Healing from Repressed Anger
Do you get extremely angry easily when you encounter scenarios that seem trivial? Are you often labelled as “oversensitive”, “grumpy” or “bitter” by others? Do you tend to make mountains out of molehills even in small matters? The truth behind all this is that the anger is most likely developed way back in our childhood, and anything that reminds our subconscious mind about what had hurt us way back in the past, we react strongly towards the trigger with these emotions that has been suppressed for years. Since we didn’t have a healthy coping mechanism to deal with anger, these emotions are bottled up for a very long time, and a slight trigger will cause a huge outrage.
Although there are a lot of sites out there that talk about ways and activities that we can do to deal with anger, such as going for a walk, painting, pet a dog and the list goes on, I do think that they are effective in a way, especially when we are angry during a brief moment, but they do not really help us work on the underlying cause and root of suppressed anger.
Healing the wound
1. Identify the Root of Your Anger
The first step in healing emotional wounds such as anger is to identify the underlying cause of it. Where is the root of this excessive anger? When does it all started? It is most likely stemmed from our childhood, and from then onwards, we create a belief that is distorted from the reality we live in. For a more in-depth explanation, click here to read more about it.
2. Understanding Anger
Why do we get angry? Even though anger feels unpleasant, it is a vital emotion. We might believe that Anger is the bad guy and the culprit and we have to get rid of it. The truth is, Anger is like a body guard, all it wants to do is to defend us from potential danger and keep us safe. It let us know when someone has crossed our boundaries or when they have hurt us.
3. Acceptance and Visualisation
Now, we know why we get angry. The next step is to accept that we are angry. Stop reasoning with anger, and stop telling Anger that it is bad and should go away. Instead, listen to what Anger has to say. We have been ignoring and pushing away Anger for so long in our lives, no wonder Anger ranges furiously even at the slightest trigger, all it wants is to be heard and validated.
Take note on how anger feels in your body – your chest area tightens, your throat tightens and aches, your heart beats fast and your hands may tremble. Try to sit with Anger. Imagine Anger as if it were a person and be in the present moment with it. Feel and accept the emotions. The moment when we accept anger for what it is, we give validation to it. We validate that we are angry and we have the right to be angry. It is OK to feel the way we feel right now. Most of the anger are also stemmed from the denial of our emotional needs. We felt powerless. We felt as if our anger is not validated, and is wrong or bad.
When we are in denial with ourselves and deny anger, we only create resistance, causing the emotional pain to persist within us. The moment we understand why these emotions are there in the first place, we can start to learn accept and give validation to our emotions. Be with them in the present moment, accept them for what they are and embrace them, they will gradually go away.
4. Visualisation Technique (Let’s time travel!)
All the techniques above may not be enough when it comes to healing the root of the emotion. Since the wound has been inflicted upon us since a young age, the emotions of immerse anger might still latch onto us. Since we know the reason behind this now, which is due to the subconscious belief “If I am angry, I am not a lovable person.”, we can find a solution to deal with it.
While it might sound ridiculous to the conscious mind, the subconscious mind believes in it 100%. You’d be surprised to know that many of our actions and behaviour that we couldn’t explain are actually stemmed from this distorted belief.
To heal the wound, we should try to change this core belief. In your mind, try telling yourself that the feeling of anger is norma. Embrace it!
Now the next step is to visualise yourself going back in time where you are still a child. What age were you at that time? Where is the child? What is the child doing? Then, imagine your current self walking towards the child, and is face to face with the child (the younger version of you).
Tell the child that it is okay to feel upset when she feels that way, that these unpleasant feelings are a normal emotion that everyone will feel in their lives and he or she does not have to be ashamed of it, even though your parents might have reacted negatively to them. Tell the younger version of yourself that no matter what, you will love him or her for who he or she is. Visualise your current self giving your younger self a big warm hug. Lastly, tell the child, I need to go now, but always remember I will love you no matter what.
In a nutshell
Since we have a better understanding with anger, we can easily identify the feeling when it occurs again, what boundaries that have been cross and what we can do about it. It is important to understand about our emotions so that we can learn to set healthier boundaries for ourselves and with the people around us. Self love is important. To heal emotional wounds, it is best to give lots of love – unconditional love, to the inner child within us.
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5. Guilt & Shame
6. Anger
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[…] Healing from Suppressed Anger […]
It’s neat how this is a part two or continuation of your previous piece detailing the cause of anger. My only criticism is to include the sources for the ways to deal with anger. My favorite line is, “listen to what Anger has to say. We have been ignoring and pushing away Anger for so long in our lives, no wonder Anger ranges furiously even at the slightest trigger, all it wants is to be heard and validated.” This relates to the previous article where you detail that anger is often suppressed and that is no way to deal with it. It’s important to understand one’s feelings, which helps in dealing with one’s feelings. Well done!
Thank you!
I feel really related to this article, Anger does not come from only things that we can see person is reacting to what , but there is so much build in. And these all mental issues some how starts when noboby knows. but slowly and slowly when you start becoming aware of yourself , what you are , why you are and what makes you ..You. you learn and grow. Awareness that something is wrong within when we get triggered on small little things..is the first step to change. Change or transform into our best beings.
I’m glad you did. Agreed!
Thank you, Ms. Kelly~ You helped us a lot through this article of yours. Kudos!
My pleasure! I’m so happy to hear that, Teena! 🙂
I disagree with the bit on childhood causes. Anger can stem from getting hurt from childhood friendship, unfair play, being bullied, heart breaks, partial teachers so on so forth. Usually parental anger also comes with compassion which in most cases a child understands. So your simplistic explaination can be misleading to your readers. Please do little more research. The article otherwise is a good one.
Thank you for your feedback!
I have been on a journey through my life learning about my own physiological make up. Along the way I have made many mistakes only to turn around and make them all over again. At times I felt as if I had learned all I could about myself. Only to wake up the next morning with a higher level of understanding. An awakening if you may. Almost as if my mind had evolved through years and years of trial and error blindly until it finally sunk in. Once I was diagnosed with A.D.H.D. and started on a treatment plan for it I started gaining enlightment as to why my mind had been operating on an incomplete wiring circuit. Which caused symptoms such as impulsiveness, O.C.D. unaware to how a fully developed mind actually functions. The growth of my maturity level along with my short term memory had been stunted due to excessive drug use through self medicating myself for what I thought was coming from my feelings of inferiority Stemming from many self defeating thoughts and opinions I had formed in my own mind. Only to realize my thought process was “Throwing off sparks like an electrical wire struck by lightning”. It finally dawned on me that I was as they would say Damaged goods. While I was sitting in rehab listening to an actual Neurologist explain that the human mind doesn’t fully develop until the age of approx.
21 years of age. It was as if I was living under a storm cloud my whole life then one day the fog cleared and the sun came out. But at that point the damage had already been done.
So even though I had a Better understanding of the “the why” I was destined to a life of destitute. This awakening was roughly 10 to 12 years ago.
Now I’m on another level. With hope in my heart, along with
being on a treatment plan for 5 years now for ADHD. Only now am I seeing the brain for it’s true worth. Somewhere deep down in my soul I see possibilities, I feel inspired. I have sense of a purpose invmy life for the first time. There’s no longer a void in my heart because it is filled with joy from embracing it with love for myself first and foremost. Secondly now I can see my path laid out for me like it was there the whole time. It was just covered up with overgrown weeds. I just had to do some yard work to clear the the way.
To get a good starting point.
As I contemplate my possibilities i’m leaning more and more towards phsycoligy and drug and alcohol counseling. It’s a thought that’s been on the back of my mind for quite some time only I dare not speak of it before I am ready. Due to my past I am very cautious as I approach this crossroad in my life. Cause once I take the first step my conscience won’t let me continue to live with guilt on my mind. For any actions stemming from past behaviors which led me to get my hopes up over and over followed by expecting that I would self destruct and screw it up. This being so important and all I want to get started on the right foot. Through This in depth description of my raw emotions and exposing my underlying issues. I’m in a very scary place where I could finally change my own opinion of myself If I don’t screw it up. I have a lot to learn.
And I’m letting go of the rains of control and letting my faith guide me.
I’m not sure this is the right platform for this process of self discovery but I’ve been told that Al I had to do is put it to the universe with all my intellectual, physical, spiritual, being and such strong beliefs in my vision of me finally knowing what it truly means to live my life without doubt. That it will come back to me tenfold.
I mindfully release my meaning In life to the universe, and ] expect results.
Thank you
I even cried a little when I hugged my child version 😅😅😅😅