Her are some of the gifts when we embrace our feeling of anger.

   For those of you who have come this far and continue reading about the gifts of anger, I thank you for journeying with me.  

   Below are but a few examples of the gifts from the feeling of anger.  I'm sure you can add a few from your own, personal experiences.

1.   Saying NO and Setting Boundaries.

   The intensity of anger is fierce and generous.  We access the assertiveness to delineate "the line"; to project when a boundary is crossed or we are being hurt in some way.  When afraid of this fire we become too watery, fluid, too wishy-washy; we lack the firmness needed to assert where we begin and end, opening the door for people to take advantage of us. 

2.  Maintaining Integrity.

​     Furthermore, anger ensures that we stay true to ourselves.  From a personal perspective, anger is a signal that "I am out of integrity".  If someone asks me to do something that doesn't feel right and I agree to it, I often feel angry soon after.  My fail-safe anger-guide quickly informs me that I denied what is right for me, that I compromised my personal integrity.  The anger is telling me that I did not listen to my intuition.

3. Entering Conflict.

     Conflict is a natural part of life.  A clear sign of fearing anger is the chronic avoidance of conflict.  We can't dance it forever, as much as we may try.   All of us will soon enter its cauldron.  Yet, it is hard to do so if we fear anger because conflict demands that we assert ourselves, inclusive of feelings and opinions.  This can seem very dangerous if we learned that anger and conflict are unsafe.  If fear is tempered and anger befriended, conflict can be entered more willingly and navigated more skillfully.  We will reap the benefits hidden in conflict including growth and creativity.

4. Creativity and Purpose.

     Some of the best writing comes from an angry response to what has been witnessed experiences: someone else has crossed a line or being angered at how children, animals, or Mother Nature are being treated.  During these times a clear NO may surge within; and then possibly a loud, clear YES emerges pointing towards a stand to take.  In the NO the YES is calling.  That hot primal energy can be turned into service.
     Anger at injustice may call to folks to advocate, to paint, to start a support group, to confront someone who needs to know the harmful impact they are having.  Anger if made conscious and used intentionally can turn passive bystanders into purposeful leaders.  It can be a powerful tool to help transform the world.

5. Allowing Anger in Others.

     By denying anger within, we unconsciously deny it in others.  We placate their anger by trying to "fix them" or make them calm down; we rebuke or judge perceiving their anger as negative.  We walk or run away, or we just simply avoid them altogether.  Their anger makes us feel unsafe, just as our own anger does.  And so, when this healthy emotion arises in others we cannot hold a space for it.
     I wonder how this influences us when we care for children, those little ones who are unbridled in expressing their feelings.

6. Healing and Aliveness.

     As New Age folks like to think otherwise, it's not about feeling better!  It is about being better able to feel.  Whether it's anger, sadness, or joy, in feeling we become more alive.  We wake up when the long-captured beast is freed from it's cage and finally allowed to roar!  We awaken when we finally allow ourselves to grieve what we've long held tight in our hearts, including our anger.  When anger is felt and followed by the cleansing waters of sadness, space is made available for joy and playfulness to shine through.  Liberation into a celebratory state edifying our spirit.

     Anger is an essential emotion!  It allows each of us to move to healing.  Everyone has unresolved trauma.  Each of us has lived a life of not fully having some emotional need met and boundary respected.  There have been times we needed to scream NO or lash out in self-defense, and it wasn't safe to do so.  The primal energy could not experience needed movement and expression.  It became trapped causing trauma!  

     In one client that I regressed, it was through re-living the unexpressed anger of her childhood abuse that she discovered implicit memories associated with it.  In a healing session I encouraged her to let the unresolved anger associated with her childhood abuse slowly build within as she repeated the words"f**k you!" with greater and building greater intensity.  "F**k you!" was what made her body want and she chose those words to say.  She did not think up the words; to her they were felt and made deep down within.  When her anger was at its peak, the memory was released from her body like  a rising mist.  She saw what was happening.  She stated that this was "profoundly healing" to complete the survival response and clear the toxicity from her system;  to release that memory and free that primal energy stuck in her body causing decades of psycho-social and psychosomatic problems. 

     Imagine if I had cringed at the phrase "F**k you!", judging it as wrong, inappropriate of rude.  "F**k you" and the fierce, unrestrained, raw anger associated with it, were true gifts to her soul.  They could be gifts to yours as well.

     So in closing, let us remember that the feeling  of anger can be a powerful tool to help us heal.  We MUST view anger as a feeling that arises when we need to address some "unfair" issue.  And it is imperative to welcome it in order to correct an "unfair wrong".

     As a hypnotist trained in 5-PATH hypnosis, I am confident in the Language of Feelings and how not addressing them can led to negative/unwanted behaviors and when left unchecked may eventually lead to tertiary depression.  Acknowledge what your feelings are telling you.

Feel free to reach out to me for more information and schedule a healing appointment.
 

                                      BREATHE   -   RELAX   -   HEAL

Giving Yourself Permission to be Angry!

Some of this post is based on a client case with  written permission  to share with her anonymity.  I received notes from her medical professional also as to what should not be revealed.

Why do so many people view anger as negative?  People see it as dangerous or even wrong, mainly due to upbringing, or what has been witnessed in neighborhoods, or violent world stories on airwaves.

Were you told anger is "not appropriate"?  How many have experienced adults getting unreasonably angry at us, and without repair; or witnessed people unleashing anger at each other, causing feelings of unsafe?  It's very normal and expected we grow up fearing anger and trying to avoid it from inside and out.

Victim-perpetrator fusion is a term referred to in psychology.  For example, a child who has an unbearably aggressive and unpredictable father will likely believe that anger and taking up space are dangerous.  After all, this is her repeated experience with daddy.  Anger, taking up space, and harm to others or self are unconsciously combined ("fused together").  In order to self-preserve and in compensation, she sadly becomes small by hiding her voice, by being unseen, pleasing and accommodating. 

There are psycho-biological consequences to this "fusion".   Most important is repression of primal energy or life force that anger (and our will) are natural expressions of.  Due to her learned belief it is dangerous, she fears owning her power that anger helps her access.  Sadly, she would regularly retreat from commanding a room, from voicing herself, from making her opinion, gifts, and presence heard seen or felt.

Unquestionably, in people, anger is also a gateway into other feelings.  Most often, underneath anger is sadness.  Once we feel through the anger associated with being betrayed by  friend or family, we can easily grieve the loss or rejection.  Once we let ourselves release at a flight mix-up sadness may be awaiting us.  In bypassing anger, we bypass raw humanity, the right to feel.  She rejected her need to authentically show up, with tears of sadness and joy just as does a child.

Tumors are associated with excessive dampness in the system according to Traditional Chinese Medicine.  The belief is that lack of water movement (tears) through the body is the source of illness, and cancer specifically.

Trauma or PTSD is associated with avoiding anger.  Peter Levine in his book, In An Unspoken Voice,  explains how after he was hit by a while laying on his back in shock, he needed to feel the "burning red fury" he directed at the car's driver.  the rage was a natural "survival emotion" needing discharge.  He allowed his body to "do what it needed to do...to complete the psychological processes...releasing "survival energy...".  If he didn't release the energy, it possibly may have gotten trapped which could have caused PTSD.  Truncated survival responses, inclusive of anger and rage,  create trauma in the brain and body.  

E-motion is energy in motion.  Energy is meant to circulate freely and not get stuck in our systems for the sake of our health.  Children demonstrate this freely and candidly.  When our energy locks, that immobility impacts health and that of our relationships.  Repressed primal energy can sneak out the back door or burst through the front door, especially with intimate partnerships.  We flip between suppression and outbursts benign as passive aggressive comments or sarcasm to the toxicity of violently lashing out.

Anger is not a problem, whereas it is natural and needed.  Anger, though, demands recognition, attention, movement and voice.  It's our resistance to anger and our raw, weary humanity that is the Western culture's dilemma.  When we turn away from anger, we reduce our capacity to feel and respond to life from the vantage of our power.  We push a healthy, hot energy that needs movement in our bodies, like exhaust needs to be released from a motor vehicle.  By denying voice and choice, we are dis-empowering ourselves.  We become who we think we should be to the point that we just fit in and avoid feeling.  BUT, embody anger and we open to its many gifts (some of which will be posted shortly in ANGER 2).  - Namaste.

                          BREATHE   -   RELAX   -   HEAL

Can hypnosis help me with my fear or angst?

A story of how hypnosis cured insomnia and changed things in a young woman's life.