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Hey guys, I'm Heidi Prib. Welcome back to my channel, or welcome if you're new here. This winter on this channel, we've been talking about rupture, self-reovery, and repair. And today in particular, I want to zero in on one
Heidi Priebe contrasts 'inshed anger' (trying to change others to regulate yourself) with 'differentiated anger' (self-regulation and boundary setting) in relationship conflict.
Key Takeaways
- Anger aimed at getting others to change tends to keep conflicts cycling and leaves you dependent on others for regulation.
- Differentiated anger keeps the locus of control internal, focusing on your own needs and boundaries.
- Early family experiences shape whether people default to inshed or differentiated responses.
- Feeling your underlying pain before reacting is key to shifting into differentiated anger.
- Self-respect and boundaries matter even when relationships do not survive them.
What the video covers
- Introduces two terms: 'inshed anger' (anger aimed at changing someone else's behavior to feel okay) and 'differentiated anger' (anger that stays connected to one's inner experience and leads to self-regulation and boundaries).
- Explains that inshed anger often grows from family environments where differences were punished or led to rejection, teaching children that regulation depends on others.
- Describes differentiated anger as coming from households where strong feelings and disagreement were safe, allowing connection across differences.
- Argues inshed anger tends to put the other person on the defense, and that change is slow, so relying on others changing leads to repeated disappointment and downward spirals.
- Emphasizes that holding people accountable is still valid, but the focus should shift to protecting oneself rather than demanding immediate change.
- Offers a practical check: notice whether anger is oriented toward changing someone else or toward gaining clarity about your own feelings and needs.
- Discusses how boundaries are not punishments but clarifications of what one needs in order to stay in a relationship healthily, and that leaving a harmful situation can be a fulfilled boundary.
- Notes that differentiated anger often requires first feeling the underlying grief or pain before acting.
- Frames the move from inshed to differentiated anger as a skill built over time, with the possibility that even if a relationship ends, one's wholeness and self-respect remain intact.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction: Rupture, Repair, and Anger
- 01:38Defining Inshed Anger and Its Roots
- 03:14Understanding Differentiated Anger
- 05:36Why Inshed Anger Backfires
- 07:55Telling the Two Types of Anger Apart
- 11:07Moving From Inshed to Differentiated Anger
- 15:56Boundaries, Grief, and Self-Respect
- 26:20Closing Thoughts
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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emotion that tends to come up pretty frequently during conflict, and that emotion is anger. Specifically, I want to talk about the type of anger that actually helps ruptures get repaired versus the type of anger that keeps conflict cycles endlessly going on
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without resolution. And we're going to call these two different types of anger inshed anger and differentiated anger.
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Now, neither of these are official terms. They're just kind of the words that fit best inside of my own mind. But for the purpose of this video, inshed anger is the anger we feel when we're trying to get our discomfort or our
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frustration resolved by changing somebody else's behavior. So when we're experiencing inshed anger, we tend to be doing a lot of fingerpointing, a lot of thinking about how someone else needs to change. And we tend to get really, really focused on
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what we want other people to do so that we will feel okay again. And this is the type of anger that we might be most familiar with if we grew up in a family environment where differences between people were seen as
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threats. So maybe when we were young, asserting ourselves as someone who has feelings or values that were in opposition to the feelings or values of our family members tended to lead to rejection.
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Maybe we got punished if we expressed our anger or dissent towards our parents. Or maybe we just got kind of ignored and left out of things which is a very painful form of rejection for children.
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Right? So over time, we may have learned that boundaries are not protective and healthy, but that they're actually things that lead to exile, which is overwhelmingly threatening for a developing young mind. And so what we learn in situations like this is if I am
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angry or upset with someone that I'm close to the point where it's causing me overwhelming dysregulation, it's not safe to assert myself as different from them and get clear on what my needs are.
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Nobody's going to care if I do that. And so my only real shot at getting regulated again is to get the other person to think that they want to treat me better.
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And so our minds wire in real time around this idea that as soon as we feel anger, the most important thing to focus on is how we're going to package our feelings in a way that will make someone
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else care about them rather than just feeling into them directly and cleanly ourselves. So this can be a really adaptive response when we don't have another choice, right? It gets our needs met enough at the time, but it also tends to
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come at the expense of healthy individuation because what it teaches us is that our capacity to stay regulated rests in other people's hands. So, it keeps that locus of control external.
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Now, differentiated anger is a totally different beast. Differentiated anger is the anger of letting something that someone else is doing or saying fully impact us.
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Stepping back to reconnect with ourselves and get in touch with how we feel. And then making an intentional choice about what boundaries we're going to put in place in order to invite that other person to come meet us somewhere
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that feels better for us. So basically the big difference here is that when we are in differentiated anger, we tend to be connected to our inner experience. So our thoughts are not endlessly circling around how am I going to get this person to change and
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realize that they're bad or that they're hurting me or whatever it is because we're not seeing changing the other person's behavior as the only route to changing our inner state and getting regulated again.
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And this is the type of anger that we usually have more access to if we grew up in differentiated households where it was safe for us to feel and express strong emotions that were in opposition to the feelings of people around us. In
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those environments, we learn that connection can exist across differences. So when strong feelings come up in our bodies, it's probably safe to stay with them and feel into them and get whatever information we need out of them.
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And then as we grow up and develop more cognitive abilities and more of a capacity to self-regulate, we can retain that capacity to stay present and on the page with ourselves when we're feeling something strongly without needing to be
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rescued from it or by being hit with that overwhelming fear that the relationship's going to get lost forever if we do something like step back and consider how we want to express whatever it is that we're struggling with.
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So differentiated anger, that kind of sovereign and self-respecting anger, tends to work, for a lack of a better term, a lot better in most cases than inshed anger. And the reason for that is because inshed anger tends to employ a
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lot of tactics that end up putting the other person on the defense. So if we are really angry and disregulated and riled up and the only path that we see towards resolving that anger is getting someone else to change,
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that's a humongous thing to be asking another person to do. Right? Even among the most absolutely psychologically healthy and flexible people, change is really hard. It takes time and it takes incentive and it takes integration.
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So we have to come to most changes that we end up making through independent choice and it still takes time to really get them into our bones, right? And so if our only route to calming down in the moment is to get
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somebody else to change, we're probably going to end up in a lot of downward spirals where we're getting really disregulated. We're trying to fix that dysregulation towards getting the other person to adjust some part of themselves and then getting frequently disappointed
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when that's not happening fast enough. When we're in this type of anger, we're usually not just wanting the relationship to change. We're wanting it to change in the exact way that we want it to right now. Because what we're
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actually needing out of the interaction is in the- moment regulation that comes from something external to us.
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So we may never have learned how to step outside of a dynamic, self-regulate and then come back into it from a more centered place.
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But when we learn to connect with differentiated anger, this is the anger that is actually oriented in the direction of self-regulation.
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Which does not mean to be clear that we never hold people accountable for the ways that they've treated us badly. But it does mean that instead of insisting they change when they've treated us badly, we stay focused on what we need
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to do to protect ourselves from getting endlessly sucked into a pattern of continuously getting treated poorly.
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Okay? So, it moves us further and further in the direction of alignment with ourselves and what matters to us.
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And the more we move in that direction, the clearer a sense we get of the boundaries that we need to structure our lives around in order to get more of what we want out of our close connected relationships and less of what feels
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unhealthy or wrong for us. So what we're going to go over for the remainder of this video is a how to tell when what we're experiencing is inshed versus differentiated anger because it actually can be surprisingly hard to
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tell sometimes in the moment. and then B, how to move from enshed to differentiated anger in real time in order to get better at that skill of differentiation and boundary setting.
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So the first and easiest way to check in on what type of anger you might be experiencing is to look at which direction that anger is oriented towards.
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So is that anger oriented in the direction of trying to get someone else to change? Is that kind of its highest goal?
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Or is it oriented in the direction of gaining more clarity about our own feelings and how we'll protect ourselves from behavior that we don't want to see more of even if the other person never changes even one iota of what they're
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doing. So, we'll flush this out a little bit more with an example. Let's say that you are arguing with your partner and they're being very unkind or very dismissive of what you're bringing in.
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and you start getting more and more angry the longer the conversation goes on for and finally you just kind of burst out with you're a narcissist, you don't care about me, you're a bad partner and you need to change in X, Y,
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and Z way right now. And this might feel like we are standing up for ourselves, right? We're letting that other person know exactly what we think about how they're treating us. But what we're actually doing in this moment is trying
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to get regulation out of the other person by making them realize how badly they have treated us, which we're probably hoping will lead to an apology and a change in them. And that change will bring us back into connection in a
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way that feels regulating. So this is very often our logic inside of those moments where we lash out and we get angry at another person in a way that attacks their character even if it's true. Okay? And that part's
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actually really important. So you might genuinely be arguing with someone who is quite narcissistic, quite dismissive, and quite unkind. All of the things you're saying can be true and it can still be inshed anger if the thing that
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we're doing is desperately trying to get the other person to see themselves the same way that we see them. It's in meshed anger if it functions in the direction of changing someone else.
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Okay? And usually the reason that we're doing this is because we don't know how to tolerate the fear and the fury inside of our systems when we're being mistreated. Whether that's something we're perceiving to be true or something
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that actually is true or both. And so we're desperately trying to force that change into existence so that we don't have to sit with how bad it feels to be us in that connection in that moment.
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But what's interesting is that when we switch into that differentiated anger, the first thing that has to happen is we have to let ourselves feel all of that pain.
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So rather than insisting that the other person takes back what they said or corrects what they said or apologizes in a way that allows us to kind of pretend it never happened, we have to be willing to settle into our actual bodies in the
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moment. and pay attention to what it feels like to be dismissed or lashed out at or whatever it is.
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So to feel that frustration or the depression and hopelessness and grief of wanting so badly to connect with someone who isn't wanting to connect with us in the same way.
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And from there, we can start to figure out what we're going to do about the pain now that we're in the trenches with it.
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Right? That's the only place where we can actually start to work with it in a real way. So, there was once someone in my life who I was really close with, who I spent many years arguing back and
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forth with in a super inshed way. So just trying to get them to change, trying to get them to treat me differently, to speak to me more kindly, and to just keep them in my life on terms that I felt more comfortable with.
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And I tried every unhealthy and every inshed strategy in the book to try to get that to happen. But through every single argument and every single conflict cycle, my attention was staying focused on them. And this version of
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them that I desperately wanted them to wake up one morning and just be. And then one morning, a couple years into this connection, I was overseas on a work trip and I decided to get up early and get some writing done. So I
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was sitting on my hotel balcony watching the sunrise with a cup of coffee. It was a really nice, really peaceful morning.
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and I opened up my phone and saw that this person had texted me. And I thought, "Oh, that's nice. I wonder if they're just popping in to say good morning." So, I opened the text up and it was one of the most unsolicitedly
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cruel and insulting messages I have ever gotten in my life. And this was not totally out of character in this connection. But what was unusual was that in that moment, something in my body went, "Never again.
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Never again in my life do I want to wake up to a text message like this. Never again in my life am I going to allow this to happen." And in that moment, none of my thoughts were concerned with
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that person and the therapy that they needed or the ways in which I was going to try to get them to change and stop speaking to me like that. The only thing I saw flashing out before my eyes was my
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own future. A very different future where I was going to be spoken to with kindness by the people that I was close with. Where I didn't feel nervous and on edge every day opening up my text messages and where I could be proud of
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myself and the way that I was showing up for myself by putting clear boundaries around disrespectful behavior. And that is one of the most clear and overt signs that the anger we're feeling is differentiated. We're concerning ourselves predominantly with how we're
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going to care for ourselves, not what we're going to try to get the other person to do. So question 1A that we can probably ask ourselves is who are we looking to in this connection to ensure our safety and well-being? Is it
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the other person or ourselves? When inshed, we see our well-being as resting entirely in someone else's hands.
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When differentiated, we start getting clear on how we will care for ourselves, regardless of how other people choose to behave. And so looking at whose behavior we're predominantly focused on, ours or theirs, can usually be the first big
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clue as to which type of anger we're experiencing. Okay. The second question that can help us get a clearer sense of what type of anger we might be operating from is what time horizon are we operating on. So inshed
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anger tends to feel incredibly urgent like we absolutely have to get someone to change as soon as humanly possible.
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And again, the reason why it feels that way is because more often than not, what we're after is not actually true lasting relational changes, which take time, but in the- moment regulation.
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Okay? Okay. And I want to make clear that what we're not doing here is shame ourselves for having intense feelings and needing regulation in those moments.
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But noticing when we have those feelings in our bodies of I absolutely have to get the other person to change what they're doing right now can be a useful way to tip ourselves off to the fact that what we're feeling is probably
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inshed anger. Okay? Because differentiated anger happens on a much longer time horizon. When that differentiated person stops and gets present with what they're feeling, even in the moments where they're absorbing those emotional blows, the anger doesn't disappear, but what it
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does do is it starts to get integrated into the rest of our lives. So, we start updating our worldview with things like, I've asked this person to stop yelling at me three times and they've kept yelling at me. I've asked
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this person to follow through on their commitments to me multiple times and they have broken those commitments multiple times.
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Now, it's my job to figure out what I want to do with that information going forward. What am I going to choose to do the next time this happens? Either with this person or with someone else. When we are dealing with differentiated
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anger, it doesn't feel immediate and urgent. It usually feels like it's more important to get things right at the core than to figure everything out quickly.
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So again, we're moving away from a model where safety feels like being in control of a given situation or being able to change how someone else is acting towards us to a model where safety is about staying in integrity with
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ourselves and acting with intention from that place. And then the last thing to check in on when we're trying to figure out which type of anger we're experiencing is what am I hoping that the boundary I want to
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set is going to do. So we talked about this in the differentiation video that I put out a couple weeks ago which is linked in the description of this one.
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But an enshed boundary is there to try to reinforce a behavior that we want out of somebody else. So it'll feel like the boundary worked if the person starts treating us differently.
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A differentiated boundary functions to keep us safe and psychologically whole regardless of what other people are doing.
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So if I have a boundary that if someone insults me, I'm going to immediately tell them I'm not comfortable with how they're speaking with me and then leave the conversation. It doesn't matter what the other person does after I leave.
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Okay, my boundary has fulfilled its purpose the moment that I have removed myself from a situation that would have cost me my dignity and self-respect to stay in.
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And then the next move is to go and put myself in an environment where I am being treated with dignity and respect.
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So we redirect that psychic energy. And this is where a lot of us genuinely get tripped up because we think that we're setting boundaries when what we're actually doing is giving ultimatums that we're secretly hoping are going to
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reform the other person. So an inshed boundary is kind of saying you have to come meet me here or else. And then the or else is usually or else I'm going to try twice as hard to get you to meet me
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here. Right? Whereas a differentiated boundary says, "Hey, I am not going to meet you over there in the place where you're being rude or unkind to me or breaking your commitments to me or whatever it is. What I'm going to do is I'm going to
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take my energy over here to the relationships and the situations that do feel respectful and good to me. And you are welcome to meet me over there if you'd like to, but that's your choice." So, differentiated boundaries restructure our energy and our attention
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in a way that starts working as soon as we follow through on them. Now, if as you're going through this video, you're seeing a lot of yourself on the enshed side of the anger spectrum and not very much on the differentiated
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side, how do we start changing that? That's what we're going to go into for the remainder of this video.
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So the first step in becoming more differentiated around anger is very simple but not easy. Okay. So step one is to just feel the anger when it comes up without immediately trying to change it.
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So a lot of us think that we're feeling anger when what we're actually feeling is resistance to reality.
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Okay. So, we get really activated and it feels like white hot anger and then we jump immediately into trying to change the other person or the situation because we don't want to stay present with that feeling of ow,
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someone I love or care about just did something that really hurt me. To get to differentiated anger, we have to learn how to sit with that hurt and absorb those blows. Not because we're trying to subject ourselves to endless
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torment, but because it helps us land in the reality of what we're experiencing. And that place of reality is the only place that we can actually make good informed decisions from.
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So, a lot of what inshed anger is is a defense against grief. There is always grief in disconnection.
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When it's from someone we care about and want to be close with. When we grow up healthy and secure, we learn to bear that grief in small, manageable doses.
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So, it becomes something that we find easier to sit with when we grow up.
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But when we grow up undifferentiated or enshed, we usually don't learn to process relational grief cleanly. So it's something that we may have to train ourselves to start to do.
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But that is step one, staying present with things that hurt us without immediately rushing to change them.
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Absorb the blow. And then in most cases go to step two which is step outside of the relational field and tend to your own pain first. What that means is that we need to remove ourselves from the dynamic for long enough to stop
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negotiating with it. And to reconnect with our own nervous systems. So, if we stay in an interaction when we're activated, our attention is probably going to keep orienting itself towards the other person, so towards their facial expressions and their tones
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and whether or not it seems like they're getting us and understanding us or if they are pulling away and shutting down.
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And as long as our sense of regulation feels tied to what the other person is doing and how they're responding to us, we're probably still stuck in that enshed patterning.
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And so stepping outside of the relational field in this context means closing the text thread, leaving the room, going for a walk or a drive or changing our environment or talking to a friend or journaling or crying, whatever
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it is that gets us reconnected first and foremost to our own experience. We need to learn to metabolize our feelings outside of the connection.
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And this is something that probably isn't going to come easily to those of us who have never really learned those self-regulation skills, right? I always find it a bit frustrating when people give the advice, just pause the conflict, as if it's this
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kind of catch-all solution for making sure that things don't go off the rails. That advice probably works great for people whose nervous systems are already really good at self-regulating through intensity, but if not, that pause can feel really unbearable at first. So, the
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point here is not to just white knuckle it through, taking space, right? It's to actually start exploring what genuinely feels like a resource to us outside of our close connections.
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And it usually takes some trial and error to get that right. But the more we can practice it, the more we learn that art of staying in connection with ourselves through strong emotions rather than needing another person to be
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okay and regulated enough to regulate us before we can return to homeostasis. If that's our only option, it's going to be really hard to resolve basically any conflict. And then we arrive at the final step of moving from enshed to
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differentiated anger, which is we reenter the connection differently. So we go back into that relational field not with the goal of arguing or proving our point even better and getting the other person to admit that we were right
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all along, but to invite them into the kind of connection that feels good and sustainable for us.
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So differentiated anger actually opens up more doorways to intimacy when we can get it right because we're getting clearer on who we are and what we want and don't want. And so we're giving ourselves that self-defin that makes
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intimacy possible. We're teaching people how to connect to us if that's what they want.
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But this move isn't going to be able to save every relationship. And that's also really worth noting, right? Some relationships actually only work well when they're operating from an inshed place. And when we stop arguing and start self-defining instead, that can
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feel really threatening to the other person if they don't know how to interact from their own more differentiated self.
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So this is a risky move. But even if our relationships fail in the face of differentiated anger, our wholeness and selfrespect stays intact.
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And over time, that often ends up mattering a lot more when it comes to creating a life that feels whole.
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One last time, inshed anger preserves connection at any cost, whereas differentiated anger preserves integrity.
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And when we're operating from a place of integrity, we're much more likely to start drawing people into our lives who know how to build connections from a secure and differentiated place. And that's what we're aiming for with all of
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this, right? Connections that actually have the power to last and stay healthy over time. All right, we're going to end here for today, but as always, any thoughts, any questions, anything coming up for you as you've gone through this
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video, please leave in the comments section below. I love you guys. I hope you're taking care of yourselves and each other, and I'll see you back here again really soon.
Topics:angerdifferentiationboundariesself-regulationrelationship conflictattachmentrepairemotional regulationHeidi Prieberupture
