Have you ever been so determined not to lose your shit that you’ve become really good at keeping everything bottled up? 😡
You pride yourself on staying calm, being reasonable, keeping the peace and not reacting when other people are behaving like total fuckwits.
You tell yourself you’re handling things really well.
Maybe you are.
But are you as emotionally regulated as you think you are, or are you actually emotionally repressed? 🤔
Sometimes what looks like incredible emotional control on the outside is actually a lifetime of anger that’s never been able to be expressed because you learned it wasn’t safe to.
WHY DO WE REPRESS OUR ANGER?
For some people, it starts in childhood.
Maybe you grew up with a parent who was aggressive, explosive or unpredictable so you learned that anger meant danger. ⛔️
You saw what happened when someone lost their temper, and you made a promise to yourself that you’d never become like them.
So instead of learning how to express anger in a healthy way, you learned to swallow it.
You became the calm one. The reasonable one. The peacemaker.
You’re resilient and emotionally intelligent, and can handle everyone else’s problems.
The person who can tolerate an extraordinary amount of bullshit without ever raising their voice.
But not expressing anger doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not feeling it and it doesn’t mean there isn’t something going on underneath. 🥴
SIGNS YOU MIGHT BE REPRESSING ANGER
Anger isn’t just an emotion we experience in our minds. It can also trigger physical changes in our bodies.
When we’re angry or stressed, our nervous system can activate our fight-or-flight response, increasing muscle tension, heart rate and alertness. 🫀👀
If you’re regularly suppressing difficult emotions, you might notice:
‼️ Tension in your jaw, neck and shoulders: constantly feeling tight or unable to relax.
‼️ Headaches and muscle pain: particularly during stressful periods.
‼️ Digestive issues: stress can affect gut function, sometimes contributing to discomfort or changes in bowel habits.
‼️ Poor sleep and exhaustion: finding it difficult to switch off, even when you’re physically knackered.
‼️ Irritability or resentment: getting annoyed by little things while convincing yourself the bigger issues don’t bother you.
‼️ Difficulty setting boundaries: saying yes, keeping the peace and putting everyone else’s needs ahead of your own.
‼️ Feeling emotionally numb: becoming so good at switching off uncomfortable emotions that you struggle to connect with what you’re actually feeling.
WHAT REPRESSED ANGER CAN LOOK LIKE IN YOUR ENERGY FIELD
In my energy treatments, I sometimes notice recurring themes that come up when my client has repressed their anger. 😡
These can show up through the essential oils, flower remedies, crystals and other energetic tools I use during sessions.
Sometimes the same emotional theme keeps coming up through several different methods.
And when that happens, I’ll explore it with my client.
These themes can provide an interesting starting point for reflection and conversation. 🗣️
In energy work, anger is sometimes associated with imbalances in the solar plexus and sacral chakras, which relates symbolically to personal power, boundaries and self-worth as well as storing emotional baggage. 🧳
For me, the important thing is exploring what resonates with the client and what might be happening beneath the surface.
WHEN BEING ‘THE CALM ONE’ BECOMES A SURVIVAL STRATEGY
I often find the people who appear to have the best emotional regulation are actually the people who learned very early in life that expressing anger wasn’t safe. 🫣
They’ve become experts at managing their reactions.
They can remain polite, respectful and composed even when they’re being treated appallingly. 😳
And while that’s often a valuable skill, there’s a question worth asking:
Are you genuinely processing your anger, or have you just become exceptionally good at hiding it?
Because those are two very different things. 🤷🏼♀️
Healthy emotional regulation means recognising what you’re feeling, understanding why it’s there and choosing how to respond.
Emotional repression means pushing those feelings away, sometimes without even realising you’re doing it.
And if you learned as a child that anger made people dangerous, you might unconsciously associate your own anger with becoming the very person you never wanted to be.
But feeling angry doesn’t make you aggressive.
Anger is an emotion. Aggression is a behaviour. 🥊
You can feel absolutely fucking furious about something and still choose to respond respectfully.
YOUR ANGER ISN’T THE ENEMY
Anger often gets a bad reputation, especially when we’ve experienced it being expressed in frightening or destructive ways.
But anger itself isn’t a bad emotion.
Sometimes it’s telling you that your boundaries have been crossed.
That something feels unfair.
That your needs aren’t being met. 🥺
That you’re tolerating situations you shouldn’t have to tolerate.
The goal isn’t to become someone who never gets angry.
It’s to become someone who can recognise their anger, understand what it’s communicating and express it without harming themselves or others.
And sometimes that means unlearning patterns you’ve carried since childhood.
READY TO EXPLORE WHAT YOU’VE BEEN HOLDING ONTO?
I’ve been working as a coach and energy practitioner for over 21 years, and one of the things I love about combining these approaches is that we get to explore emotional patterns from different perspectives.
During my sessions, we can look at what’s happening in your life, the beliefs and experiences that may be influencing your responses, and the energetic patterns I notice during treatments. 🙌🏻
My approach is trauma-informed, and there’s never any pressure to revisit experiences you’re not ready to explore.
You don’t have to become the person who hurt you in order to give yourself permission to feel angry.
Ready to explore what’s going on beneath the surface?
Drop me a message and let’s chat about how energy work and/or coaching can help.
Much love,
