When your rage is in a cage...

Do you know this feeling of having a ball of rage threatening to explode in your chest, pushing its way from your belly?

Sometimes, mundane things trigger it, like the shoes of your partner lying around …again. Or reacting to some little things they do or how they eat or move.

Or when it feels that everyone is doing their thing, ignoring you?

There is an impulse to explode. A need to make the other person take all that fiery rage. A need to make them see how wrong they are. How annoying. How much are you doing, and they are stuck in their own ignorant, petty bubble…

The shitty thing in the dynamics is that you feel out of control when you let the ball explode and satisfy that self-righteous feeling. Often, you will apologize for “your bad behavior,” not sure how to resolve the issue. Instead, you have a conflicting sense of Right/Wrong regarding your anger. You then convince yourself to accept it all… even if you feel you have all the right in the world to get angry. And voila, here is that feeling of being trapped.

Here is the moment your fantasy takes over: of being “free,” not having that partner, child, friend, parent, and no one AT ALL.

The thing is that we all learned to suppress our anger unconsciously. We all know that anger has no place in our interactions if we want to be loved. No one wanted us kids to be angry (only the adults were allowed). We heard it is disrespectful, self-centered, dramatic… or simply destructive, as the people we grew up with could not deal with their shame, pain, anger/rage.

It was a constant dripping message that if we want to be loved, fit in, be a good person, and not make things worse, we should reduce that part of ourselves. There was a risk in expressing it, not just getting the cold shoulder bit with a strong, oppressive rage from the adults.

Anger is here to stay. Out of that conflicting attitude towards anger, some of us became nasty when we got angry. Convinced that we have nothing to lose if we are not truly loved. We may constantly reach out for our impulsive anger and rage, being difficult to talk to, harsh, and overly dominant.

And some of us hold back, swallow it in, and stay trapped in guilt while taking responsibility for everything that may go wrong. No matter our tendencies (sometimes we have both in different parts of our lives), we all are ashamed and afraid of our anger. It is interwind with wounds of rejection, not being seen, and wounds of needing to fulfill the expectations of others. Wounds of being judged and looked down at. Wounds of not being lived for who we are and by that transforming into a background false notion that we do not have a place in the world as who we are. That others have the power to determine that.

Today, in our adult - interaction, this ball of rage pops up. It is big, fierce, and seemingly impossible to control. It holds the intensity of years. And we still fear it and judge it as destructive somewhere in our minds.

This ball of rage wants us to be free from that old doctrine of needing to compromise ourselves. Of taking ourselves back. Of needing to be someone else to be loved and accepted.

It wants to flow through us and straighten our backs, warm up our hearts, and let us expand into our truth. But when it moves through us, it moves through the wounds and shame we carry. It moves with the fear of people and the power they may have over our hearts.

To integrate our anger back as a freeing power to our hearts and energy that lets us be honest with dignity and understanding, we should learn how to let that rage reveal and heal those wounds of self-compromise and rejections we carry.

Balancing our anger with our love and acceptance can become a pillar of health in our choices and hearts rather than a destructive force damaging our relationships and separating us from what we want by dangling a false fantasy of who we should be.

So next time you meet that ball of rage or feel overwhelmed by shame and guilt, take time to meet that (suppressed) rage. Let it reveal the wounds of rejection and shame you carry.

Avoid the impulsive reactivity of leashing out, being mean, or apologetic.

Start to breathe into that feeling Deeply and for a few moments. Let it heat up in your body.

Move your shoulders and jaw. Dare to even punch and fight with your body. Fight and resist that old sense of needing to hold back, change yourself, and be ashamed to compromise.

Let that active rage genuinely move.

Let it move through all of your joints. Try to avoid becoming hard or stiff.

Then, when you dare to explore and express this force of resisting, fighting, and refusing (while being attentive to these moments, you want to stop, look at it as stupid, fearing to be too much), let the feeling of vulnerability and softness in your chest and belly take space.

Breathe into them and use that fiery anger to be there as a power that holds you and gives you the security and sense of safety to allow that vulnerability.

Let them open up if there are memories of images or feelings.

Let the tears drop, and the hurt moves through your voice. That sadness is not a weakness. It is the helplessness, sadness, and longing you had to suppress as you learned to compromise and protect yourself from the (conscious or unconscious) rejections around you.

Then, take a moment to feel and perceive what you need.

What is it that you tend to hide? What do you cover up with being so angry?

How can you free yourself and the person before you from the old dynamics, rejections, and shame you carry?

Register the physical experience of having that openness while letting that determination flow.

You must tend to that part of your experience a few times as it goes deep. You may need to meet it in a year, even though you have done the work now.

Remember that layers of yourself and your heart always need to be freed.

That interaction with people will always touch those places in you.

Be patient and kind to yourself in learning that. Find your discipline in tending to it.

It will also enable you to endure and stand in front of the anger of others without fearing it or feeling rejected.

It will change you, shift your relationships, and it will shift how we as a society interact.

Don’t let that rage be in a cage; let it free your heart and mend your relationships.

Yours,

Anna

Photo byThomas OxfordatUnsplash