It’s no secret that we are living in a very challenging time in the history of the world. At times it can feel quite hopeless. With that hopelessness can come a whole plethora of other emotions like sadness, despondency, anxiety, fear and anger.

Here are 4 Powerful Ways To Process Your Anger In Turbulent Times

Personally, I have felt most of these emotions regularly lately, and still do at many moments throughout my day to day life. I live in Sydney, Australia and I have been in lockdown for almost 10 weeks. I have felt the energy of anger moving in me many, many times throughout the ups and downs of the past year and a half since the Covid19 pandemic began. 

This isn’t an article about the pandemic though. This is an article about being human. I want to talk about anger – a human emotion often misunderstood and labelled as ‘negative’. 

Why do we do that? Why do we label some emotions as ‘good’ and others as ‘bad’? Emotions are neither. They just are.

What can be challenging is the behaviour that comes from an inability to be with our emotions. This can mean we express them in ways that are harmful to ourselves or others.

4 Powerful Ways To Process Your Anger In Turbulent Times

Many of us have not learned how to correctly process our emotions in life. This can lead to the suppression of those emotions. 

Suppression is particularly common with the emotions that we perceive as painful, or those that we feel unsafe to confront – perhaps because we fear being judged or even outcast by our peers, friends or even our family.

This can happen to both men and women. Suppression of anger for women could be due to a woman not wanting to seem “too emotional” or even “crazy”. For men, they are labelled as weak for expressing emotions – the saying “man up” comes to mind.

This conditioning is more damaging than any emotion.

And here’s the other thing. Emotions are smart – they know what’s what and they do not appreciate being ignored. Emotions (aka the wisdom of the body) are so smart they will even allow you to THINK you have pushed them away – at least for a while. 

Eventually, though, those emotions you tried to hide from that are intimately connected with the deep wisdom of your physiology, will show up in your life. 

It could be hours, months or even many years after an event.

Suppressed emotions or trauma can show up in many different ways, such as physical illness, mental illness and even as an excess of whichever emotion that was suppressed.

So now that we understand the importance of processing our emotions – how do we do it?

Well, each emotion is different – and each human being is different, too. We all process emotions in different ways. These are the ways that have helped me.

4 Powerful Ways To Process Your Anger In Turbulent Times

1- Therapy.

If you don’t first know that you have trapped emotions, or where they come from, how will you ever know to start processing them? If you are reading this article, you have some idea that you have anger and that you need to process it.

Speaking with a qualified counsellor or therapist can be powerful in helping you to uncover where your anger stems from so that you can set about learning to process it healthily.

2- Movement.

When emotions are trapped in our physical body we need to use our body to move them through us. There are many ways to do this. One way I love is perhaps a little surprising – it’s dancing! Yep, when I feel like there is some anger I need to let go of I put on some music and shake it out like nobody’s watching. It is incredibly therapeutic.

I have also found boxing to be helpful. Using my hands to punch through my anger was cathartic. And as an added benefit, it’s awesome cardio.

3 – Setting Healthy Boundaries.

Whatever your emotions are in a given moment are a message from your body. Sometimes that message is letting you know that a boundary of yours has been crossed. Boundaries are what separates you and your feelings from that of another person.

When you feel a boundary has been crossed – be that through a disrespectful comment or someone crossing a line physically with you, emotions will show up to let you know.

Learning to determine what your boundaries are and setting them with the people around you allows you to better understand yourself and your relationship to the world around you.

4 – Acceptance. 

This one is probably the toughest of all – and perhaps the most important. Your feelings matter. Read that again.

Whatever you have been told by those around you or even perhaps from the nasty inner critic, you are important and your experiences are real. Learning to accept yourself in all of your emotional glory is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.

Feeling anger isn’t bad. Emotions are the messengers of the body. When we learn to deal with them in healthy ways, they can help us to evolve closer to the truth of who we truly are.