#141 - You Mad Bro? (Part 1) {Reflections Re-Release}

“I’m fine” can sound polite, but it can also be the fastest way to stay stuck. We kick off with a funny “You mad, bro?” moment and end up somewhere surprisingly practical: if you can’t name your feelings, they’ll end up naming you through your reactions, your tone, and your snap decisions.

We talk about why “fine” isn’t a feeling, how a bigger emotional vocabulary (lonely, embarrassed, disappointed, insecure, joyful) changes the way we communicate, and why couples so often get trapped in the same tired question: “Are you mad?” Then we zoom out with Carl Jung’s iceberg picture of the conscious mind vs the unconscious mind, including the shadow self, and why “out of character” moments are usually signals from what’s under the surface, not random glitches.

To make it concrete, we dig into HALT (hungry, angry, lonely, tired) and how those states can hijack judgment, especially when you’re tempted to make a major life decision in an emotional moment. You’ll hear simple reflection prompts you can use right away: What am I feeling? What set me off? What does this remind me of? What part of me believes this is true?

If this helps, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can learn to name what’s real. What emotion have you been calling “fine” lately?

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Transcript

Re-Release Setup And Key Line

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Hey everyone, Olivia here. Pastor Ryan is on sabbatical this summer, so I will be re-releasing some of our most popular episodes from the Reflections podcast. Today's episode originally aired in August of 2025. One line from this episode that always sticks with me is that fine is not a feeling. Okay, enjoy this re-release.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

What is

The “You Mad, Bro” Story

SPEAKER_01 0:45

up, everybody? Hey, Ryan here, and welcome to our Reflections podcast. Hey, one of my favorite memes that I've ever seen was it's probably old now, dated now, but it was Richard Sherman, who was uh a defensive back for the Seattle Seahawks back in the day, and they were playing Tom Brady. I think Richard Sherman was like either a uh he was a rookie or a young, you know, young defensive back. And Tom Brady was this brash, you know, he was a winner. He won all the time, had a bunch of Super Bowls. And one game, the Seahawks, they were like this up and coming defensive juggernaut, and they beat Tom Brady and beat him pretty badly. And so Richard Sherman, who was a notorious trash talker, came over to the sideline and started yelling at Tom from the sideline and yelling, Hey, you mad, bro? You mad, bro? And if that was Tom, I'd be like, oh, I wasn't then, but I am now because you know that would get me going to have someone yell at me. And um, but it became this meme of Richard Sherman just yelling, You mad, bro? And uh I love that was so funny, but it reminded me as a kid.

Fine Isn’t A Feeling

SPEAKER_01 1:38

When I was a kid, my parents got divorced and and and I struggled immensely with anger. And in my mind, I thought, oh, I'm I'm either angry or I'm not angry. And uh so people would ask me, How are you feeling? And I would say things like, Oh, I'm fine. And my therapist was like, No, I was a little boy. He's like, Ryan, fine isn't a feeling. I'm like, Well, I'm I'm angry, or I'm nodding, or I'm I'm just good. He's like, Well, there's way more emotions and feelings than just are you mad or not mad? Uh and fine is not really a feeling, it's just sort of a thing we say. So, okay, well, what what else is there? And he gave me this deck of cards, like, hey, take these home, lay on the table, and have your mom or your sister or whomever ask you, how are you feeling? And you have to pick one of these. And it felt a little bit cheeky, but I was a kid, you know. And so, and the emotions were like things like I'm embarrassed, I'm lonely, I'm joyful, I'm excited, I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm angry, um, I'm disappointed, I'm bored. Like, oh, there's a whole bunch going on in the human experience. Not just, are you mad? Yes or no. In fact, the older I got, me and Katie, when we when we first got married, like Katie would be like, Are you mad? Like she she Katie would always think that I was mad at her, and uh, there's a whole bunch of reasons for that. But anyway, and I'm like, no, I'm not, I'm not mad. But I also I I'm not mad, I'm also not not mad. I got some other things happening there. So we had to like learn as a young couple how to talk about how each of us was really feeling beyond just are you mad or not mad? And

Jung’s Iceberg And The Shadow

SPEAKER_01 2:57

I reminded me of Carl Jung had this idea of the unconscious self and the unconscious self versus the conscious self. If you if you can imagine an iceberg in the water, like the conscious self is the part of you that you're well aware of, that you know, uh that you you, you know, you're you're kind of you have like this self-awareness, but in reality, it's the only, it's the part above the water. It's very little of the of the self that you know about. The unconscious self is the part under the water, like the big chunk of the iceberg that we just don't know about, we aren't aware of, we're not really, it isn't in our purview. He calls it the shadow, also. Like you don't know the shadow because it's it's the shadow. And so there's this part of us that we just don't know about. And so here's how it comes out to play sometimes. Like you might be somewhere and you like all of a sudden behave in this moment that's like a bit erratic, and you do something totally out of character, whether it's like flipping somebody off in traffic or yelling something out at one of your coworkers, or you just did and you're like, Why did I do that? Like, what happened there? Like, well, that was crazy. That wasn't like me. Generally, Carl Jung would say that's the part of you that you're just not aware of, and so like that's still you. You had that reaction, you did that thing, but it's because there's this whole bunch uh going on in you that's under the water, you aren't aware of it, and it influences and impacts your behavior. So rather instead of being like, I w how how did that happen? It's better to ask, hey, what part of me, you know, thinks that that's true? What part of me, you know, thinks that about that coworker or feels that while I'm in traffic? What part of me is experiencing and you begin to kind of understand the the unconscious part of yourself in a deeper way. But there are all these things going on in our lives that are way more nuanced than just, you know, black or white. Um I'm angry or I'm not angry. And we would do well to take a minute to pause and to reflect, hey, why did I respond like that? What was happening in that moment? Like physically, what was happening? How did I feel? What was I thinking? What what what did it remind me of? What sensations did I have? And to have real conversations to kind of understand the part of ourselves that really impacts our life and our relationships and our our you know, our own day, and we just don't even know it. Okay,

HALT And Emotional Decision Traps

SPEAKER_01 5:01

so here's another fun way this kind of plays out because we think, I don't know, if you're like me, we think sometimes we go throughout our day making decisions in a totally rational way when really there's this underlying, you know, a vast sea of emotions, this whole chunk of the ice under the water that's like informing our decisions. We don't even realize it or recognize it, and it's making us behave like maniacs sometimes. So, okay, I dropped my son off at school this past weekend on Sunday, and we got there Sunday night and we were dropping him off, and we're leaving and we're praying for him. It's me and my daughter and him, and uh just having this emotional moment. And right then and there, he sort of drops to us this sort of major decision he was been thinking about. I'm like, it was like out of blue out of the blue, he's like, hey, I think I think and he he kind of told me this big decision he's sort of thinking about making. And I'm like, dude, I go, hey, I hear you, but like I'm his dad, I'm a bit more, you know, further on in life, and I've seen this play out a few times. Hey, hey, buddy, this is very, very worth uh worthy of thinking about. But right now is not the time. I'm guessing some amount of this decision that you want to make is based in the emotions of the moment. That you're missing family, you miss your mom, because me and my daughter dropped him off uh just we just the three of us, because Katie and the other kids were out down in Florida. But anyway, I'm like, you're missing home. And when we got there, he's an RA at the school and there's nobody else around. It was like a ghost town. So like there was no buzz, no energy. And he's like, he loves energy. And so he's like, oh man. I'm like, listen, a lot of this is just because you're not feeling yourself right now. It's late, you're you're tired. In fact, I talked to him a lot about sort of the AA, the HALT, H A L T, if you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Know that that directly impacts how you behave and the decisions you make. And sometimes you shouldn't make decisions, or you're not gonna make a good one if you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. And beware, like if you're an alcoholic, beware if you're any one of those four things because you're vulnerable to fall off the wagon. And and you just shouldn't make decisions in that in that state. It's just not that's why you shouldn't go shopping when you're hungry. You might come home with like a loaf of raisin bread that you ate, and you're like, this is so good. And then you get home, you're like, this is garbage. Why did I buy this? But anyway, so I I go, buddy, why don't we talk in the morning and we'll pray about it together and we'll think about it. And you, you know, you can't decide right now anyway. Let's give it some a few months even. And the next day, he's like, Dad, I I I want to keep talking about it. He's like, I was totally tired, I was emotional. And so yeah, like I mean, he's he's 19, of course it's what happens, but it happens to it all of us, and we don't always know it or recognize

Pause, Reflect, Name What’s Happening

SPEAKER_01 7:30

it. You know what I mean? So, anyway, I would encourage us today and and tomorrow or whenever, when you experience a moment like it's just out of your normal kind of way of being, like, you're like, what was that? Take a minute, slow down, pause, like, what's going on? What part of me is really thinks that's true, or what part of me really was offended by that thing, or what's going on deep beneath the surface, or what are the emotions I'm feeling right now? Are you mad, bro? Am I just mad, or is it something am I am I am I angry uh or am I lonely or am I tired or am I embarrassed or am I feeling insecure? Am I gloomy or is it rainy out? You know what I mean? And there's all kinds of things that we respond to that just may not, we may not even be aware of it. Okay, so there's that. I'll leave you with that. I want to do a part two next and talk about what do you do then? How do you make decisions, even though your emotions might be all over the place, or you might have a day where you're hungry or angry, or it's been raining for five straight days? How do you live in the world in a way that's good and healthy and maintain some balance when even when your emotions might be all over, or again, it might be kind of just a you know a gloomy December in Minnesota. You're like, I don't know how to get through this day. But okay, yeah, how do you make decisions? And how do you live in spite of some of these emotions that want to derail us? So we'll talk about that next time. So all right, love you guys. Peace. Hey,

Part Two Tease And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 8:45

if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8 30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriver.org. Peace.