Releasing stored anger

Let's look a ways of clearing anger which is held within you. Anger is an emotion we all feel. It is the body's reaction to loss or hurt or threat of loss or hurt. A car dashes out in front of you on the freeway and then slows to a crawl. Your boss chews you out for something a co-worker did. Your neighbors allow their St. Bernard to go trampling through your flowerbed.

What do you do with this anger?

There are two major problems with anger, not expressing it (which leads to resentment, depression and health problems), and expressing it irresponsibly (which can lead to exploding hostility and even physical violence). Anger and rage, normal human emotions, are the body's reaction to hurt or the threat of hurt that needs to be released from the body. It needs to be released safely and responsibly without directing it towards anyone else.

Human beings, because of the very nature of society, frequently bury their pain, especially their anger. At the time of a childhood trauma, the child was unable to fight back and they felt helpless and powerless. As an adult, they may have been in a similar situation, with an overpowering spouse, boss, or authority figure.

Most of the time this pain is repressed because the person is not allowed to express the pain and trained to be unconscious about the pain. The truth is erased, and becomes unseen by intellectual mind but the memories are stored in the body. As a result, a person has a reservoir full of unexpressed anger.

The buried damage to the abused spirit leaves the door open for unhealthy ways to numb the pain like addictions to chemicals, over-eating, over-spending, and many other addictive behaviors, unhealthy relationships, very low self-esteem and unhealthy ways of exhibiting anger. Anger can either be suppressed or released in destructive ways, i.e. yelling and screaming and possibly physically abusing others.

In order to be fully released and healed permanently, this anger and pain must be expressed fully and responsibly on an emotional level in a safe, protective environment with lots of love, encouragement and support. There are many ways to do this including screaming in the car or outdoors, beating a bed or couch with a tennis racket, playing a sport like racquetball, or working with a qualified therapist.

Often there is fear that once a person starts expressing the anger, the dam will collapse and he/she won't be able to stop. This isn't a rational fear and it isn't true. This defense can be combated by having a friend present or by working with a therapist. Remember, buried anger and hurt will not just go away on its own or by thinking it through or intellectually understanding it. Without it being released from the body, mind and spirit, it will continue to create harm to the person or to others in the person's environment.

When a person over-reacts, he/she is "dealing again" with long repressed and held-in feelings of rage from trauma. The benefits of releasing anger and pain responsibly can add to a more intimate relationship with spouse or friends, increased self-esteem, more healthy parenting of children, more physical energy and better health, expanding one's creativity> becoming more powerful and assertive, and opening up loving energy to oneself and the people around you.
 

The Feeling of Anger

Anger is a natural, even a positive emotion for a human to feel. Feeling the emotion of anger stimulates a person to action, and that action is to survive by either fighting or fleeing. If you cannot fight or flee, you need to find another method of expressing this anger.

It is important that the expression is appropriate, and many people have not yet learned the appropriate expression of anger. Anger expressed in an appropriate fashion does no harm. It may even strengthen a relationship, which is why it may be caused positive.

Anger that is not expressed is described as being suppressed or repressed. Unexpressed anger may have various unwanted results. The chemistry of suppressed or repressed anger can lodge in the body and cause disease, or the energy of anger can build up and up and up until something triggers it. We all have witnessed someone exploding into rage over next to nothing. Suppression and repression of anger causes all of our problems with anger. If you are feeling fear in the presence of such outbursts from someone, know that you have attracted that person by means of your own repressed anger. You may have no idea that it is there. If you are with someone who has outburst of anger it is almost certain that you do have suppressed and repressed anger. Repressed anger in your self attracts repressed anger in others.
 

Steps to releasing anger

1) Find a time when you felt that kind of fear. There will be some anger of your won under that fear which you did not express at that time.
2) Allow yourself to become aware of the anger that is under the fear. Do not thing and reason it out, _just let it come to you. Know that it is all right for you to feel anger.
3) When the feeling that the anger is there with you, feel it as intensely as you can. Let the feelings build up more and more. Really build the intensity - consciously.
4) When the energy has come to a peak, pour the feelings into an imaginary container. Pour all that energy into the container. There may be words associated with the feeling. Let them flow with the feelings into the container. If you till one container, then till another, and another.
4a) Make sure that all of the anger is gone from you. If some remains, intensify it until you can let it go and then put it in a container.
5) Next, imagine that you are the you who is much more than your body and magically turn all the contents of the containers into bright, sparkling white light. Pour all that sparkling white light into yourself, through the top of your head and filling your body. Do not hurry. Take as long as you like. Enjoy the process and enjoy the light.

 

The faces of Anger

Agitated  Angry, Frustrated  Hate  Hostility Irritation  Rage   Repressed childhood anger  Resentment

 

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