Where does your anger go?

Recently a friend was talking with me about the anger that she was feeling. It has been there for years. She had felt it bubbling up but she didn’t know what it was. She didn’t where know to put it. This is something I can relate to.

I remember the first time I was told it was ok to be angry. That I had a right to be angry. That I deserved to be angry.

I was in my early twenties and in one of my gazillion therapy sessions and my amazing therapist asked me “Doesn’t that make you angry?”. (You can read more about why I was angry here but please the subject matter may be triggering.)

I did feel angry, incredibly angry. But, I had no idea that I was allowed to express my anger.

Somewhere along the way, I had picked up that I was allowed to be many things but angry wasn’t one of them…

Anger doesn’t solve anything.

Anger doesn’t help anyone.

Anger does more harm than good.

In the mix of all the things that anger does and does not do, I had never realised that anger was a physical feeling, an emotional thought and both of these are valid.

I remember sitting in that same therapy session with one of those foam pool noodles that my amazing therapist had on hand and I was hitting a chair.

If I’m honest, I felt like a bit of a dick, but it was the first step.

Slowly I learned that it was ok to feel anger and slowly I began to recognise the thoughts & feelings.

The hard part was learning to process them as they came up.

With the day to day things it would often be a case of talking with a friend or a colleague, maybe writing down my thoughts & frustrations, going to the gym, or for a run – back when I used to go to the gym/ run.

But, BIG BIG ANGER eventually came up.

15 years had gone by and I was back in therapy (it’s a lifelong commitment) and shit was unravelling.

It was the first time that everything from my childhood was on the surface. As it was raw. I was viewing it all and experiencing it all with adult eyes. There was anger, real anger, big anger, rage you might say.

I was working with a different therapist, I was in London by this time, and thankfully she was also amazing. With her support & guidance, I was able to walk through my history and really tap into that anger and all the other feelings that went with it.

It was so fricken hard and so fricken good at the same time. The pieces of me were slowly coming back together. The me that was feeling and processing, was also being reconstructed with stronger foundations. But, my body was holding the tension, the fear, the anger, the rage as over the years the adrenaline & the cortisol had built up and had never had a place to go.

Standing in the ring waiting for my turn to spar aka let the rage, the anger out.

Weirdly, at the same time, my colleagues invited me to join them in a boxing gym.

I was pretty hesitant but I gave in to peer pressure.

It felt very strange. I perceived boxing as pure violence and I wasn’t comfortable with it.

As time went on I began to understand this boxing thing was a skill, it wasn’t a bar brawl fight.

Footwork. Core work. Breathwork. Timing. Combinations. Predictions. Responses. Reflexes. And.. it was a controlled and safe environment to release the anger that was in my body.

I would leave those boxing sessions absolutely exhausted, and physically & emotionally lighter every time. I was leaving a little bit of the anger in the ring every time I went.

Gradually, the rage softened, the anger softened. My body was letting the anger go.

And just like the cross over of therapy and boxing, I was now in the cross over of boxing and yoga. The irony of those two combinations isn’t lost on me.

Therapy.

Boxing.

Yoga.

All three gave me strength, connection, and taught me the importance of breathwork.

It’s been three or so years since I last boxed.  Schedules, finances & hypermobility eventually became too much of a challenge.

When I feel anger these days I’m able to walk it off, dance it off, shake it out, write it down, talk about it, and even yoga through it. About six months I go I taught a class that combined yoga flows with some of my favourite boxing combinations and it got great feedback. Yogis in class could pick a feeling (any feeling), we held them, we moved them around, and there was the invitation to move them out.

So my questions to you are…

Do you allow yourself to be anger?

Does your anger have a safe place to go?

Kirsti x

More information: If you want to know more about feelings & experiences being held in the body, I recommend a great book called The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Klock. And for the purpose of honesty, I’ve listened to a quarter of it but that’s all. I listened to a lot of it thinking “Well, obviously.” which is due to my experience & the work I have done with experts. There’s quite probably a load of stuff in there I don’t know yet, I’m just not in a place where I want to listen to the rest of it just yet. I will when I’m ready.