We all experience anger in different ways, don’t we?
What I find interesting are some of the differences between men’s anger and women’s anger.
Men are conditioned from a young age to believe that anger is acceptable. As young boys they get angry, they tough it out on the schoolyard, throw a couple of punches and it’s done.
As they get older, men tend to be a little more aggressive in the business world or when they are out drinking with mates, otherwise they learn to suppress anger and hold it in until there might be a big explosion and release.
Women, however, are taught to suppress their anger from a very young age. As young girls, showing anger is not okay. We are taught that “little girls should be seen and not heard”. So instead of throwing a punch at someone, women become well versed in repressing their emotions or acting out in more passive ways and harbour resentment instead.
Now I may have simplified here things a little bit, but you get my drift.
Did you know that men and women feel anger just as frequently?
And we are not taught how to express our emotions healthily.
We may spend our lives suppressing those big emotions, pushing those emotions down and packaging them away in a neat little box while unconsciously playing out other behaviours.
The reality is though that unresolved emotions get stuck in the body somewhere and end up manifesting as tension, anxiety, headaches, insomnia, diabetes, joint pain, inflammation, chronic illness and so on.
Have you ever spent the night unable to sleep, with thoughts spiralling in your mind about a person or situation you’re in and you just can’t stop the monkey mind? That’s unsettled anger.
Have you ever obsessively run through conversations in your mind that needed to be had but couldn’t actually voice what you want to say in real life? That’s suppressed anger.
Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve realised that after weeks of something affecting you and it’s still not resolved, your jaw is tense, your neck and shoulders are tense and your whole body is aching and screaming in protest? That’s unresolved anger.
We feel and store so much anger in our body/mind system.
And guess what?
It’s not healthy.
It makes us sick.
So what can you do about it?
Acknowledge it and release it.
Acknowledging your emotions means you are giving what you are feeling a voice. It means saying “I am angry right now” or “I’m feeling frustrated and annoyed”
Just naming your emotions can help you start to mentally release them.
And it’s important to release these emotions, mentally, physically, emotionally and energetically.
I recently completed a 10-day Osho Releasing Anger Meditation.
It was amazing for me to witness what came up for me in those 10 days.
Every day I had different visions, memories and experiences of the past, remembering all the different instances when I had felt betrayed, had my boundaries crossed or felt let down, even the times I let myself down by not following through on promises I made to myself.
It was a powerful process and I liked that even though it brought up memories to the surface, I found a lot of grace with it.
For me, it was nothing I hadn’t worked through before, and it revealed to me what else I needed to let go of.
So I offer this process to you and would love to hear about your experience with it.
10-day Releasing Anger Meditation
-
- Create a safe spot where you can go do this ritual daily. Grab a pillow (claim it as your “meditation/emotional” pillow). Place the pillow in front of you on the floor, sit cross-legged (or however is comfortable for you)
-
- Make fists with your hands and spend 3 minutes bashing on the pillow in front of you and loudly stating the word “NO” (NO for every boundary that’s been crossed, NO for every time you wanted to say NO but did it anyway, NO for every letdown, NO for everything that felt unfair and out of your control, say all the NOs)
-
- Then sit in your Buddha pose or lotus position and for 5 minutes witness yourself and breathe. Spend that time in meditation, contemplation, in silence, and witness the feelings and sensations in your body. Just be with it.
-
- After 5 minutes, then bow to your pillow with prayer hands and thank yourself for what you have just experienced.
-
- Do this for 10 days.
I found it surprising what came up for me in those 10 days. I also found I had to be super gentle and compassionate with myself and I did a lot of Reiki on myself every day to help further release the shifts of energy and emotion.
So I ask of you too, if you do this exercise, to be super gentle with yourself. Give yourself the space to connect with this process. Make it part of your morning routine and give yourself the space to feel what comes up. Practice lots of self-care and self-compassion during this time.
Do you keep a journal? It may be beneficial to keep a journal of your daily findings.
And if you do have a lot of emotions come up and would like some further support, please contact me to book a session.
Together we can resolve and clear any lingering emotional energy so you can fully experience a deep transformational release.