1st Anger Management Class

Chaplain Otto Ministries is starting a new series called Anger Management, which will be taught to incarcerated veterans. The curriculum is court-ordered and approved nationally. Chaplain Otto, who is also a veteran, will use personal experiences and biblical references to help participants overcome anger and mental health issues. The chaplain joined a prison trip and discovered a veterans group in the prison. He had difficulty getting permission to teach in the prison, but with the help of his pastor, he was able to secure an interview and offer to teach an anger management class. He found the necessary materials and received unexpected funding from a friend. This experience increased his faith. Hello and welcome to Chaplain Otto Ministries. My name is Otto and I will be your host for today's new episode and this is a new series and I am titling this Anger Management. So in this series we're going to be going over a 12-week curriculum that I'm going to be actually teaching behind bars to veterans who are struggling with anger. So my question is are you a veteran? Do you struggle with anger? If you answered yes to either of those questions then let me help you also. You might not be behind bars however your anger might be imprisoning you. So here's your chance to get set free from anger and learn how to use it for good by listening to this 12-week series. During the series I will be going over the curriculum which is a court-ordered, it's a nationally approved curriculum to teach this class and I'll also be using biblical references that can help you overcome and be healed from things like anger, PTSD, suicidal thoughts, you know anything mental health if you practice and apply what you learn here and I'm talking from experience because PTSD and anger definitely ruled my life for such a long time and you know I'm not afraid to admit that I did have suicidal thoughts at one point in life. My mental health was not there. Finding God and understanding who I am has helped me out so much and taking on this curriculum to learn anger management at a deeper level has helped me in my life so much. I will be using personal experiences and references from what we talk about behind the wire as we join forces with Ohio's prison system to help our veterans who didn't get the help that they needed and are now prisoners of a war in their own mind and missing in action from their family. This specific class is for Pickaway Correctional and I will be conducting this every Thursday at 1 p.m. and again this is exclusively for incarcerated veterans. Kicking off my first class I have 18 participants, six Marines, six Army, three Navy, and three in the Air Force. So how did I get up here to start teaching this class? I'm going to take you back a little bit. I joined a prison trip back in March with Break Loose. It is a prison ministry that I have served with for quite some time and this was before I launched Chaplain Auto Ministries, seeking to help veterans as much as I am now. I picked up this trip to go to Pickaway. It was a basketball trip and I really just wanted to go. I don't play sports at all. If you know me, you know I do not play sports. So anyways, getting past that, it was a basketball trip but I still wanted to go because I felt like there might be an opportunity to speak to incarcerated individuals. At the time, veterans really wasn't on my radar. I got to talk to probably 50 or so guys in there during the event and I gave my card to the staff and I was like, could you please have the chaplain reach out to me? You know I'm active in a couple other prisons that I get to preach at every once in a while and I'd love to get the opportunity to come here. Now I've done this at a couple prisons before and I have never gotten a return call. So I mean honestly, I really wasn't expecting to get a call back but I received a call the next day from one of the chaplains and it was on a Saturday so I was kind of like, what in the world is going on? So you know I got invited to come preach and the chaplain said, so are you a veteran? And I was like, you know, a little bewildered, how do you know that? I was like, yeah I am, what makes you ask? And you know I guess one of the people, one of the guys that I was talking to, you know an inmate with one of the 50 guys that I talked to during this visit for the basketball trip, ended up being a veteran and he saw that I was wearing a Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association sweatshirt and he had mentioned to the chaplain that they have their veterans group and they would like for me to come in there. So I had no idea that this location had a veterans group inside of the prison which is called the IVA and it's the Incarcerated Veterans Association. So you know I got to go to my first meeting with that and meet all those guys and I was really blown away at the amount of veterans that are incarcerated because you know I've been going into prison at this point for you know close to four years but where I went you know I never you know I met like maybe one or two veterans and like this place easily had 50 and it was you know I was a little overwhelmed and I'm like man I didn't realize that there are so many people you know serving time that have you know been in the military and it just you know really made me think and they asked me to come speak at this prison for Memorial Day and I was able to I took some of the guys from the CVMA with me and we got you know pizza for those guys and some of them had not had you know actual pizza in like 15 years. We got to speak to them, eat with them and hang out. It was a really good time and I was you know slotted to come in monthly to work with the veterans and I was super excited you know this is the very start of the ministry that I'm doing you know with veterans and I just find this new thing that's going on inside of the prison that I was completely oblivious to. However there was a little bit of complications with the group and they dissolved or put on pause the veterans meetings for the incarcerated veterans for this time. So you know I was reaching out to the prison trying to figure out if I could come in there and preach and you know it was probably like I want to say two or three months of you know not getting anything back and that was not fun because I just realized that there are these veterans in there that don't have anything now and I was just on this absolute mission to figure it out. I felt like I had exhausted all resources and was getting absolutely nowhere and you know I ended up talking to my pastor and just saying man this is what I'm dealing with what I'm trying to you know get accomplished and you know it just so happens that he knows somebody that made a difference and Pastor Tim Crystal Foley made a phone call that you know got me an interview with one of the chaplains from this prison to go in there and you know see how I could help and you know I explained I you know what are your guys's needs and they said if you know I wanted to be in there regularly as a volunteer that I would have to teach a class and they asked me what I could provide and I said well what is it that you're looking for and they said anger management. So I went and found the best class like I said it's a court-ordered nationally approved class and I also you know had to get certified as a trainer for this as well so I you know I get all this information of you can teach us anger management class I start searching and you know I find everything that I need I talked to the organization that will certify me and also provide all of the workbooks for me to teach us in prison and you know the cost was close to $2,000 for all the materials and I went ahead and got 50 workbooks and everything so that once this class really started to roll I would have everything that I needed to you know keep moving forward and I want to share a really quick story on faith because the ministry did not have the funding right away to pull the trigger and I was afraid that you know if I didn't buy the materials and everything now that I would lose my chance and you know I mean I tried contacting the prison for several months you know calls emails and you know no reply and again Pastor Tim is who God used to get me in that door and I just want to say that you know this is the time that this has been has taught me patience and I'm definitely glad I took this anger management class prior but you know one weekend I was talking about what was going on and just to some friends that I was doing you know trying to do this anger management class and kind of what the funding and everything was and one of my friends said hey what do you have going on Monday I need a little bit of help at this job site and I was like okay yeah I'm free on Monday morning and I could help you out for a little bit that Monday I was actually getting ready to drive to Akron to pray for a CDMA member who was in a really bad motorcycle accident and you know I was like frustrated in the morning for some reason when I woke up and I was like man I'm driving all the way over here I got to be doing this I got to be raising I got to be raising money to get this for the inmates and blah blah blah and you know all these thoughts are just going through my head like why I'm driving over there and you know I I laugh now because I got out of my vehicle and I went up and it was my buddy Zach and he's like hey can you help move this board I'm like okay so I helped him move this board and he's like that's all I needed I'm like dude did you really have me drive all the way over here just for that and he's like let me walk out to the car with you and you know like I said I was driving over there and I was thinking about you know funding and what kind of you know promotion am I going to do how am I going to get this out so I can purchase these materials and you know he walked me out to his car and he wrote a check to the ministry that really really helped with what I needed and I was so thankful and I was just like man God is so good because everything that I was worried about was already taken care of and yeah I mean actually the check was already written and he handed it to me so like it was already there and it literally was just my yes to go over there and receive a blessing unexpectedly so I want to give a huge shout out to Zach Vilwock with 360 home improvement solutions you know I was extremely excited I was blown away and my faith was increased because every problem that I thought that I had was already taken care of and you know in that moment when I was getting in my car I was reminded of Pastor Sam DeJoy of Miracle Valley Church in Pennsylvania and I had met him this summer in West Virginia at like a pastor's conference that Ted Shuttlesworth was holding and it was just really cool to meet him and we became friends and he reached out to me he actually had my wife and I travel to his house and took us out to dinner really nice guy that has you know consistently checked on me as I'm building this ministry because I had the opportunity to share with him you know what I was doing and what my focus and goal was and he would call me and say hey how's Pickaway have you got in there yet and I would keep telling him like no I can't get a hold I can't get a hold and you know this guy he called me three times and prayed with me on the phone and we like stood in agreement that the doors would open and everything would happen and I called him to give him the good news that you know God came through and the door was open and this is what I was doing and throughout that conversation he said you know what man I'm really gonna help you out and I want to so into this ministry and I just want to thank you Pastor Sam DeJoy for the just the time that you have spent with me and talked to me and help guide me and encourage me I really really really do appreciate that so you know I've got some money now and but I don't have enough I don't have everything that I need to pull the trigger and I was kind of afraid that you know like I said if I didn't get this stuff quick that they might shut the door on it because it had taken you know so long to get anything and I spoke to my wife and I was like I really feel like I need to do this and you know her and I agreed that getting the materials was what the ministry needed to do so we took out of our savings account to fund the rest of the project and get all of the materials so fast forward about a month from this I'm certified I have the books I'm ready let's go so I let the prison know that everything was ready to move forward and then they said that I had to come in for additional training which is totally fine you know I mean I'm active in several prisons and have already completed it but I didn't want to give any reason to prevent it so we went into the training filled out the paperwork paperwork and you know 30 days went by and I sent an email and you know wasn't ready yet I sent an email after 45 days and it still hadn't been processed and then you know 60 days and I got a response that you know they were sorry for the delay at about you know 90 days because I marked stuff on my calendar weird like that you know I had wrote this email out that was like hey you know can I jump through some hoops to make this happen and you know it's not you know I just didn't snap my fingers and it all came together like it it took work I had to talk to people it took faith because I had to use obviously my own income to get this and then I was just on this like huge waiting period and I was beginning to get frustrated with you know the process and everything and I talked to Pastor Tim and I read him this email that I wrote out that was just kind of explaining my frustrations and wanting to be in there for the veterans and he said that my email was good and if I wanted to send it you know to pray about it and it would put the ball in their court well I prayed about it and I thought about it and I left it in my drafts I left it my drafts for a couple weeks and you know I I just I wanted to send it but I'm like man if I send this and they read it wrong then I'm gonna look like the person that shouldn't be coming in there and that's not the character that I want to produce even though I felt like it was extremely frustrating you know because from the time that I went and refilled out this paperwork I'd been behind bars at least 15 times with other prisons and I actually had gotten in contact with another prison that wanted to set up the same class that I was trying to start in PCI so you know I'm glad I didn't send that email of irritation of the slow drip process because now I'm in there and now I'm going to be serving my veterans so again you know I got 18 veterans 6 Marines 6 Army 3 Navy 3 in the Air Force and these guys are absolutely pumped and it's been a meaningful interaction the last two visits I went the previous week which would have been November 30th as like the introduction meeting to meet most of everybody that was going to be there there were some guys that had to get transported for different court things so not everybody was there for the first meeting but just to kind of like lay out you know what we're doing and on the 7th which was December 7th Thursday was the kickoff to our first class and I have 18 participants and it's just absolutely amazing and you know earlier I said that they're prisoners of war of their own mind and they're they're missing in action and if you're a veteran you probably hear POW and MIA which is you know a patch that I wear on my vest as a veteran you know for the people who never made it back and who are missing in action and the more that I've gone into prison and worked with veterans now I see a second meaning to this POW and MIA and hear me out on this you know these guys didn't get the help that they needed to and they're incarcerated so realistically they are a prisoner of the war in their own mind and they are missing in action you know from the people that they love and I want to get in there and remind them that they're not forgotten their service matters and they might be behind bars but they are still a veteran so this curriculum book that I am using is called what's good about anger dealing with rage and this is the expanded anger management workbook and this is put together by Lynette Hoy and written by Ted Griffin so looking at the curriculum of this course what I did is you know really kind of break down to make it very easy to understand because they're going to be people with all different level educations in here and you know I just want to make sure that I'm explaining everything and making it super simple so here we go the overview but what's good about anger course will give you a fresh look at anger and how to explore this emotion that is usually viewed as destructive this can be helpful and be transformed into assertive problem-solving empathy conflict resolution and forgiveness so chronic anger can be costly physically emotionally and in your relationships so participation in this course can reduce the levels of anger and individuals learn to turn their anger into productive behaviors faith and forgiveness you can also learn coping behaviors to stop escalation and to resolve conflicts so some of the main points that we're going to be going over in this curriculum are identifying triggers that you know upset you things that push you over the edge and applying new skills such as timeouts prayer addressing the issue and learning how to do that with assertiveness establishing a plan of action learning how to problem solve and ask for help and get guidance when needed changing our self-talk conflict resolution stress management and understanding emotional intelligence empathy skills and how to turn anger into forgiveness managing stress and conflict changing behavior with control issues taking responsibility to stop aggression and in the opening class you know we talked about chronic anger in the definition is an emotional state in which a person's feelings conducts and thoughts are dominated by anger so I gave them a few Bible verses to have over the week and the first one is Ecclesiastics 7.9 do not be quickly provoked in your spirit for anger resides in the lap of fools Romans 5 verses 3 and 4 not only so but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance perseverance character and character hope 2nd Corinthians 10 5 we demolish all arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ each of those verses can be used to address chronic anger for your feelings how you conduct yourself during certain situations especially when it's tough and also the thoughts that you have how to turn those into positive thoughts and not demonic thoughts that lead you down the wrong rabbit hole that can lead to severe depression we had a great you know overview first session with guys that came there and had plenty of questions and I took some great notes and you know the homework assignment for them was to read chapter one which is anger as many faces and I wanted them to read that and I told him that we would be going over in the class you know that if they didn't want to answer the questions that would be something that we could go over because I wasn't really sure you know the engagement that I had and when I went yesterday to kick off the actual class I was absolutely blown away because I left a couple books for the guys that couldn't be there those books got distributed by the veteran inmates to them and the assignment as well so everybody came in prepared and I'm saying they had a lot of stuff written down so I'm gonna go over you know anger as many faces and it opens up and this is just really basic trying to get you know a concept of where anger comes from and how we think about it and it starts with you know two different stories and one story is somebody's personal experience that grew up in a very abusive relationship with their family and you know physical abuse and being loud was something that you know they just experienced a lot and they experience you know angers pains of the inner wounds of loneliness and growing up this person then became a very angry person you know lashing out towards their spouse you know just just through an argument because of what they knew through anger growing up now the second one the gentleman his story he grew up with you know a neglect and his father really wasn't there and they call that like silent anger where people withdraw and you know this got this guy you know very worked up to the point where at a point in his life somebody who had never experienced being yelled at or physical anger turned to being loud and being physically you know destructive and I asked the people everybody I said what are the differences and you know they said the first story was physical and verbal and the flashbacks dated back to the childhood and I was talking to one of the gentlemen in there and he's like yeah I really feel like this is you know for the right now but you know not in the you know in the past you know from my childhood so I reread this story and I'm not kidding this guy broke down in tears and he was reflecting on an experience with his mother and you know he was able to forgive her in that moment even though that she's not alive but I just thought it was really crazy just you know a quick perspective can be changed and you know maybe he needed to hear it twice and not hearing it the second time broke some walls down and everybody started talking and asked you know the second story what did they experience and they were like they didn't really experience what we would consider you know anger it was like silent but it turned them into something and I was like isn't it crazy how you know the first story of the individual dealt with physical anger violence and they turned into being a verbally violent person the second story he never experienced being yelled at or any type of like physical punishment or anything and that's exactly you know what he turned himself into and it was just very interesting to hear the different perspectives of everybody as they started to look into you know what is it that causes them to be angry and how long will it affect them so you know the goal of lesson one was to define anger how affects people and relationships and to explore triggers for teaching about anger anger can be defined as an adverse state raging from annoyance to rage Webster's dictionary says anger is a strong feeling of displeasure and antagonism or an automatic reaction to any real or imagined insult frustration or injustice produced by emotional agitation seeking expression and I was like that seeking expression anybody ever been mad and can relate to that what about imagining an insult how many times have you guys walked down these hallways and you know saw another inmate or a guard and you just preconceived maybe you know what it is that they think about you or maybe a family member like I think that for me these imagined things that I come up with in my mind all the time played a big role and letting myself get frustrated and and you know letting myself get angry and acting out in a way that I normally would not act so you know we talked about anger and that's frustration annoyance and irritation everybody deals with those and I just was talking to them and I said you know once you start to feel that you're getting you know frustrated annoyance and irritation like that's when you have to take a moment to take a breath and realize what's going on around you because if we let ourselves move to the next spot which would be you know from feeling annoyed then you're going to feel angry well if you can't control that next thing you know you're going to be shouting and you're going to be in an absolute place that you do not want to be and acting in a way that most likely you don't want to act so we talked about you know understanding these signals like maybe a tire light that comes on in the car and addressing it as soon as you see that light to make sure that there's enough air in the tire because if you don't put enough air in the tire you know you're going to lose you're going to use more gas you're going to use more wear on the tire and essentially you could cause a bigger problem so you know taking the time to address these scenarios as they come up will prevent us from being in a head-on collision moving forward and having the strategies you know to be able to overcome anything that would come to us and I said how do we train we train how we fight we're all veterans in there we fight how we train we don't spend you know all of the time playing xbox or whatever all these kids play video games and then actually go out there and do the real stuff no when you're enlisted you train all the time whether you're you're on slot for deployment or not you're going to go out and you're going to shoot at the range you're going to go into the field you're going to consistently train and I said you know I don't practice what I preach I preach what I practice and this needs to be something that we consistently work on every day and you'll tighten up your shot group learning how to move shoot and communicate as you're going through and now navigating you know these times of anger and annoyance not letting yourself push to the next level and you know I asked them I said so what is a feeling that you get when you start to become angry and this guy said tense and I was like can you describe that to me and I was really kind of I was blown away by this he said you know when he feels tense he describes it as an outburst of emotion that upsets the balance of peace and I was like man that is fire so I wrote it down that is that is really really good and I can tell that these guys are really paying attention to you know what it is that we're doing and that they want to make a difference because I know that in their hearts they want to even though they're incarcerated they want to be the best that they can be for themselves their families and to be you know role models to other inmates and also the prison staff as well moving back to the introduction week when I got most of everybody's information I saw that there was a Marine on the list that was going to have a birthday the day after I would come back and I just thought about this guy being incarcerated and then I thought about myself being deployed and I didn't get a birthday card when I was deployed I mean heck I didn't get a birthday card when I was stationed you know in Hawaii I missed out on a lot of stuff Christmases vacation you know all the fun stuff the holidays and everything and I was like man these guys are missing out on this too and I was like I wonder you know what a handwritten birthday letter would mean for him from some Marines so I reached out to the combat veterans Motorcycle Association some of the guys in my group Marines I had four Marines lighthouse clutch gunny and shotgun all wrote a happy birthday letter to this Marine and I took them in and he was able to read them and I want to tell you man that made this guy's day him knowing that there were other Marines out there that didn't know who he was or he was just a Marine and he was incarcerated and that is the first birthday card that he has ever received while he was incarcerated and that spoke volumes to the room like I said these guys feel like because they're incarcerated that their service doesn't matter and that they are no longer veterans please pray for me here this place is a little different and I need to you know earn the respect of the guards and staff like I have at other locations with a much higher security risk and you know right now there is a reason that the guards here are a little bit on edge and I do understand the mentality unfortunately a church which I'm not going to name had I volunteer get caught bringing drugs in there so you know volunteers right now have a bad rap if you have a judgmental mind and one's guilty they're all so you know my goal is to get in there and prove to the men and women who clock in and out you know while attempting to make this place a safer environment for them and all of the residents with my anger management class so again I'm really excited for this new series for anger management and I hope that you will join us for the next 12 weeks as we go through this curriculum and we get better together and I just want to make sure that you know I explain I'm very thankful for the opportunity to get into this prison and it did take you know a little bit of time and that is what it is I'm not going to sugarcoat or shortcut anything because everything's a process and if I'm not real with you about how I've earned the calluses that I have then you'll never know how to pick up the shovel and start digging so I want to thank you so much for listening please subscribe you know share this message if you think that it will help somebody listening is supporting and I just want to say if you believe in what I'm doing and you want to financially support this ministry that would be a huge blessing I have PayPal and Zelle both under chaplain auto ministries and my email which is chaplain auto at gmail that is ch a p l a i n o t t o at gmail.com if you're new to this ministry please check out my other podcasts and I also have content on Facebook Instagram tick-tock X LinkedIn and YouTube and you can easily find all of these links on my link tree page by googling chaplain auto and you can reach me at my email chaplain auto at gmail.com and that is ch a p l a i n o t t o at gmail.com again thank you for your support and encouragement and for listening and I hope that today's message was useful to you until next time stay blessed