Anger is one of our 4 main emotions
Our 4 main emotions are Anger, Fear, Sadness and Joy, and for most of us, our emotional anger is the most powerful or intense.
Anger is generally our most poorly understood emotion
Anger is usually our most consciously controlled emotion, because, being seen as an angry person carries a stigma of judgement, fear and shame.
Most people go out of their way to avoid even feeling angry, seeing it as something likely to get them into trouble.
Yet anger on its own is just pure energy.
If we imagine our body as an electrical circuit our emotions are the current that flows through our body as energy.
When we break down all our emotions, (fear, anger, sadness, joy) they are all just experiences of energy moving through our body that we attach a socially conditioned label to.
Feeling our emotional energy is feeling our life force flowing through our body.
Feeling Angry is Getting Something we Don’t Want…
Anger is simply energy felt in our physical body from getting something we don’t want, when we don’t get something we DO want,or when one or more of our boundaries have been crossed.
Feeling anger energy is our emotional body reaction when we get something we don’t want and healthy use or expression of anger is using this intensity to stand up for what we do want, to bring in change.
In the past, our anger would be kick started by fears of being invaded, eaten or some other life threatening event. We’d then use it to protect, run or fight back, whatever action was required for our survival.
Healthy anger energy is about feeling this intensity and then using or expressing it to create what we do want for ourselves. Unhealthy use of anger is taking this energy and using it hurt someone or something else (or ourselves) and is NOT what we are referring to here.
Healthy expression of anger is simple, you just take a few deep breaths, feel the physical intensity in your body, make it OK and use it to say “I’m feeling angry” or “hang on a sec, I don’t want that” or “That’s not what I meant.”
This is healthy, feeling and expressing your feelings using “I” language.
The second part is equally important- being able to express what it is that you do want.
With healthy expression, the energy is clear and a sense of freedom is felt as when we take ownership of this part of us it validates our sense of self without imposing it on others.
This process is very simple, but it takes conscious practice. The hardest part can be giving yourself permission.
Suppressing Anger Becomes Toxic..
When we suppress our anger, or any emotional energy by swallowing it down is when this energy becomes very unhealthy, even toxic as any unexpressed anger is retained physically in your body.
Imagine your body as a “kettle” and when you get something you don’t want that makes you feel “angry” and if it’s not dealt with in a healthy way another cupful is added to your anger kettle.
After a while, the kettle becomes full and easily boils over, like the “straw that broke the camels
back”, or an”inner volcano” resulting in an angry explosion way out of proportion to what triggered it.
Because of our conditioning and shame around ‘loosing it’ the common choice then is to replace the lid on the kettle even tighter.
Like tightly packed dynamite future explosions will become even more devastating, leading into violence, abuse, manipulation and all the ugly aspects we associate with unhealthy anger emotion.
Simply feeling and expressing anger in a healthy way by simply using “I” language will prevent that cupful being added to your kettle because feeling it is healing it and helps your heart to re open.
Simply saying loudly and with intensity “I feel angry” is the best way to express anger.
Saying “you make me angry” will close down and push people away, and you are still carrying your emotion.
Physical Activity as a way of Relieving Anger
If you’re aware that your kettle is full and you don’t know what to do, participating in physical activity like sport, gardening, free dancing or cutting wood is a beginning practice that will help to relieve some of the pressure.
Because we avoid, shutdown or spiritualize our anger most people have a huge backlog of unexpressed anger energy locked inside their bodies and this requires a skilled therapist to unlock and move this energy out of your body.
If this is you, then do something about it with a therapist who understands anger, or at the very least, take up some kind of physical activity.
If you already play sport or something else, then bring your anger intensity in by feeling the energy moving in your body.
This will improve your performance and increase your strength by unlocking trapped energy.
You may be pleasantly surprised at the results…
Imagine if you were out in the middle of a huge open space or somewhere where nobody could see or hear you fully experiencing your most intense anger moment?
Imagine you could move your body, use your voice, even use a big stick or something to support you to safely go berserk in your anger, not just venting stories in your head (that does nothing) but releasing the feelings from your body:
How would this be for you?
How much noise could you make?
Could you give yourself permission?
Unexpressed Anger Remains Trapped in Your Body
Unexpressed anger energy will remain physically locked up in your body and overtime creates long term behavior patterns that eventually become a physical illness or dis-ease in the body.
Examples of this disease are tiredness, high blood pressure, heart disease, physical tension, poor sleep, addictions, poor relationships, stress related illnesses, depression (suppressed anger), teeth grinding, cancer and many others.
Domestic violence is a result of long term suppressed anger that has boiled over, usually by both parties where one is overt (violent) and the other is often covert (manipulative or self righteous).
If you’re in any relationship, it is essential for building and maintaining a healthy long term and loving connection that anger is accepted and expressed in a safe and nurturing way.
Our Partner is our Number One Button Pusher
It is a given fact of life that we will choose a mate who will end up pushing our buttons at some stage. The pathway forward is into this emotion by creating
a healthy container in your relationship that will meet, hold and nurture this energy, rather than suppressing or dramatizing it. Couples who have learnt and mastered this have also discovered that the flip side of healthy anger is red hot healthy passion….
Not all couples are able to do this, with some relationships totally devoid of emotional connection. Having an intense and healthy energetic exchange really cleans out the emotional cobwebs and creates a beautifully loving and passionate landscape.
We Either Feel…or we Don’t
When emotional intensity arises and our first reaction is to block our emotion and not feel it for whatever reason, then we are blocking or closing down our own energy flow or life force.
With emotional energy, we can make a choice to
feel all our emotions or block them all out.
It is not possible to feel just one of our emotions, like joy, and choose not to feel anger.
We either feel all our emotions or we don’t.
It is not possible to separate, to feel one and not the other as they are all energy in our body.
Quite often, people will talk themselves into justifying not feeling anger and a common example is when people say ” I don’t do anger, as it is not spiritual”.
This is called spiritual bypass and is a common way of justifying not feeling, giving the impression of transcending emotions.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way, being spiritual is feeling fully the messiness of being human in an optimal way.
Feeling Anger is Liberating
This is why giving ourselves permission to feel our anger is so liberating, as it is our own choice in giving ourselves permission to feel all our emotions.
It validates a deep part of ourselves.
Blocking this emotional energy in our body takes just as much energy compared to what was activated in the first place, if not more so.
So it is quite common for people who block their emotional energy to feel constantly tired, even though they’re not doing anything.
They’re simply wearing themselves out by directing all their energy into blocking their emotions.
Anger is Passion….
Suppressed anger has a devastating impact on relationships and particularly on your intimate sex life, as anger and passion come from the same place in our bodies.
Close down your anger and your passion is also impacted.
if you want to experience the difference, next time something pisses you off, express your self by feeling your anger and saying aloud, several times “I feel angry…” Then try it and say instead, “I feel fucking angry…” and feel the difference by adding that passionate word and how it can really drop down into your power centre.
Its subtle, but does work.
For more info about this amazingly expressive word, check this out….
Having a better sex life for most people starts with dealing with your anger by simply giving yourself permission to feel.
If you’re feeling challenged about this subject and would like to talk more about your anger, please call or email, or try the Skype button in the right hand side bar…
Call us TOLL FREE (Aust only) 1800 TANTRA (826 872), email link
