So many of us struggle with giving ourselves permission to feel our feelings, especially when it comes to anger. We worry that anger is ‘wrong’ and that it makes us a rageaholic if we acknowledge and express it. But anger is a necessary and vital emotion that only becomes unhealthy when we don’t express it.
In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I explain why allowing ourselves to feel angry is critical to our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing, and why acknowledging our ‘silent rage’ helps us to be more aware of our people-pleasing.
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Links mentioned
- Conflict and The Five Stages of Relationships (ep 170)
- Voicing Issues To Be Better Than Before (ep 176)
- Talking about our feelings (ep 154)
- Moving up the emotional scale
- Are you over your bandwidth? (ep 100)
- Process anger feelings with the help of my free Unsent Letter Guide
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Natalie, I love how you put into eloquent words what many of us think. l learned how to get madder than Hell because I grew up in angry home, and if I didn’t defend myself angrily, my siblings would have drawn and quartered me.
I learned through therapy how to turn down the volume of my anger–to slightly below normal so I had some wiggle room .
I have loved a few people who stuffed their anger, then knifed me in the back when the chips were down. Anger stuffing–my sister is that way. She is not allowed to disobey or sass-talk her narcissistic wife, or else.
Loud, raging anger expressed by an easy going type can grab the attention of an entire room . It’s so rare to see him or her so angry and agitated, so what he has to say must be important and it needs the audience’s full attention.
Repressed anger is an active tumor that grows as more anger is stuffed in.
Thanks Karen. Always good to hear from you. “Anger stuffing” encapsulates it so well, not least because we stuff anger down but also, we stuff old anger with new anger as well. And it most certainly does catch attention when we eventually blow our gasket as such. I think this realisation can cause some of us to believe that this is effective. Like storing anger allows us to build up the credits to let rip. But consistently feeling our feelings and expressing anger means that we don’t have to explode or, indeed, be unboundaried with our anger in the first place.
Thanks for this great perspective, Natalie. Growing up with an alcoholic parent, I unfortunately learned quickly that expressing anger toward their behavior just made situations ten times worse. So my siblings and I walked around on eggshells, not expressing anger (or many needs), not wanting to make a chaotic situation more painful.
I’ve since realized how this still affects my relationships and has trained me to hold in my anger (plus other emotions and needs) to not rock the boat. I’m learning slowly what healthy, regular expression looks like in relationships.
When a recent relationship of mine ended, I took the breakup conversation cordially and didn’t express any anger/confusion despite feeling it. In fact, I was even being empathetic and trying to understand/validate her viewpoint, believe it or not. I’ve been no contact the moment after the break for a few weeks now to heal, but I have this desire to express to her that what she did was not OK. I’ve not expressed anything to her since.
There were so many code red/amber behaviors I missed so plenty is on me for even investing in the relationship, but is it ever acceptable to express anger/hurt to your ex after the relationship ended?
I get this feeling that she’s skipping along with life, not having a thought about how she sent me mixed signals and led me on via future faking. I want her to know this was not OK and it hurt/confused me very much. But at the same time, it feels petty and pointless to do so. I don’t want to give away my dignity and feel worse.
I know in the future that it’s best for me to not accept all that I did. But I’m unsure whether it’s healthy to express my feelings to her now or if it’s best to get out in an unsent letter. My gut, experience, and decent human in me says the latter.
Thoughts?
I totally empathise, Tony. I think that sometimes when you’ve had that kind of experience growing up, it takes a while to register the anger. You tend to prioritise making other people feel comfortable and, yes, maintaining dignity, hearing them out and being the ‘better’ person. Then the anger and other feelings you squashed down resurfaces as delayed anger and you don’t know what to do. I would definitely start with an Unsent Letter as this helps you to clear out. Write as many as you need. If after doing that, it still feels like the right thing to say something, then you are far more likely to say it with boundaries. But something important to take away from this is that what you stand to learn from this about why you are angry and hurt will benefit you straight away and your future relationships. If as a result of being involved with this person, it’s finally made you aware of the need to consistently express *all* of your feelings and to change your relationship with anger, she’s done her job and you can sever ties with grace. The relationship has been a catalyst for change. And believe me, you will have other opportunities to recognise your feelings and speak up.