best way to get in touch with anger?

[TheFlyingMan]

Hey guys and gals, have a question please.

I'm discovering that I have some old old anger inside me. I have meditations to get in touch with it, but I'm finding that I repress it a lot (out of fear, perhaps, or that it doesn't fit with my self-image). Would like to know everyone's favourite ways of really getting in touch with this anger, moving past this resistance, and healing it once and for all. My favourite meditations work for everything else like old sadness and even frustrations, but pure murderous anger seems to have a lot of resistance around it.

Much appreciated. Thank you in advance!

[uberinquisitive]

You can pretend you're watching your angry memories on a movie screen.

Imagine yourself in a darkened theater, and watch the memory on the screen, but in black and white. It helps if the memory is specific.

Then, run the memory backwards, quickly. Do it again and again, as if in a loop. Quicker and quicker. Soon, it will look ridiculous. Distort the sound so people sound like chipmunks.

Once you take the heaviness out of the memory, then it may be easier to confront.

[TheFlyingMan]

Hey there, thanks for this! I've given it a shot and it seems to have quite an effect. Thanks

[uberinquisitive]

Glad to hear!

Have you tried TAT? This may work on neutralizing a lot of anger without having to specifically point to every memory (although specific memory work is often the most effective)

[TheFlyingMan]

Definitely have to check that out. I've been working with just the fact that I even have a supremely angry side (my whole life I've been the nice, quiet guy, and all that meant was I repressed it), so my normal meditations, while supremely effective, have given me a lot of fear and denial. Perhaps physical work like you suggest is just the key. Thank you again.

[Trezker]

Aggressive music and eccentric dancing for the win. Let the beast out, then tame it.
I recommend Slipknot, Godsmack, Hatesphere...

Hmm, I just listen to Slipknot now and don't feel anything but calm appreciation for a fine piece of music... I guess I have to be in the mood to feel aggression. But I think I'd soon get in the mood if I keep listening...

[TheFlyingMan]

Thanks mate, that's another good idea too. I've tried music but eccentric dancing? heh that will be fun!

[blueberry]

I'm only now just unraveling my own anger issues.... up until recently, I really thought I was the kind of person that just didn't get angry. Because of my upbringing, I would suppress my anger back into myself where it would turn into depression.

Two things are helping me right now:

* Working on the limiting beliefs about anger. ("anger is never an appropriate response." "there is no healthy way to express anger." "I must be patient/nice/calm/reasonable instead of angry.")
* Writing about the issues and memories that are involved.

My personal advice is pretty elementary because well... that's the level I'm at. but coping.org has VERY useful resources on managing anger and all the roadblocks you may encounter.
Anger Workout

[awakentransform]

Another technique - talk to the angry self. You can do voice dialogue, in which you have two chairs - one for your everyday self and one for your angry self. Let yourself embody each in it's own chair and ask questions to the Angry self, such as:

-What are your needs?
-What are you trying to tell me?
-What value do you bring me?
-How can I work to integrate you in my life?

If the chair voice dialogue thing is too weird from you, another good method is non-dominant hand journaling. Let your dominant writing hand be your everyday self and ask the questions. Your non-dominant hand will be your angry self. This works well because the non-dominant hand will be using the untapped parts of your brain. Your critical mind will be focusing on getting the non-dominant hand to write, which will leave the space open for the untapped angry part to easily flow through. This method works well for dialoguing with any untapped part.

[TheFlyingMan]

Oh gosh blueberry, for some reason I wasn't notified of your response. Thank you so much for that, and apologies I didn't reply until now.

awaken transform, that is definitely something I want to try out. I have been doing some dialoging inside my head, and journaling makes a huge difference, I do believe that your stronger techniques will boost what I've been doing. The chair thing is a bit strange for me, but journaling I'll go and do right now. Thank you!

[introspective1]

one silly thing I do to let out anger is to scream into a pillow, empty box, or something else where you cant be heard by anybody but you.. careful you dont wanna scare the neighbors or whoever

[MagicalRealist]

I talk it out. I'll go someplace where nobody can hear me and I won't be interrupted (like my basement) and just sit there and talk about what makes me angry. I shout and scream and pace around the room and punch cardboard boxes if I need to, until I can feel it dissolve, or I just wear myself out and I run out of things to say. Usually it only takes about 10-20 minutes; sometimes (rarely) it takes up to an hour. Some things take multiple sessions--certain issues kept coming up over and over again for weeks or months before I'd finally worked through them.

"Do it as long as it takes, as often as it takes" is my only rule.

The funny thing is, I find it easier to open up if I have a tape recorder running, even though I never play back the tape (doing that is counterproductive). I'm not even sure my tape recorder works, to be honest--the tape runs, but for all I know nothing is being recorded on it, or else my habit of re-using the same tape over and over means anything recorded on it is hopelessly garbled.

But maybe the tape recorder does work. And maybe everything I say is being recorded just fine, and if I wanted someone to hear my rant I could give them the tape. That makes me feel like I'm not just talking uselessly to empty air, or just to myself. Yeah, the next time I need to rant I'll record over it, but in the moment as I'm raging away, it doesn't matter.

When I'm done, I go for a long walk to "cool down" emotionally and reconnect with the world outside my head, and by the time I get back home I feel so much better.

[awakentransform]

Depending on how we were raised, anger can be one of those emotions that is very buried. We can be taught that it is wrong to have anger. Yet anger (if not used to hurt someone) can be a key to reclaiming our power. When we block our anger, we block all of its strength as well.

When I was younger, I used to like to get psychic readings. Often the psychic would say that I had a lot of anger. I really didn't get it because I felt calm and happy inside. I was so out of touch with my own anger. It wasn't until years later that I discovered my anger when doing shadow work.

I had this dream that I found a mouse in my dresser. It was in a little box dressed up in a little suit. I remember that it seemed very sterile and I worried about setting it free. It seemed very weak and unnatural. This is the way I had dressed up my own anger and in fact disempowered myself like a weak mouse. I guess there had always been a part of me that was afraid of my own power, that I might use it to hurt someone else.

I have done a lot of self-work since then and am no longer afraid of my power. Getting in touch with your anger is a big step on your journey of self discovery and self empowerment. Good luck~