Reclaim Your Anger

Anger can be a negative, harmful or dangerous emotion, but rarely do we talk about the harm and toxicity caused by denying anger.

Gabor Mate explains, in “When the Body Says No”, that if we are prevented from expressing anger, there is a danger of it turning inwards, with very damaging consequences.

Just like an immune system that turns on us, our psychological defence system can start to attack our inner self, rather than doing its usual job of protecting us.

According to Gabor Mate “Small children especially have no choice but to put up with a parent’s rage, with potentially grave damage to their development. Some learn to walk on eggshells permanently, to propitiate, to be compulsive peacemakers. They become afraid of all anger, including their own healthy assertiveness. The consequences, years later, show up in physical disease such as cancer or autoimmune disease, or in mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Others may themselves become rageaholics.”

I recommend the work of Gabor Mate and Kimberly Ann Johnson to educate yourself further on trauma and the nervous system.

Sometimes working with Anger can be very intense and intimidating. The energy is too big and too foreign for our system and so we feel numb or cry to discharge the energy.

In this workshop you will learn not only to understand and communicate with your anger, but also cultivate our capacity to experience this energy.

We will go slow, building our capacity to feel and hold the frequency in our bodies and hearts in a sustainable way.

Like sexual energy, when engaged unconsciously, anger can blind.

When anger met with presence it clarifies. Think of the Mama Bear instinct - it knows precisely when the cubs are in danger and when to protect. So can you, protect and honour yourself and your needs.

I had anger outburts as a child. I was deeply ashamed of them. As I started my “spiritual work”, I used to believe these things:

• “If you don’t like something someone is doing that’s your shadow”

• “If you have a negative judgement about someone that’s a projection”

• “If you feel angry that’s actually your past trauma getting triggered”

• “If you feel a strong NO to something that’s your ego being in resistance”

• “All of these are opportunities to look within. Do your inner work. As well as open and surrender your resistance”

Still the anger outbursts continued, till I came to realise the anger is telling me something. It signals me when something is off, it protects me.

Just like the erotic, we have for a long time had a very distorted and immature relationship to anger.

100 years ago they would have said... Sacred sexuality? That's blasphemy! There's nothing sacred about sex. It's shameful. Dirty. It's a sin. It's just a biological instinct. Nothing more!

And now, it's become mainstream. Most people are somewhat aware that there are possibilities available inside of the erotic that are healing, transformative or even spiritual.

From Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes: “Young girls are taught to not see, and instead to "make pretty" all manner of grotesqueries.

This early training to "be nice" causes women to override their intuitions. In that sense, they are actually purposefully taught to submit to the predator.

Imagine a wolf mother teaching her young to "be nice" in the face of an angry ferret or a wily diamondback rattler. All creatures must learn that there exist predators.

Without this knowing, a woman will be unable to negotiate safely within her own forest without being devoured.

To understand the predator is to become a mature animal who is not vulnerable out of naivete, inexperience, or foolishness.”

Healing isn’t always about soothing gentle peace. Sometimes peace is what is silently killing you. And anger is the medicine you need. I come first. I matter.

Yes & No.

The intention is to cultivate our Anger, by understanding its purpose in our life and nervous system.

The goal is not to discharge the energy that arises when we experience Anger, rather circulate it and commune with it. We want to develop our capacity to hold this energy, not discharge it through catharsis or process it with the mental analytics. This Anger energy is there to give power to make the change we need, to set the boundaries which are right for us, to say “no”.

Still, true embodied Anger is immensely vulnerable. It is exposing how much we care. It let’s us release the shame, the beliefs that we have carried, the powerlessness.

There are plenty of books and coaches that offer the top down approach, change behavior by engaging the mind.

In my own experience it is not working in real life cases when you are confronted face to face. It can work when you have delayed interaction and you have time to reflect. Why? because the understanding of our boundaries happen on instinct level - this is why we have anger as instinct to protect us.

Embodying your anger gives you access to an inner ferocity and laser commitment to what your heart knows matters most.

When you are in touch with your anger, when you do not suppress it, your boundaries arises naturally and organically from the intelligence of your body.