Peace of Mind is a reader-supported newsletter. In this crevice of the internet, you have free access to 15+ guided meditations, as well as newsletters + journaling prompts. If you’d like to receive new content and/or support my work - I invite you to become a free or paid subscriber. Thank you for being here.
Anger in the mainstream media. What comes to mind? Through the binary lens of what’s exhibited in TV and movies, a woman who feels anger is usually seen as “crazy,” unhinged, out of control. A man who feels anger is powerful, intimidating, masculine. Rarely do we watch anger being expressed in a healthy, regulated way, and perhaps that depiction of anger is simply a reflection of what we’ve been taught in our own lives.
From an early age, so many of us have learned to fear anger (other people’s and our own). This is often because when we did witness anger growing up, especially from our caregivers, we only saw it in scary ways, like yelling, rage, name-calling, explosiveness. So naturally, we learn: okay cool, anger = unsafe. And because safety is our brain’s top priority, we’ll avoid that feeling in relationships by avoiding conflict, hard conversations, expressing our needs - anything that could potentially spark chaos.
And when you felt anger growing up - how was it handled? So many of us were punished for feeling anger, told not to feel it, criticized for feeling it. That makes so much sense. If our caregivers couldn’t hold their own anger in a regulated way, they’re not going to have the ability to hold it for someone else. From that, we learn anger = bad, and something is wrong with me for feeling it. So in order for me to not be bad, I’ll shove my anger down and pretend it was never there at all.
And so we learn to swallow, suppress and silence our anger.
But when we do that, the anger doesn’t disappear, it just builds. It builds and builds until it turns into resentment, or rage, and then there’s so much anger we don’t even know how to parse it out. It’s like a backlog of anger, and eventually it starts overflowing.
Anger itself is a fleeting, involuntary emotion, just like sadness or happiness or fear or jealousy. Emotions carry information, messages. Anger says: wait a damn minute, something about this situation isn’t sitting right with me. There’s a value of mine that’s being compromised. There’s a need that’s not being met.
Emotions can be uncomfortable, but no emotion is inherently bad. What we do with the anger, how we react to it - that’s our responsibility, and that’s what in our control. Yelling, name-calling, insulting - those are all reactions to the anger and can cause harm. But the emotion itself is simply a message, an inner experience that consists of thoughts and bodily sensations, and we can choose to consciously respond to the anger in a more productive way. This is to say: ANGER IS SO IMPORTANT. When we can receive the wisdom of the anger and respond to it instead of reacting to it, anger fuels action. Anger elicits change. Anger evokes hard, necessary conversations.
Judging ourselves for the anger, wishing it would go away, thinking we’re bad for feeling it - it’s not doing anything to the anger other than making it more complicated. The anger is still there. Except now there’s self-judgment layered on top of it. The irony is that when we can practice allowing the anger to be there, there's way less opportunity for rage because we’re able to let the anger move through us.
This week’s reflection activity is more of an in-the-moment practice, and you can certainly use them as journaling prompts as well:
The next time you feel anger arising…
STEP 1: Start by simply acknowledging it in a neutral way. This is anger. This is allowed to be here. Notice if your mind immediately starts judging you for feeling it - that’s just noticed, too.
STEP 2: Pause, take a deep breath and get curious about the anger. What activated the anger? What could it be telling you? Are there any bodily sensations that go with the anger, any heat, tightness or tension?
STEP 3: If you can, move the anger through you. Go for a brisk walk, move your fists in the air, push against a wall and let tension release with the resistance. If you’re not in a setting where you can do that, that’s okay. Even if the only thing you can do is acknowledge the anger, you’re already allowing it to be processed.
Repeat after me…
Anger doesn’t have to be unsafe.
Feeling anger isn’t bad, it’s human.
This anger is allowed to be here.
I am open to receiving the message behind this anger.
This is uncomfortable, and I can survive it.
*
Thank you so much for being here, exactly as you are. Paid subscribers - keep an eye out this weekend for this month’s guided meditation!
♡ Meg
I now understand that i learnt that anger was bad and also experienced it turning into rage in some moments when I used to supress it or not acknowledge it.
I like the way you phrased this:
“The irony is that when we can practice allowing the anger to be there, there's way less opportunity for rage because we’re able to let the anger move through us.”
It’s staggering how many of us were taught as children that anger is wrong, anger is bad (myself included).
When a child feels something overwhelming like anger, judgment is the last thing they need.
Thanks for writing this. ❤️