Anger was never allowed in my upbringing. If I showed any anger anywhere I was considered a "horrible" girl. I never wanted to be that, and so I pushed it down.
I came up against conflict and often. Quite a lot at school where I had become so quiet I was bullied incessantly and mostly for being quiet. I was scared of speaking up in case I got into trouble or got something wrong which could make everything so much worse than it already was.
The repression of this emotion caused many of my physical issues in the long term. Anger is so incredibly powerful and can be used for such good. Its a primal survival instinct and can save us when we are under threat. But held in and repressed in can be such destructive force on our bodies.
It is a secondary emotion. It defends our vulnerability and protects us from the layers underneath it which is usually sadness or fear. This was very true in my own case and another reason why I reached deeply to find the root cause of why my body always seemed to be in trouble.
No surprise by age 14 I had bowel problems. Constipation mostly. Unable to release control of any part of my life. My boundaries were always being crossed because I couldn't express my needs or tell anyone how I was feeling.
When I look back, I used to be told constantly how chilled out and stress free I was. That I could handle anything. But really, all I was doing was shovelling it all down and hoping nobody would notice. Of course the body knows best and began to show me the bigger signs of it's unhappiness by age 17.
Over the last 30 plus years I have delved into my physical, mental, emotional and Spiritual issues. Whenever I took on another layer of illness I discovered a little more "stuff" and no matter how hard it got I am so incredibly grateful for the trip and the lessons it gave me.
I found Gabor Maté a few years back and his work fascinated me. It supported further healing of my own self and since that time has allowed me to explore the body and mind connection at a much deeper level.
"You can’t cleave a physiology from a psychology. The one affects the other, both ways. And so that when things happen emotionally, they’re going to have a physiological impact. And so this is why trauma and stress play such a huge role in the onset of so many illnesses of both mind and body. Both autoimmune disease or malignancy, or what we call mental illnesses significantly have trauma and stress as the significant contributing factor." - Gabor Maté
My emotional body had been stuck in cycles of repression for so long, my immune system was in turmoil and sending the wrong messages until my physical body became under attack. From itself.
Anger triggers the body’s ‘fight or flight’ response. The adrenal glands flood the body with stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol. The brain shunts blood away from the gut and towards the muscles, in preparation for physical exertion. Heart rate, blood pressure and respiration increase, the body temperature rises and the skin perspires.
And that is great when the emotion is able to be released in a healthy way, but just imagine what the repression of that emotion does to the body internally over a long period of time.
The constant flood of stress chemicals and associated metabolic changes that go with ongoing unmanaged anger can eventually cause harm to many different systems of the body.
Persistent headaches
Poor digestion
Insomnia
Anxiety
Depression
High blood pressure
Skin issues
In Chinese medicine, anger is related to the Liver and the wood element. The wood element is all about growth and expansive movement and the Liver directs this internally, both physically and emotionally. Anger is the natural response to any interruption in the Liver’s mission to move and grow. At the same time, an excess of anger or repressed anger inhibits the Liver’s function, leading to further emotional imbalance and feelings of frustration, resentment, aggression and depression. Imbalance in the Liver system manifests physically with headaches, waking up in the night and tension in the neck and shoulders.
Anger can injure the body when it’s either vented excessively or repressed. But the value of anger is that it gets our attention when things are out of balance in our body.
The lesson?
Being able to feel, express and work with my anger. Knowing and trusting that I could express it healthily without feeling judged or being rejected helped me to release years of "stuckness" in my body.
This was pivotal in bringing my body back to health and strength but also allowed me to live a freer and happier life.
My experience as a youngster was that anger was an unwanted emotion, a “bad feeling,” that avoidance of the emotion was the key to being accepted.
As Gabor Maté states;
"The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain."