EP.06 - How to Navigate Anger So It Doesn’t Control Your Life

Do you easily get angry? How do you manage it?

One of the most powerful emotions we feel is anger, and it's also one that can be difficult to manage. When our blood boils with rage, it’s best to know how to manage and express anger in a safe way.

Managing your anger is an important part of emotional healing so in this episode, I want to share five tips on how you can successfully manage anger that comes up when dealing with a difficult person or situation. 

If you’re struggling to handle your emotions when you’re angry, try these five tips to help you discern what it is that you need to change in your life. 

How to Navigate Anger so it doesn’t control your life

TRANSCRIPT

Well, hello, hello, hello! Welcome to yet another episode of the Fearlessly Curious podcast with me, Melissa Indot, your host. Today, we have a very juicy topic of conversation. And we're going to talk about anger.

Why is anger an important emotion? And how do we manage it? I know that in this day and age, so much of our emotions, we know nothing about. Many of us don't even know when we're feeling stuff, we don't even know how to give it a name. And we most certainly don't know what to do with it. 

From my memory. The first time I really experienced real anger probably was during puberty. Those really awkward tween teenage years, when I was really, really starting to get to know myself and starting to interface with the world out there, starting to step into that self-realization space, like who am I and what is my purpose in my family dynamic, in my school dynamic, and in my community dynamic.

And yes, like, as I said, really finding my place, discovering my voice, noticing that maybe I was starting to have different opinions that were out there. And that the other opinions that I was hearing I wasn't necessarily agreeing with. And I felt compelled to express the fact that I had a contrary opinion. I felt passionate about that. And how do you navigate that in the world?

And when I was silenced, when I was muted, when I felt discomfort with another opinion, another form of action and I wasn't allowed or I didn't allow myself to express myself, anger would start to build within my system.

So why is anger important? Let's talk about that now. In traditional Chinese medicine, anger has been likened to the energy that is required to get out of bed. So for some of you listening, you might be like huh? What do you mean? I get out of bed every day? Well, that's exactly it. 

You underestimate how much effort unconsciously you employ to even get out of bed in the morning. That act is so crucial for the way that we live our lives. It's an act that we underestimate, undervalue, and we certainly don't pay any attention to. We take it for granted that in order to get up in the morning, it requires that much energy. It's the powerful energy that is similar to the energy of anger, it is the fuel for transformation, it's the fuel for change, it's the fuel, the fire's momentum.

We are shifting from a asleep state from a state of rest and restoration into a state of movement and action. That is what we do when we get out of bed in the morning. It's an immense amount of energy that is required, and we underestimate it every day. In fact, a lot of the time we just bounce out of bed so we don't even allow our bodies to really wake up to get into the flow and momentum of action of daily life. So that's something to consider.

But let's get back to anger, right. So, if we're talking about anger being equivalent to the energy required to get out of bed, that is a huge energy, that’s a powerful energy. That's an energy that we employ to shift from one state to another, it’s the energy of change. So therefore, when you feel anger, anger is a marker for you.

Our emotions are a barometer of how we interface with the external world. It's how we measure our presence, our interaction with the world outside of us, whether it's safe, whether something in this case needs to change. So when we feel anger, it's a red flag that's telling you something needs to change. So you need to pay attention to anger.

But how do we make sense of anger without getting caught up in the emotional charge of anger? I don't know about you but when I'm angry, I can't think. I feel fire in my body. Literally fire, I feel a burning sensation, I feel heat, it can make me sweat. It could even make me shake. It could make my pupils dilate in my eyes, it causes me to shorten my breath, almost gasps it's almost like shifting into a survival mode.

Anger is related to that survival mechanism. So how do we navigate that? How do we discern? How do we not necessarily control because I do believe that the minute you think you've controlled something, you actually have lost control of it. But more importantly, how do we navigate anger as a powerful emotion so that we can ride the wave of it, in order to harvest the wisdom that anger holds. And that wisdom is the information of what exactly it is that needs to change, and some of the ways that I employ how to navigate my anger so that it doesn't take control of my life and rush me or force me into reacting to a situation rather than responding. I have five tips for you today.

The first tool that you can use to navigate anger is breath. I know when I get angry, I become short of breath. I don't breathe deep, or consciously. I do that, I breathe short, as if I'm rushing as if I'm running because I feel like I'm at risk. My body feels that it's at risk. By opinion, my very identity feels like it's at risk.

So, put your hand on your heart. Put your left hand on your heart because your left hand is where you receive. Put your right hand on your body, on your belly and really ground into the moment. Inhale through your nose, expanding your chest and hover at the top of your breath. Not hold it but just hover like a pause. And then exhale through your mouth, all the way, all the way push all the air out of your body completely so that all the air that's sitting at the bottom of your lungs gets to expel, we can clear the air all the way hover at the end. And then inhale and repeat. Inhale, inhale, inhale, fill your chest, lengthen your spine, feel this golden thread at the top of your crown being pulled up to the sky. Hover at the top and then exhale through the mouth. Feel the weight of your body, let your skeleton, your muscles hold the weight of your body as you exhale, exhale, exhale all that air out. Completely let it go. Remember, I want you to imagine that you're clearing whatever air and residue you have at the base of your lungs, all the way out over the bottom. Inhale again, through the nose all the way to the crown of your head. Imagine that invisible golden thread, drawing at the top of your head all the way to the sky nice and tall, lengthening the spine reaching up, feeling light hovering at the top and exhaling through the mouth.

To three of those, really expanding the chest as you expand the chest, you're expanding your heart. As you expand your heart, you're resetting your nervous system, switching it from the sympathetic, which is the fight or flight the survival mode into this parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and restore bringing calm into your system.

If you still feel that fire, that emotional charge of anger, then repeat and keep doing it until you start to notice a shift in your body and in your being. You have the power to shift your state. You may not have in fact, you definitely do not have the power to always change the circumstance of your external environment, but the one thing you do have power over is your own nervous system.

So anger sets you up to be in fear to protect yourself from a threat, a threat in the mind or sometimes it's a threat that's activating that primal part of you, the oldest most ancient part of you that your mind has no control, no say over. It's been triggered because it's a programming that comes from your ancestors, yours and my ancestors we're talking about from a dinosaur age right? Where reason and logic doesn't exist. So we can't think about what we're going to do because that part of us has already been activated. The one thing we can do is to breathe. Exactly the way I guided you. Switching your system from sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic, bringing peace and calm into the body, settling yourself first, bringing safety and security to the home within you so that no matter what your external environment, you are grounded in the present moment. And from this space, you can start leaning into your curiosity and asking, what is it that I need? What is it that my anger is telling me needs to change?

Could it be that someone is speaking to me in a way that is not aligned? A rude way, a disrespectful way, a way that is crossing my boundaries. That's what's triggering my anger. So what's my need? My need is to create safety. My need is to let them know how to communicate. Please do not speak to me in that tone. Please know that when you speak to me in that tone, I feel threatened. And if they don't stop focusing on your breath, again, the first the primary tip and tool to navigate anger, if they continue, what needs to change maybe is the fact that you're there. Maybe it's time to walk away. But now you're able to discern, now you're really interfacing with the world from a place of peace and calm. You're not reacting, you are responding to the moment.

The second way, especially after an incident that has activated it, is to connect with nature. Take your shoes off, if you can, it's ideal. Go and walk in a park, go to an open space where there are trees where there's grass with the earth, and literally ground yourself. Mother Earth, planet Earth, when you connect with her, when you hug a tree, literally, nature will take, will discharge that fiery, passionate charge of anger away from you.

The third tool that you can employ to navigate anger is to journal. So often when my anger has been activated, I fall into a narrative, I fall into a story about men more often than not, it's a victim story. How dare they speak to me that way? How dare they treat me that way? Who do they think they are? So that's when I'm reflecting on the outside world and then I start to question myself, I start to doubt myself, oh, did I do something wrong? Why am I in this situation? Why does this always happen to me? How do I get out of this? I don't know. I feel trapped, I feel helpless, I feel endangered. So all these thoughts are running, racing through my mind. And they have nowhere to go. Because what happens is, my mind leads me into this downward spiral of overthinking. When I can bring myself to grab a piece of paper and a pen. Or maybe if I have my device with me, I'll open my notes app. And I will just literally type out the thoughts that are in my mind, I will journal and I don't need any coherence. It doesn't need to make sense. You don't have to write in full sentences, just let everything flows out of you, from the pen onto the paper, or from your fingertips into the app. That is one way to discharge the fiery energy of anger. And once you've allowed yourself to process that energy, that anger out of you, once again, you'll find yourself in a more calm state to be able to be curious about why it is that you're angry, and what is the need behind your anger, and how you can take care of that need.

The fourth tool I would use is similar to journaling. But it's about writing a letter. So often when we've been triggered and been activated. It's over something or someone with something or with someone to sit down, write a letter, what would you say if you could say anything? At that moment? At any moment? What would you say? Write it out without reservation, without a filter, just write exactly what is running through your mind. And when you get to the end of it. Once again, you would have discharged that fiery energy of anger, you will then in your calm and peaceful state, be in a better place to make a decision, a choice that is in response to what you need, as opposed to a reaction to something that's been said to you. This is about meeting your needs. It's not about reacting to a situation.

When we are activated, it's because a need within us has been opened and need within us is requiring fulfillment. And there is no more powerful place than being able to be aware of what your needs are so that you can take care of them yourself and asking for help is one way that you also take care of your own needs. But we can't ask for help. And we can't take care of our own needs. If we don't know what they are.

The powerful emotion of anger has important information to give us about what your needs are at that moment. And it's a need for change, a change of what, we can't come to that clarity if we're fired by the emotional charge of anger.

So that fourth tip, write a letter to that person or that situation that you are angry over, angry about or angry with. Let it all come out and when I promise you by the time you get to the end of that letter It could be 10 pages long, you will have some awareness as to what it is that you actually need. Ask yourself what do I need right now? And that letter what to do with that letter, burn it, you may not even need to read it again, it's just about discharging that powerful energy of anger.

And finally, the fifth tip, which is the one that is my absolute favorite, to discharge that powerful energy of anger is to listen to music. So, depending on the music, music has energy, that literally becomes a sponge and it will take the anger from you. Whether it's beats, whether it's the instrumental landscape, electronic, classical strings, bass, whatever it is, you can immerse yourself in the soundscape of specific music that aligns with your anger and shake it out. Dance, scream, jump, thump, thud, lash out, punch the air, move that powerful energy of anger around your body and out of your body using music as a space holder, using music as the safe sacred space, container for you to express your emotions, express and release your emotions so that once that charge has dissipated, you can inquire again, you can lean into your fearless curiosity and ask, okay, what do I actually need right now.

Now, those five tips. Remember, anger is really, really important. It's equivalent to the mass of energy that is required for you to get out of bed in the morning. It is also likened to the energy that is required for that seedling to break through the husk of a seed. And then to push through the dark, moist, heavy earth as a seedling pushes up earth in order to reach the surface, break through the surface of the soil and reach out to the sunlight. That is the energy of anger.

Imagine when you don't allow yourself to express anger in a safe way. And you hold it in, the amount of pressure that builds up in your body, you become like a pressure cooker, like a time bomb that can explode at any time. So that eventually even the smallest thing can set you off.

Have you ever lost it like you lost your mind? I've seen someone do that for no apparent reason. Sometimes that's because they've been holding anger for days, for months, and sometimes even years. So when you start to feel angry, when you feel activated, and you feel that fiery power of anger begin in your body, you've got five different ways that you can start to navigate it so that you can process anger in a way that is safe so that you do not react to a situation but instead you respond to a need that is opened up within you.

Go to your breath. Number one. Number two, connect with nature. Number three, journal out your thoughts. Number four, write a letter to that person or situation, express what it is that you need to say, burn the letter afterwards. And the last one, listen to music. Let music be the sacred space holder, the best friend who will literally hold space, listen to you, allow you to move and shake that energy out of your body.

Remember that anger is a very important emotion. And it's for this reason, it is helping you to discern what it is that you need to change in your life, in that moment and beyond. And it will change your life.

If you found this helpful. I've got a beautiful, powerful transformational three song playlist to navigate anger. And I'm more than happy to share it with you.

If you want that playlist for anger, I invite you to join my online community, it's absolutely free, you will be able to find the link at my website. And then you'll have direct access to that anger playlist.

Thank you again for joining this episode of why anger is such an important emotion and how to navigate it. We don't need to walk this path of emotional healing on your own. And when we give ourselves permission to navigate anger, then we also allow ourselves to show up authentically in a way that is true and honest, and in response to what our needs are as we interface with the world as opposed to reacting to the world and misrepresenting ourselves. See you in the next episode.

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About Me:

I help women lead with fearless authenticity by smashing the self-imposed heteronormative stereotypes that keep you playing small through emotional healing inner child and inherited intergenerational trauma. Create a purposeful life of your unique design by disrupting societal norms and expectations of who you should be. Explore mindfulness, fearless curiosity and loving kindness through the lens of Human Design to thrive as the person you are born to be.

Learn more about my coaching method and join my emotional healing, mindfulness, and music community at melissaindot.com.