I hate feeling angry. I learned it was BAD to dump my anger on others. And so I don’t know what to do with it and I just want to feel better!
Intellectually I get that:
Anger is your body’s signal that a boundary has been crossed.
Anger lets you know when something is not right.
Anger is a force for protecting yourself and others.
And when my Somatics practitioner suggests I express my anger my knee jerk reaction is: fuck you, I hate this!
Then I get over my resistance and work with my anger and feel better…
Here’s how you can channel your anger as a force of self protection and to protect others:
If you want to use these tools with your clients, try using them on yourself first and then once you understand it in your own cells you can gently suggest it to clients 💜.
1. Process your anger physically
Anger is the “fight” part of fight flight freeze. So you need to complete the stress cycle
Wring out a towel or stomp your feet or go for a run or dance to an angry song to help move the anger through your body. This will process cortisol and adrenaline through your body
2. Discharge
Once your body feels a little tired, do a discharge to relax:
– child’s pose,
– a standing forward fold (the waterfall)
– or the cockroach where you lie on your back with your arms and legs in air.
3. Tune into your intuition
After you’re feeling a little more grounded, ask your intuition what needs to be done. Do you want to say something to the person? Do you want to set a boundary? What would protect you and/or others in this situation?
4. Act
Get support if you need it and then move forward with whatever action your intuition is leading you towards.
If you want to see an example of how to do this in a super deep and powerful way, check out the free workshop: Somatics to Heal Patriarchy. The women that attended the recording went super deep, and you’re going to learn so much about processing feminist anger and tuning into intuition!
