Anger options:
1. React by yelling
2. Throw things.
3. Go chop wood
4. Bash a pillow or a punch bag
5. Run around the block

What is your favourite option?

All of these are high energy and will keep the anger in place. They may get recommended as a way to expel the anger (used to be anyway) but it just reinforces it. It also got recommended as a way to stop you yelling, throwing or bashing. It was probably about giving you something physical to do with the aim of keeping others and yourself safe. Scared of what might happen.

Why are we so scared of anger? Because it can be explosive and can be physically and emotionally damaging. When it is projected out.
But we have it all wrong. In our wanting to repel the anger and avoid it, the recommendations miss the point. How about respecting the feeling of anger and letting yourself feel it. Just let it be.

Bit radical, isn't it? Just feel the anger - but where is it and how to feel it? That sounds too simple!

To get to more detail about it, remember a time when you have felt anger recently. I'm guessing that there was a trigger first - a comment, a circumstance. But was that really first or was something happening in you beforehand? But ok, say a comment or a circumstance was first. What came next - was it a body sensation or a thought? Can you remember? If not, try to notice next time.

Because it will be one or the other quickly followed by the other. Slow things down so you can notice. Then try an experiment - stop thinking about it and allow your body to feel.

We don't tend to take responsibility for our emotions and think we need to or should, blame others or the circumstance.

My recent experience with anger:
Firstly, I was aware that I was feeling uncomfortable, irritable and frustrated. All day. Several circumstances were triggering this. Seemed like one came very soon after another. And my internal response was thinking about what a person had done or about the circumstance. Situations like my gardener pulling out plants I wanted, my chickens managing to get out of their large run, my website people sending me a loom where speaking was too fast for me, supermarket only having imported mandarins.

So I noticed what was going on – how my body was, what the thinking was doing, and decided that I was feeling anger. This went on for a week or more.

Then something happened. I suddenly realized that actually fear was running the show. It just popped up. And popped. And in that moment everything stopped.

I had got more honest.

Honesty does this. It is such a relief. Not when we do it. But when we allow, accept and let the emotion be. Without thinking and without trying to fix it.

With love,
Annette
Ps, If you wish to explore anger and fear in you, with me, please be in touch. Annette@theinnerpath.co.nz