Is Anger a Sign of Healing?

Anger is often one of the first emotions we feel as we begin to heal. It can also be a sign that we are healing. 

 Giving ourselves permission to be angry and to feel anger is an important part of the healing process.

 In this episode, we discuss the following:

•  How to keep from shaming yourself for feeling anger
• Why we shouldn’t suppress our anger
• How we might experience anger
• How many of us respond when we feel anger
• How can we listen to our anger and understand what it is trying to tell us? 

 I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Feel free to reach out to me at jerry@jerryhenderson.org or on Instagram @jerryahenderson.

I am grateful you are here,
Jerry

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Transcript

Jerry Henderson: 0:00

Hello everyone. It's Jerry and welcome to another episode of the Permission to Love podcast. So so grateful that you're here. I want to say thank you to you for being here, for listening, for supporting the show, for sharing it with other people. I love hearing the impact that this show is making in your life and the life of others, so please keep the comments coming, keep the emails coming. You can email me at jerry at jerryhendersonorg, where you can simply DM me on Instagram. My handle there is jerrya Henderson, so feel free to reach out and thank you once again for being here.

Jerry Henderson: 0:36

Let's jump right into today's episode. We're going to talk about anger as a part of the healing process. Now, anger is one of those things that none of us really like, but it is one of those first emotions that seems to come up in our healing journey and we often feel bad about that. We feel bad about the fact that we're feeling angry as we heal. Well, we're going to talk about that today, but I first want to encourage you don't shame yourself for feeling angry as you're healing and actually that anger that you're feeling is a sign that you're healing. It's not a sign that you're not healing. It is a sign that you are healing and it's okay that you're feeling that anger.

Jerry Henderson: 1:22

As I was preparing for this episode, I was recalling an episode that I had in rehab with my therapist, and the day that I was leaving, one of the things that she said to me was that I was hoping, while you were here, that you would either cry or get angry. And she said I'm so glad that you got angry that one time in group therapy. And I thought to myself well, I don't know if that's a good thing or not, because I've still felt bad about it. So what had happened was I was in a group therapy session and I felt like the therapist was wasting our time by talking about nonsense. What I thought was nonsense here I am a person in rehab judging the therapist, thinking that they're talking about nonsense. What had happened was it was going on for about 10 minutes and here I am desperate to try to get healthy, to try to get quote unquote fixed, and I felt like the therapist was just not honoring our time and so it really was pissing me off. So I went off in the group and I said listen, you're wasting everybody's time. There's groups of waste of time, etc. Etc. And stopped the entire group and everybody was pretty shocked, because I'm usually seen as the guy who maintains a sense of quiet, peaceful demeanor, doesn't seem to act out or get upset that much, and so it really kind of freaked people out that I got that angry.

Jerry Henderson: 2:42

And it really was a good thing that I allowed that anger to be expressed. And as my therapist continued to share with me about why she wanted me to get angry and why she was so happy that I had that blow up in the group, she said it was because I had spent so many decades suppressing my anger that I was so locked down and not allowing who I was to be expressed, to allow my emotions to come up, that it was going to be important for me, if I was going to stay sober, for me to get in touch with that anger, to allow that anger that had been suppressed and buried for so many decades within me to come up, to be felt, to be honored, to be seen. So I want to share that with you today. It is important for you to allow your anger to be expressed, to come up, to be seen, to be felt, to be heard. That's the most important. Part of this is that we need to understand that our anger is trying to tell us something. So let's talk about anger.

Jerry Henderson: 3:47

Anger is often called a secondary emotion, because it's something that we're expressing, because it's something else that's going on underneath us. We're expressing anger about a situation, about traffic, about a person's behavior, etc. Because underneath us we're feeling another emotion, and the way that we're handling it is by an outburst is a protective approach. We're trying to protect. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but we're trying to protect ourselves or express a sense of violation, a sense of injustice, a sense of sadness, a sense of hurt, whatever it is that's going on below that, and we're going to talk about some of that underneath stuff here in just a moment, but for the meantime, I want you to understand that that anger isn't your enemy.

Jerry Henderson: 4:44

A lot of what I do in working with clients is helping them to be friend their anger. I was recently working with somebody who just kept judging themselves so much for their anger. They were so frustrated with themselves and were shaming themselves, and what that was doing was it was causing even more anger to come up inside of them, because not only were they feeling bad about the anger, then they were feeling bad about not being able to express the anger, then they were shutting down the part of them that needed to be heard, which was causing more anger towards themselves, which was only fueling the anger. So, counter-intuitively to what they thought, they thought that if they shamed themselves and tried to control their anger, that that would then relieve the anger or get rid of the anger. But what it was actually doing was just adding coals to the fire of their anger, and so befriending the anger is what we had to get to in working with this client, and they actually were able to get to that place where their anger was something they befriended. They began to understand, they began to have a relationship with that allowed that part of them to open up and to express what was going on with them internally, which then changed their entire family dynamics and began to bring a sense of peace into the home, changed everything by simply changing the way that they looked at their anger.

Jerry Henderson: 6:09

Now that might be something that you're struggling with as well the way that you view your anger and the shame that you give yourself towards your anger or the fear that you have about your anger. We're going to talk about that in just a second, and before we do, I want to add a little caveat. Now, while I do believe that anger is healthy, that anger is trying to get our attention, I want to also state that I do believe that there are healthy and unhealthy expressions of anger. Anger is healthy, but it can be expressed in ways that are healthy or unhealthy, and that unhealthy way, obviously, is anything that we do that harms ourselves or harms others as a result of the way that we're expressing our anger. Now I do want to point out that as we begin to deal with our anger, we're not going to get it right, we're going to do it in unhealthy ways, we're going to maybe blow up and lose it, etc. Whatever the scenario is Now, what's going to be important in that is to not shame yourself and to not completely shut that space down again, but allow yourself some grace and if you mess up and when you mess up, apologize, make it right and then get back on the saddle and begin to get in touch with that anger again, because until we go through the door of that anger, we're going to stay stuck and that anger is going to continue to rule us and it's going to continue to manifest in ways that aren't so healthy for us or those that we love.

Jerry Henderson: 7:40

So let's talk a little bit about our view of anger. You might have a view of anger that it's scary for you. The anger is just a scary emotion and that might come from the environment that you grew up in. You grew up in a very angry home and a lot of your trauma is around expressions of anger. Or you've been in a violent or abusive relationship and so when somebody else has expressed anger it's just been very toxic and harmful for you. So you're afraid and scared of anger so you suppress it as a result of that. Another thing that might be a part of your story is that anger has been wrong and that sense of it being wrong will often happen in a conservative family or a religious family that says that no, that's a bad behavior, that's a sinful behavior, to lack of self-control, etc. Etc.

Jerry Henderson: 8:32

Well, anger is not wrong. How we express it can be painful, but the anger itself isn't something that's wrong. You might also feel like that anger has been dangerous for you to express, that when you've expressed it, you've had some pretty bad consequences around it, for example, if you've stood up for yourself and you've allowed that anger to come out of you. You've been retaliated against by somebody who was abusive towards you and so you've felt like that it's just a dangerous emotion for you to express and so you have to keep it locked down. And then the other scenario that happens with people a lot is that they're so afraid to express their anger because they feel like that it's going to get out of control, that if they do allow that to happen, it's going to wind up controlling their life.

Jerry Henderson: 9:18

Well, let me just say something your anger is already controlling you. Your anger is already driving your behaviors. You just don't call it anger, you just don't recognize it as anger. It's that thing that's going on below the surface that is really driving a lot of that resentment, that self-hatred, that self-judgment that you're feeling. Because, listen, anger doesn't just go away.

Jerry Henderson: 9:47

Anger, if we do not express it and allow it to come out, it gets pointed in and we start taking our anger out on ourselves. So a lot of people who are high people pleasers or co-dependence, or people who are shaming themselves in self-judgment a lot of that's rooted in anger, and it's a space where we don't identify it as anger often, but it is often rooted in an anger, and an anger towards ourselves, and an anger that we begin to point inward. We begin to judge ourselves and shame ourselves for not being able to stand up for ourselves, for not being able to push back and to be quote unquote strong or whatever the narrative is. So listen, the expression you letting that anger out isn't the thing that's going to ruin everything and unleash this really horrible part of yourself. That anger is already controlling and driving a lot of your life, and so let's go ahead and start looking at it in a healthy way and allow it to be released in a way that serves us and allows us to continue to heal.

Jerry Henderson: 10:59

So, with all of that taken into consideration, I just want to say something to you. I want to give you permission to see your anger as something to be allowed and to be honored, especially for those of us who've experienced trauma, especially those who've experienced violence and we've had to shut down parts of ourselves and we've had to shut down that ability to express our anger. I want to give you the permission to not shut down your anger anymore and to not see it as something bad, and for you to give yourself the permission to honor it and to listen to it and to make friends with it. You know, if you've listened to this podcast show for very long, you often hear me talk about energy is really important, and it's really almost everything. And the way that we approach that anger, the energy that we have towards that anger, is so deeply important. Because if we're going to meet anger with anger, if we're going to get angry at ourselves for being angry or if we're going to shame ourselves for being angry, it is going to continue to feed it and to grow. So we're going to work on shifting that anger to something that we can see with love and kindness and as a part of us that loves us and is trying to get our attention. Okay, so how is anger a sign of healing.

Jerry Henderson: 12:25

I talked about that in the beginning of this episode, that we want to begin to understand that one of the first emotions that comes up in healing is anger and that anger is often a sign of healing. Well, how does that work? Well, the first thing is that you're allowing yourself to feel things that maybe you haven't felt before. You're no longer so numb, you're no longer so medicated that you can't get in touch with your emotions anymore. The second thing is that you're no longer avoiding yourself. You're actually facing something within you and it's coming up. Now You're actually present enough to begin to be aware of the fact that you have anger and that you're feeling it. Now you might be saying, well, I've had all this anger before and gosh, it's not that it's new. It's just that I'm just now becoming more aware of it and I'm beginning to see it more Well once again. That's because it's a sign that you're healing, because you're allowing yourself to be present with it, notice it, feel it and understand that it's there Now.

Jerry Henderson: 13:26

Another way that that could be healthy is that you're allowing emotions to be expressed that you haven't expressed before. Not only are you feeling them, getting in touch with them, but now you're starting to express them, and that goes to the point of the person who's maybe felt it for so long, but it's kept trapped down. I've noticed in myself and working with others that, even though we may have felt that anger before, we never allowed it to be expressed. We kept it locked down. But if you're allowing it to be expressed, even in really odd ways, that's still a good sign. Listen, give yourself a little bit of grace. If you've been suppressing anger for decades. You don't know how to express it, you don't know what that looks like, and so you're going to get it wrong. You're going to fumble through it, and let's do our best to not spill it out on the entire world around us in a way that's harmful. But remember, you're not good at this, you're not good at expressing it, so you're going to fumble through it, you're going to mess it up, and that's okay.

Jerry Henderson: 14:27

Now, another way that anger is the sign of healing is that it's something that's trying to get your attention, as we've talked a little bit about that. It's trying to tell you something, and so it's arising and it's beginning to actually speak to you, and your body and your system is trusting you enough at this point to allow that to come up, to try to get your attention. It's trying to say to you hello, I'm here, I have something that you need to hear, that I want to tell you, and I feel like we're at a space now where you'll be able to pay attention to that, you'll be able to listen to that, and so it actually is a sign even of your body and your emotions feeling like there's a safe enough place for that stuff to begin to come up. So all of those are reasons why anger is a good sign. It's a sign of healing and it's trying to lead you down a path of a beautiful space of healing. So let's go ahead and move into how do we start to deal with that anger.

Jerry Henderson: 15:32

Well, in my experience in working with people and in my own journey, here's some things that typically happen as we first begin to experience this anger and begin to notice it. Number one we shut it down. We just go ahead and suppress it. It's scary, we shut it off. Challenge with that is it keeps popping its head back up and it keeps trying to get our attention. The second thing is that we will shame ourselves for having it as we've talked about and we'll begin to say things like I thought I was further along in my journey. Why am I still dealing with this? Well, you're still dealing with this because you haven't been dealing with this. Let me say that again You're still dealing with the anger because you haven't been dealing with the anger, okay, and the third thing that happens is we explode because it's been built up for so many years and we haven't been addressing it. It just comes out in ways that are surprising to us and surprising to others, and then that leads to more fear of it and more shaming of it.

Jerry Henderson: 16:31

And so what we want to do is we want to try to work with that anger in a way where it doesn't get to the explosive point in a way that's harmful. It's okay for anger to explode and to come out in ways that are really intense, but that can be done in a safe way, in a way that has somebody maybe walking through that with you or doing it in a place that's safe or in an environment that's safe, and we'll talk about that here in just a second. But those are usually some of those first reactions that happen with our anger, and that's okay, that's a part of it, that's a part of the journey and a part of the story, and I share that and I emphasize that because it's important for you to know that, so that you don't think you're the only one who's having to deal with it in this way. Okay, it's very common and it's very normal for these things to be happening.

Jerry Henderson: 17:24

So, for the rest of this episode, all I want to really begin to dial in on is how do we begin to listen to that anger, if that anger is actually trying to tell us something, how do we begin to hear it, how do we begin to understand what it's trying to tell us? Because I find that that's the most important key in transforming our relationship with our anger is to see it as a visitor who has information for us, not as an enemy that we need to suppress and try to get away from. So the first thing I want to address is try to find a way to release it, to allow it to come out, because sometimes, if it's so stored and trapped in this system, we can't hear what it's telling us because it's so loud. We need to allow it to quiet down just a little bit, and sometimes that takes letting it out. That could be anything like going into the woods and screaming at the top of your lungs. It can be about renting out one of those anger rooms right when they allow you to go into the room and pay for an hour's fee for you to smash things. It can be about going to the gym and knocking the heck out of a punching bag.

Jerry Henderson: 18:40

Whatever it is that you need to do to begin to let that anger out, it's important that you begin to allow it to express itself. Because, remember, anger doesn't just go away when we don't let it out. It goes back in and then it gets turned on ourselves, gets trapped, it stays in there and it begins to wreak havoc on ourselves. And so we want to find outlets to just go ahead and get it out, and once again, get it out in ways that do not harm us or harm others. And so go into the woods, go into the smash room, go into the gym, work with a therapist, work with a coach, find a safe space for you to allow all of that to come out.

Jerry Henderson: 19:23

And sometimes I have found that it does take working with somebody who has experience in this space, because we're so afraid of that anger coming out that it almost needs to be coaxed out of us. It needs to be able to come out in ways that feel safe, with somebody who's telling us that it is safe to go ahead and let it out. So if you need that, that's absolutely okay to find and to do with somebody who's a professional who can work with you in that space. Now, the second thing that's important in understanding what it's trying to tell us is sitting with it, to allow ourselves to feel it. But you might say I'm afraid that if I do that, it's just going to boil and it's going to get more and more, and I'm afraid that something bad is going to happen if I do do that and I'm just going to get more and more upset. Well, that's why one of the first things we want to do is find a healthy outlet for it so that it can be expressed, so that now, once it's been expressed and once we've allowed it to have some of those outlets that now we can sit with it.

Jerry Henderson: 20:26

Now I'm not saying that it has to work in that order. There is no linear process for it. You might be a person who could sit with it and then need to go find a way to release it, or you might be a person who needs to release it and then have the ability to sit with it. Whatever works for you works for you, but at some point you're going to have to find a way to sit with it, to have the ability to just allow it to be, so that it can feel safe to listen to it.

Jerry Henderson: 20:55

Now the third thing is that once you've gotten to the space where you can sit with it, you can be with it. Now you can start to ask the question what is below it, what's beneath it? And if you're asking, how do I do that? Well, it's as simple as just asking the question, asking the anger why are you here? What's going on? What are you so angry about? What are you trying to tell me? Whatever questions work for you, begin to ask that of yourself and really begin to see that anger not as some dark, bad energy, but begin to see it as a friend. When you're asking that question or those questions, really begin to get curious, really begin to ask and sit with and wait for the answer. You'll begin to get answers. If you sit long enough and you wait long enough and you're gentle enough with yourself, those answers will begin to come up. We might be asking well, what happens if I don't get an answer the first time? Well, try again, sit with it again, begin to investigate.

Jerry Henderson: 22:02

Understand that getting through this door is an important part of your healing journey. So don't give up on going through this door. Wait to see what comes up. And when things begin to come up, don't be surprised if you hear things about wounds from a child, about wounds from relationships, about wounds that you gave to yourself. You might find that it comes up as a voice of someone who was in your life a parent or a caregiver or a relationship, that the anger really is the angry voice of that person that's still attacking you, still coming at you, and you need to allow that to be released and to be heard and to be felt and to allow it to move through your system and recognize that it's not your voice of anger, it's their voice of anger and you can begin to transmute that.

Jerry Henderson: 23:00

But whatever it is, it wants to speak to you. That anger wants to tell you what's going on, what wound is still there that's unhealed. I mean, it's no different than an animal with a wound. You can have a dog that at one point was gentle and kind and loving, but when it has a wound and you approach that wound, it's going to bite you, it's going to lash out at you. So if you can look at yourself, that you have parts of you that are wounded, that are hurt, that have gone unhealed, that want to come up, and the way that it's coming up is through lashing out or through anger or this sense of agitation inside of you, if you can begin to see it that way and just ask it what is the pain, what is the hurt, what is the sadness, what is the sense of betrayal, what is the sense of self-denial that's there? You'll begin to get below the surface and identify something that needs to be healed that you can begin to work on. Which then leads me to the final point of how do we begin to listen to it is that we then write that out. Please take the time to write out what you're hearing.

Jerry Henderson: 24:08

I know sometimes it feels like an exercise of futility, or why do I want to write it out? Because writing it out will one document it two, will begin to bring a connection to it even more emotionally as you begin to write it out, and then it allows you to remember it and to connect back with that feeling again, because we get back into life and we just forget, and so writing it out can really cement that feeling or that connection that you had, and then it can also give you something to begin to talk to somebody else about, a professional or somebody who can help you process through it, a friend, that you can go back to those notes and really begin to articulate where that source of anger is and identifying the source of the anger. That then gives you something to begin to heal, to begin to work on right, because, once again, we're often working on symptoms, which is, you know, an anger or an addiction or a behavior, and we're not getting down to the thing that actually needs to be worked on, which is the original wound. And as you begin to address that, you'll find that that anger on its own will begin to reduce and subside. Okay, well, I hope this episode was helpful for you in understanding how anger isn't something bad. It's not a sign that you're not healing. It is actually a sign of healing and is often a first emotion expressed as a part of our healing journey. So, don't shame yourself, go into it, befriend it, listen to it, see what it has to tell you and in listening to what it has to tell you, it can transform your life.

Jerry Henderson: 25:52

Well, thank you for being a part of another episode of the Permission to Love Podcast and I want to remind you, if you've not yet had a chance to rate or review the show, please take a moment to do that.

Jerry Henderson: 26:02

It really does help out the reach of the show. Also, if you haven't taken a moment yet to follow or subscribe, please take a moment to do that as well. And before I close out, I do want to remind you about my book Returning, a Collection of Meditations and Reflections on Self Love and Healing. You can pick it up anywhere books are sold. It's been a great resource for so many people as a daily reflection guide or a daily reminder guide in those moments where maybe you're not feeling so hopeful about your healing journey or you're feeling like you're having a tendency to shame yourself. The book really is designed for you to be able to open it, get inspiration and have those reminders each day about who you are, and who you are is love. And in closing, I want to remind you as always, you are worthy of your own love.