How To Feel Anger Safely: A Somatic Therapist's Guide
One Conscious Breath: Issue 23
The gift of anger ~ when harnessed and rooted in love ~ becomes the energizing force to transform us and the world.
Anger is a core emotion. It alerts us when something unjust happens. The goal is not to never feel angry. It’s to feel it and honor what it’s signaling when we do. And then learn how to adaptively express it. Trusting that even though it may not have been safe to feel and express anger when we were little, it is now.
“When we’re connected to our core selves, we have more capacity to be with our core emotions. In this case, anger. Feeling it when it arises allows us to harness the intensity of its energy. The energy of anger, rooted in love, instead of being swept away in fear, offers us the ability to advocate for ourselves and others. It’s a change of perspective, and a flip of the paradigm ~ and it’s needed now more than ever.”
Before we begin, I invite you to take one conscious breath. Breathe in as deeply as you can go. And as you do, feel into your own internal steadiness within. It’s always there, at the core of each of us. Slowly elongate your exhale. And as you exhale, release any tension or constriction that may be disconnecting you from feeling your own sense of safety within.
And as you continue to take these conscious breaths, feel your feet firmly on the ground. Feel your shoulders drop. Feel your jaw soften. Take as many breaths as you need to reconnect with your own core self. Even if you can’t quite find it yet, it’s there ~ buried beneath the survival strategies that once kept you feeling safe. It’s time to decide if these strategies are still working for your adult self. Or if their necessity in keeping you safe when you were younger can be updated now.
This simple practice begins to reconnect us with ourselves, with the power of our emotions. Feeling them and harnessing them to wake us up. And then using them to fuel the transformation we desire.
One conscious breath at a time.
When you’re ready ~ let’s begin.
Each week, One Conscious Breath has been adding another brick to the foundation of feeling safe within our own selves. These letters have not only been an invitation, but a call to action, to reconnect with our core selves, our hearts, so we can feel safe to meet others and the world from a place of love instead of fear.
So many of the clients I have seen over my career, not only as a somatic psychotherapist, but also as a community organizer ~ have struggled with accessing and expressing anger in an adaptive way. I get it. The intensity of anger can be scary. Perhaps exhilarating at first, but if it doesn’t get adaptively released, that intensity can either burn us out or wreak havoc in ourselves and our relationships.
Maybe the intensity is one of the reasons I love anger. When we learn how to feel it and express it adaptively, we can utilize it to disrupt patterns and create change quickly. Remember, our brain and body like familiarity. And anger, and sudden disruptions, can be either familiar or destabilizing. Because of this, I’m going to invite you to explore what anger feels like within you as memory feeling, so your nervous system can learn to be flexible enough to return to safety and connection when you’re activated in real time.
Many of us move away from anger ~ consciously or unconsciously. What we may have learned growing up ~ in our homes, our relationships, our communities and the world ~ is that anger is expressed as violence, or not expressed at all, instead getting buried deep within.
Think of anger existing on a continuum. On one end, it gets suppressed ~ held in our body, our jaw, our shoulders, our gut ~ where it can seep out as people-pleasing or politeness. Fawning, masquerading as kindness to consciously or unconsciously avoid conflict. And on the opposite end it gets expressed aggressively ~ perhaps through yelling or violence. Neither extreme adaptively releases the energy ~ instead, they both amplify it, inwardly or outwardly. Adaptively expressed anger is the middle way ~ named, felt, honored and given the space to release. So that we may stay authentically connected within our own selves, first and foremost.
Awareness of my own anger didn’t begin quietly. It began on day four of my first Vipassana retreat, in silence so deafening the only thing I could do was listen. The fire burned loudly, and my body felt like it was engulfed in flames. The longer I sat, the more I felt. This was decades ago. And yet, I still feel the heat rising within more often than I care to admit.
The rage within me had been buried before I even had a choice, buried to protect me before I had the safety and resources I have today. The rage of someone who had been taught, before she had words, that her emotions were not safe to express. They, or she, was too much. That silence was safer than communicating. And in that stillness, on day four, was the first time I’d ever had the safety and permission for those emotions to rise to be seen, felt and finally released.
I’d love to know how you learned about anger. Was it honored as a signal, or dismissed before it ever got released? And how was it resolved? Did you see others apologize and take accountability? Or was there defensiveness and blame?
There’s no right or wrong here, just exploration with curiosity and compassion. Let these questions land ~ not as something to answer quickly, or bypass as rhetorical, but something to be with and explore.
Because the truth is, when we haven’t learned how to adaptively feel and express our emotions, they don’t magically disappear. And the emotion of anger contains a lot of energy. And that energy has to go somewhere. And what may have been a beneficial survival strategy when we were younger, may be the very thing keeping us stuck and disconnected now.
This is why we need the foundation of feeling safe within first ~ connected to our core self and our heart ~ present enough to stay with the intensity of our core emotions, especially anger. When we attune to our core emotions and regulate ourselves back into feeling safe, moment by moment, breath by breath, we regain flexibility and our power of choice. As adults, we know core emotions are neither good nor bad, and they are not going to kill us. We can be with them without collapsing or becoming overwhelmed. We learn what they feel like in our body ~ so we can know what they are alerting us to.
Anger rooted in fear, instead of love, can be destructive. It disconnects us from ourselves first and foremost. It propels us to resist and move away from something or someone. And it can mirror the very thing it’s trying to protect against or dismantle.
But when anger arises and we remain connected to our core self, our heart ~ the driving energetic force transforms into connection and love. Anger rooted in love offers strength and courage to remain open ~ even when our nervous system senses staying connected as a threat and wants to defend. Anger rooted in love is fierce enough to stay present with what hurts, and provides the energy to create change that actually strengthens and sustains us.
When we learn to feel anger rise in our body, we can pause just long enough to not react, while honoring what the signal may be protecting. And then we can create the space needed to release it adaptively ~ to set boundaries and advocate with love ~ for ourselves, for others, and even for the world that so desperately needs it.
A Practice for This Week
Let’s shift the practice this week. Instead of trying to do this when you get triggered, try this instead ~ think of a moment that made you feel angry. It can be big or small. We’re just looking to activate what anger feels like in you. Feel what happens in your body as you remember this experience. Do you feel heat? Bracing? Constriction? Or perhaps nothing at all. There’s no right or wrong. Just notice what’s happening as you think of an experience that feels threatening or unjust.
Take one conscious breath as you bring your awareness, away from the story, toward any sensations you’re feeling in your body. These are memory feelings being activated in the present moment simply by your thoughts. Memory feelings that are now safe to acknowledge and adaptively release.
Elongate your exhale and allow your body to soften. Drop your shoulders. Release any tension or bracing you may be feeling. Send a new signal to your nervous system that it’s safe to feel whatever is arising within you.
Continue to bring your breath and awareness to any sensations ~ softening them as needed ~ and feel them as they release. Remember, within 90 seconds, they will.
One conscious breath at a time. You’ll feel calmer, more open and more clear. Reconnected to the steadiness of your core self, your heart. And you’ll feel safer to set boundaries and advocate with love. For yourself, others, and for the world that so desperately needs it at this time.
This series started with reconnecting to our capacity to feel safe within our own selves. Safety to return to our hearts and our inherent love within. And from this foundation of safety and love, we’re able to feel the fierce focused energy of our emotions ~ and in this case, anger. Anger as a signal that something unjust is occurring ~ accessing and harnessing its energy to advocate for what we love, in a world that needs it now more than ever. These aren’t three separate teachings ~ they’re one foundation, intentionally built ~ one letter at a time.
When we’re safe enough to feel and express anger adaptively, rooted in love, we live more authentically. Within ourselves, first and foremost. And then with others and within the world. Our inward reclamation precedes outward connection ~ not in resistance to what we don’t want, but in advocacy and fierce love toward what we do.
There’s something One Conscious Breath has been building toward, week by week, letter by letter. It’s a bold call to action and an invitation to reclaim our connection to ourselves, so that we may connect more authentically with others, and engage in the world from a deeply rooted place of love instead of fear.
I invite you to stay a bit longer….
With love and One Conscious Breath,
Jody
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