to do what I was doing, and the closeness and the ability for me to be someone that my wife specifically could trust and lean on and feel supported and cared by was going away because I was creating these instances that was causing her not to trust, to come back and to be vulnerable and lean on me.

So it's not a pattern I wanted to continue.

And I didn't really understand how prevalent that was until I got into the course and started doing some of the exercises and Started having some of the conversations and listening to the podcasts.

And I told her the other night that it almost feels like I'm getting sober.

There's a cloud that's going away, like I'm peeling back a film that's been over me for a long time.

And I'm starting to see things that I hadn't seen before and seeing perspectives and empathy that I hadn't experienced before.

And I just wish I had done it 10, 20 years ago.

What kind of things are you seeing that you haven't seen before?

So one of the things that I learned early on was the early warning signs and just looking at how you're physically receiving information, how you are reacting mentally and physically, what your signs are, look at patterns.

And when I started doing that, and then I actually got my wife involved in that conversation and I said, take a look at my list.

Can you see anything else that should be added?

And she was able to add a couple things.

And the fact that she could actually add a couple things told me that this was definitely an issue that I had to get into.

But so that's the first thing.

And I've been trying to be more aware and attentive of how I'm receiving information.

I think one of the most powerful things that I heard in your lessons was you can't control the people, you can only control yourself.

And it's how you receive information that matters.

There's a difference between being angry and acting out.

You can be angry and not act out.

It's that scaling up through your reaction.

So I try to be really aware of that.

And the other thing I think I've been more tentative to is how other people are talking to me or with me in certain situations.

I'm trying to read body language a little bit more to see how they expect me to react and then how they're surprised when I don't react a certain way.

That's been eye opening for me as well.

Okay, and what are the old reactions you're trying to change?

What are the new reactions you're trying to foster?

I can give you two specific ones.

I was in the kitchen the other night and my son was doing the dishes and he dropped a bowl in the sink and it made a loud noise and he turned his shoulders went up like a turtle.

And he looked at me and I said, it's just a bowl, buddy.

It's okay.

And he instantly relaxed.

But that told me all I needed to know right there.

Like there had been a pattern of something that I didn't want to have happen.

His reaction was, get ready for a second.

And then my wife and I actually had a very difficult conversation the other night.

And she was sharing with me feelings.

And I told you that it's been difficult for her to come back into that circle of trust.

That elasticity gets worn out over time.

And I didn't realize just how far I had been worn out.

And she didn't know how to tell me her feelings.

And so she finally did.

And when I responded by empathetic listening and just being calm and trying to see through, see things through, her perspective and sharing what I heard and asking her if it was okay for me to ask her some more questions, she was really taken aback, surprised that the conversation didn't lead to an argument or raised voices or anything.

And she.

She told me she was speechless.

And that was.

That was interesting to hear because she had gone into it, even though she knew she had to communicate it to me.

She had gone into the conversation by thinking it was going to end up in the same old argument that we always have.

And that was.

Yeah, that was telling.

Yeah.

So she was obviously familiar with the old patterns and the effect on her of not responding the way you used.

To respond in business.

In my line of work, we look for examples of roi.

We look for short term gains.

We look for ways of, as we call it, click and treat is rewarding behaviors with small instances of success.

And so I would say that this was certainly one of those moments where I had an instant return on investment, where there was a very pleasant response.

I could see a positive and surprising result in her that was certainly different than what she expected.

And so I'm building on those little moments.

I'm trying to remember those little moments.

Whether it's the sync to my son or the response from my wife, I'm trying to build on those and to remind myself that this isn't a short term thing.

This is an exercise in change in behavior and perception.

Right.

And attitude.

And I'm trying to change some of the things that I've relied on as a crutch through the years.

And it takes moments like that to be able to reinforce that it's worth doing.

Yeah.

Both examples are really powerful.

How did that conversation with your wife end up?

I'm gonna say unremarkably, which is fantastic.

It just ended as if a conversation should.

There was no heightened anything.

It was just.

Honestly, I'm laughing because I think I had to run out the door and pick up our son.

And we just agreed to Talk again later.

And so there was really no remarkable way that it ended, which I will tell you.

I was pleasant, pleasantly surprised.

And I'm sure it's a pleasant experience for your wife too, right?

She would start to rebuild that trust with you gradually.

Slowly, but gradually.

Yeah, that's what we hope.

That's me.

Yeah.

So how easy or hard for you was it to respond in that empathic way?

It was mentally hard because I felt like I was fighting myself.

I could see myself having tendencies of going back into the learned behaviors, and it was almost as if I was hovering above myself, watching to see what I would do.

But for me, that was a positive thing because it allowed me to know that I was paying attention to my reactions, how I was receiving information.

I was alert and aware of what I was doing while in the conversation.

And it's much like many things that you learn.

It's harder at the beginning, and then it becomes learned and instinctual.

But right now, I'm at the very beginning of trying to learn how to do something, whether it's playing piano or this.

It's difficult, the beginning.

It's hard.

And that's how it felt.

Yeah.

New skills take time.

Like you're saying, how long have you been in the course for?

But I think it's probably been about a month.

What do you think the most significant thing you've learned so far is?

The most powerful realization that I have come to learn and understand there's.

That there is no difference between violence and abuse.

So you don't need a physical aspect to be abusive.

And that was eye opening for me.

Okay.

And the relevance of that to your situation is.

So I always said I'd never touch somebody, I'd never hit somebody, I'd never act out, I would never do that.

And for me, that was always my justification that I had it under control.

But what I'm learning now is that the impact of acting out and creating emotionally unstable environments and having the reactions that I've learned to do all my life is just as impactful in a negative way than actually having a physical reaction.

But I always, in my mind, I always said I'd never touch anybody, I'd never hit anybody, I'd never do that.

So therefore I'm okay.

And that's not true.

So that's really common.

And just the lack of distinction between abuse and violence is powerful for a lot of people.

Has anyone made any comments about changes that they've seen in news so far?

My wife has a couple times.

She told me in one of our conversations that she was speechless because she didn't know.

When I told her I was taking a course, she didn't really know what that meant.

She never said this out loud, but part of me thinks that it was just my way of trying to relieve pressure by saying, lady, look what I'm doing.

But I don't know that she understand the commitment or the mental change that would come from it.

So she said that she was speechless when she saw what I was doing and how I was churning.

And then another conversation that would have normally led to a repetitive cycle of loud voices and arguments was just an empathetic conversation.

And a soft and kind of normal tone and a caring and compassion kind of played the role rather than anger and tension and friction.

And she specifically mentioned that she was totally surprised, didn't even want to bring up a topic because she didn't want to have that be the end result.

The friction, the tension, all of the anger, the repetitive fighting.

There's a cycle that we've always gone through.

And because I broke that, she said out loud that it was a noticeable and a positive change.

And what are your comments about doing an online course?

So I think there's a number of benefits to an online course versus an in person course.

The first, for someone like me, I never really know what my schedule's gonna be.

So the flexibility of doing this on my own time, I think is hugely beneficial.

Second, I don't know that in an in person course I would be able to reflect as much as I am in the moment.

Sometimes I can move through something quickly.

Sometimes I have to pause and spend more time with it and come back to it.

I don't know that the consistent pace of trying to keep up with everybody would have benefited me.

So I think that the convenience, the ability of personalizing it and going at my own pace is hugely beneficial.

Especially with something as intimate and emotional as this is.

I don't think everyone can move through at the same pace.

I don't think everyone can move through the same pattern and experiences.

So the ability to do it by myself in my own convenience and take my time where I need to and speed up where I can, that's.

It's helpful.

It's very clear.

What would you say to someone else, perhaps who was in your situation like five or six weeks ago, thinking about doing this course, what would you say to that person?

I would say if you've ever doubted yourself in the ability of staying control in the moment, if you've ever seen that your actions has a negative impact on the people that are in your life, whether it be loved ones, family, friends, coworkers.

If you've ever regretted the way that you react, if you've ever seen fear in someone's eyes even though you've never touched them, if you've ever felt that you are creating an unstable or emotionally unsound environment because of the way that you act, there's probably no gift greater to yourself for the ones that you care about, then at least check it out.

The ability of recognizing that there are people just like you, that there is a simple and clear path to understanding what's happening, and then you can choose what you want to do about that.

But I think the lack of recognition that there was a simple and clear definition and people that looked and sounded and felt just like me was something that I wish I'd found 20 years ago.

Okay, I'd like to thank Cameron again for for sharing his story.

Listening to it reminds me of the bravery and courage displayed by anyone who is willing to face their anger issues head on.

Cameron's willingness to step into discomfort and own his past, especially moments he never wanted to repeat, serves as an example for anyone struggling with similar challenges.

And if Cameron's story struck a chord with you, I want you to know you don't have to do this on your own.

Real help is available right now.

Whether you're just beginning to recognize you have an issue with anger or you're already working to control your temper, support makes all the difference.

The door is open and I'm ready to help you.

You can access a completely free training on breaking the anger cycle on my website, angersecrets.com or if you need something more personal, maybe you want to talk through your own situation, ask questions, or explore what real change could look like for you.

I invite you to book a free private 30 minute anger assessment call with me.

No pressure, just a real conversation focused entirely on you.

And if you're ready to go deeper, you can also explore the complete anger management system@AngerSecrets.com course.

Whatever you need, I'm here to help you move forward.

And remember, you can't control what others say or do, but you can control your own response.

And when you reach out for support, you you open the door to a calmer, kinder and more connected life.

Take care and I'll talk with you next week.

The Anger Secrets podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of counseling, psychotherapy or any other professional health service.

No therapeutic relationship is implied or created by this podcast.

If you have mental health concerns of any type, please seek out the help of a local mental health professional.