Listening to Anger

I woke up this morning and my whole body felt sore. I haven’t been doing my normal regulating exercises. It’s been a very long week and I have not been listening to my body. Looking back, there were many events in the last 3 days that were triggering for me concerning people not listening to me or crossing boundaries I don’t enforce.

Normally, I am very scared of my anger because I have learned as a child that anger is bad and should not be there but, we were yelled at a lot. That is obviously partly where my anger comes from. This time though, I got angry and instead of stopping it I let it come out and I started talking to it and more so, listen to the thoughts popping up. “Nobody ever listens to me, everyone thinks they can just walk all over me, people use me, it’s always up to me, nobody is ever there for me”.

Those were the major ones and if you know my childhood, this is exactly the red thread or the big story. I recognized I was in extreme dorsal after this blow out. I started taking really slow and monotone. I could barely move my body.

I started doing regulating exercises to get out of Dorsal such as stroking my body, feeling cold water over my hands. It helped me get back. After I was out of that state, I started to asking questions. I knew that anger is a protector so there was something underneath that wanted to be expressed. I learned from a master class in IFS (Internal Family Systems) that you need to go to the part first and then protector. It doesn’t work otherwise. So I did internal work and put myself in my adult self and felt where the part was. She was around my chest area, close to my heart. I knew this was a big one because of the location and because this anger has been an issue FOREVER and my kids trigger it so much and others too of course…

So I wanted this healed for a long time but I was never able to actually go to it or listen to it. I was scared of it myself. Probably because I have been told as a child that anger should be held inside and not expressed.

So anyway, I went to the part and I could feel it was a big one but also very scared and full of grief. I comforted the part and shared I am an adult now and that I understand. After a while, I was able to get to the anger and let it know that I respected it and thanked it for protecting me for so long. I apologized for ignoring it for so long too.

I know in general, anger is a healthy feeling. It shows us where people cross our boundaries and invites us to take a look at it. In the future, I will listen to anger and understand the cues. Also, learning to set boundaries and speak my truth are things I need to work on and get better at too. All work that I can do daily. It all starts with listening to your body and recognizing the little cues.

What I also thought was fascinating, (as a problematic emotional eater), is that while I was talking to my anger, I started craving a specific sandwich I used to always eat during previous times and never really eat anymore. That blew my mind!! Anyway, I hope people that need this will find this helpful and that it may help them along their journey!

Healing Blessings

Vanessa