The Soft Underbelly of Anger

Anger is a whole mindbody experience.

We get angry when our expression of personal power is hampered. We can only metabolize our anger by feeling it. We then can come to clarity around appropriate expression of anger.

There is a vast difference between a fight response, and feeling and appropriately expressing anger.

• A fight response is a reactive, nervous system, primitive brain attempt to protect ourselves
• In a fight response, we are emotionally flooded, disconnected from ourselves, and avoid feeling our hurt under the anger

Justifying thoughts and outrage recycle and intensify our anger. Why are they so mean? I hate the way my boss interrupts me! If he says that again, I will tell him ________! As long as we are caught up in these thoughts, our anger has nowhere to go. We are not in our body.

“Anger is trying to tell us something. It’s not the main event. Tension arises from our unwillingness to be with this deep sense of being hurt and in despair because of our situation.” Lama Rod Owen, Love and Rage, the Path of Liberation Through Anger

What Does Anger Do For Us?

• We avoid feeling weak, overwhelmed and helpless
• Anger moves us out of freeze into fight response