hey,
i feel you @
trying2movefwd
anger is something really alive for me right now. had not felt anger for decades and then just numb sense of anger. since a month it feels like i went supernova. i think i have found a way to feel, handle, express anger although i am still wrestling with it. i am struggling a bit how i can share my experiences but i will give it a try. will start with my experiences and then will try to translate to practical stuff that helped me. possebly not always too coherent. brings up lots of emotions
my experiences
i was scared of feeling anger
feeling, handling, expressing, coping with anger has been a big journey to me. i lost my ability to feel anger when the helplessness in me became bigger and bigger when the only way to survive felt like adapting to what others find acceptable
. after that i found being angry really scary. it felt like it was to powerfull for me to handle and tried to push it away. because i was pushing the anger away the anger just got bigger and find itself a way out in ways that was exactly what i was scared of: it came out very disconnected from me which was scary and very overwhelming for me, it did not get me much further and people where avoiding me
my journey from fear to anger, starting to apreciate my anger
with me my anger came when the helplessness and hopelessnes started to decrease and with that the fear became less and the anger came up. it was like i had finally a way to defend myself and then went more and more from flight to fight mode. it was like i was so scared all the time and felt so helpless that the anger could not exist. and now i felt anger and i had another way to protect and take care of myself. as soon as i started to appreciate the anger it suddenly changed. i felt less and less alienated to the anger l started to connect with the anger and why the anger was there, and then started expressing it when i felt like it.
from judgments and blaming to owning my emotions
i had a shit childhood. i remember the last years when i still felt anger; i was really scared and pure fury. everytime is was angry was
the only time that i expressed my anger without directing it to my parents was if i felt no hope of my anger actually mattering. it was me standing for my needs and directing my anger at them was my way of standing for what was right, about taking care of myself. at the same time a part of me was really scared hurting people who where not the cause of the pain but innocent bystanders like my small sister and later on scared of pushing people away if my anger came up.
when anger was triggered from the past i started having mental conversations with the people that were "attached" to my anger through past arguments or i came up with arguments based on my anger based on what they did. mostly blaming and judging them for my anger, judgements about what kind of idiots they were. it was one of the most chaotic moments of my life where is spend almost every moment with internal mental arguments. at a certain moment i realised that the mental arguments i had in myself were causing so much chaos in my thoughts and emotions that i starting paying attention to them.
i have wrestled with it for quite a while and eventually with some help i discovered that the bigger the anger the judgment or blame in me towards others the bigger the pain because needs that were not met like my need for safety. i was directing my anger on others. blaming others for my emotions. my anger, my pain, my need for safety, authenticity, autonomy, freedom, space. for standing what is right. i realised that the people were not
causing the anger, they were triggering the anger in me. i started to wonder what triggered my anger and what would help me to be less quickly triggered. that part is a whole journey on its own, which i would love to share sometime but not now. slowly i practiced of feeling the anger in my body and expressing it without giving the anger a direction. without blaming the pain that was triggered in me to someone else. the pain, the anger became mine.
it slowly felt more and more safe to express my anger. i could let my anger, my fury out without filtering, or mentally checking if it was "ok" and without getting overwhelmed by the anger. if possible i found a quiet place and released any brake that was holding my emotions back.
the stuff that helped me
embracing the anger, letting out the fury
with me it felt like power in my body was saved for decades and locked up and wanted to get out badly. i have moments where i walk around the forrest and let out my fury every few minutes when my body feels like it. in the rare occasion that that happends so intensely it sometimes is so much that i crash for a couple of days. i just get into bed and rest, taking care of my body who has worked its ass off.
Connect with the anger
try no to push the anger away; lay down, relax and surrender to let the anger fill every fiber of you body. (laying down helped me become aware of tension in my body and relax better). deeply apreciate the anger. it helps you te set borders and in emergencies enforce them, take care of yourself. focus on your breathing. feel you belly becoming bigger and smaller. i noticed it helped me best when i do not slow down or speedup my breathing but just feel every moment of every breath. feeling the breathing helped me a lot to reduce out of control breathing
expressing anger
when you feel anger in your body and it wants to come out; try go to a quiet place like a park of forrest. it helps me to got to a place where there are no people so you do not have the tendency to adapt to social conventions that could block any expression of anger. if you do it in a place where people are nearby keep checking what your motivation is to scream (it probably will not help you with your process or to connect with people if you do it to piss off people or get attention. ) do it in a way that people realize it has nothing to do with them. even if they are the trigger (see owning your emotions). feel the anger in your body without seeking visualisations of situations, people or moments from the past to spice the anger up. trust your body that there is plenty of anger in there and that your body will give you the anger you can take and not more and not less. if you feel the anger coming up and your body feels like angry screaming; let it out! it helped me to only scream the sound that wants to come out as loud as it wants to; no words or thoughts/visualisations. welcome the anger, apreciate that the anger comes out. (you might have the tendency to visualise people, moments combined with internal conversations. with me that did not help at all and just became more confusing. )
music
while feeling more and more anger in me i recently acquired a taste for heavy metal music. anger is stil someting that is cautious to come out. heavy metal music sometimes really helps to feel the anger in my body. for me best during walking or running. i use the angry music playlist of zack moore on spotify. (curious to meet him :)
excercise
running and other excercies helps but i notice there is still a freeze reaction in my body which holds me back. i cannot get my heart rythm past 161 , then my body shuts down and loose all energy. sometimes if i use anger while exercising and go the edge of body short circuit my body does not shut down short circuit but i start crying and loose all energy. no idea how this works yet but i will find out.
non-violent communication
what really helped me with my anger (and other feelings) is non-violent communication. it rocked my world. it gave me a whole new perspective on emotions and taking care of myself. being fully authentic, expressing myself in a brutally honest way and at the same time to get more connection with people. there are books about it which can help but there are introduction courses to learn and practice which are much more helpfull. look at the website of the center for non violent communication to find licensed teacher in your area.
the techniques that help to identify emotions and needs and how they work felt in the beginning abstract to me. slowly they got into my system and become natural. for me that came especially when i grew frustrated when i realised that it became a mental excercies instead of really feeling the emotions. then i stopped using my head and started really talking about what i feel.
