It is very hard to be raised in a family that outlaws or demonises anger or other emotions, after all anger is a primary sign of violation of our boundaries, so it is only natural an abusive parent may want us to not have that anger and know the truth of what happened to us hurt us,nor protest. Also a point I made a while back in another blog is that we can come to fear anger if it was not expressed in a functional way in our childhood homes or if we felt overpowered by its expression and had no help to understand how to use what it is trying to tell us to our benefit.
I read today in Sheri Van Dijk’s book on calming emotions that there are several eronneous beliefs about anger and feelings that we absorb but are very unhelpful when trying to deal with our feelings. If we hold onto these beliefs we will be in trouble and will lose touch with a fundamental part of our human goodness.
I am listing them below:
There is a right and wrong way to feel in every situation.. Untrue ,we feel as we do and those feelings are important and necessary to us. We have a right to our feelings.
Its not good or healthy to feel angry. Untrue, anger is a guide and natural, it serves a purpose and give us insight into how we are being treated by others, so it is healthy, what may be unhealthy or counterproductive is the way we express anger.
Happy or emotionally healthy people do not experience painful emotions. Untrue, everyone experiences painful emotions at some time and if you were hurt a lot as a child you will experience more of them.. It is learning how and why we do and how to deal with those painful feelings that makes all the difference.
Feeling sad (or any other emotion) is weak. Untrue.. Feeling is a sign of being human and allowing vulnerability.. its more toxic to freeze feeling and judge it as a sign of weakness.
Painful emotions are destructive. Untrue.. many of us who came to fear emotions and had them shamed may feel having emotions will kill us or make us unsafe or exile us, these are ideas we absorbed in childhood when we were not allowed to have our painful emotions. We can find constructive ways to deal with emotions.. For example getting into a place where you can vent or touch base with anger away from the trigger will help you get it out of your system and tune into yourself to let you know what you need to do to take care of yourself in the triggering situations
If other people don’t approve of how you feel. you should not feel this way. Untrue. Everyone has a right to their feelings and no one has the right to dictate to you what you should be feeling in a situation, nor how you should express it (that said its not right to hurt others, but if you were hurt you may lash out in anger and that is a human self protective movement of energy.)
Painful emotions are bad and need to be fixed. Another myth. Just because feelings are painful that does not make them ‘bad’, all our emotions serve a function and are good. Knowing what you are feeling and knowing what steps to take to make you feel better in that situation will actually help, this is different to trying to ‘fix’ an emotion. E.g. if feeling sad you could seek comfort with someone who accepts your sadness and gives you a hug.
Being emotional means being out of control. Not necessarily true. Sometimes we ‘feel’ out of control with emotions due to the size of them, but there are steps you can take to take care of you emotions that make them less overwhelming. Talking calmly to yourself and giving your self support with big emotions does help as do other techniques you can find to do with both self soothing and emotional calming.
It is not healthy to express your emotions. Untrue, expressing emotions in a healthy assertive way helps you to feel more in touch with your truth, not expressing them effectively is the problem.
Painful emotions will never act to go away, if you do not make them go away. Untrue, emotions will often pass if we give them space and allow them to flow through and express, the more we battle our difficult emotions the more power they have.
There is no stigma around having feelings and especially anger which also exists for a reason. Some things that naturally evoke anger are:
Being treated with disrespect.
Being overpowered or threatened.
Being stopped from reaching a goal.
Being treated unfairly or unjustly.
Anger is to be expected in these situations and is sign to practice self care. To speak up. To address an issue, not to bury it deny, repress or avoid which may end up leading to becoming a people pleaser, suppressing your own vital life energy and to depression.
Emerging From The Dark Night 