Anger is healthy but can be unhealthy when it goes into the unconscious and creates pain. Women find it especially challenging to have a healthy relationship with anger.  As girls we are taught that we aren’t supposed to be angry we need to be nice and cooperative.  But without anger we are handicapped.  Anger helps us to keep good boundaries.  When we don’t allow or acknowledge or are unconscious about our anger it comes out in unexpected ways such as mind-body syndrome pain which chronic pelvic pain, vulvodynia, and IC are included in.  The pain is created by the unconscious mind to keep our attention off the anger or other uncomfortable emotions, which we have been conditioned to perceive as very dangerous, and to stay focused on the pain instead.

Anger Goes Unconscious

The classic explanation for mind-body syndrome pain is that rage has gone into the unconscious and the pain serves as a distraction from it.  When the rage and/or anger are brought into consciousness, the pain no longer has a purpose and we experience pain relief.  Most people who are new to the mind-body approach to pain relief, especially women, will claim that they are not angry people and they cannot even relate to the concept that rage is underlying their pain.  The neurological pathway to avoid being conscious of anger or the more intense rage is so strong and ingrained (myelinated) that we cannot even conceive of having these emotions.  It is so completely in the shadow of our minds.

Unconscious Rage

I am guilty of not believing that I had a problem with anger and didn’t believe that I was capable of having rage when I was first introduced to Dr. John Sarno’s explanation of mind-body pain.  It has taken me 6 years to truly accept and believe this concept. Sarno says that it’s the repression of unconscious rage that creates the pain to distract the conscious mind from acknowledging the rage.  In order not to feel the physical sensations of the rage the muscles have to tense which causes mild oxygen deprivation to muscles and nerves which result in pain or other symptoms such as anxiety or skin rashes or digestive upset.  The conditioned (habit) neurological pathway can be broken when we become conscious of our rage and/or allow ourselves to have the emotion and feel it as physical sensations in the body.  Once the emotion has been brought into consciousness, the purpose of the pain to distract from feeling this is gone and there’s no need for the pain and it fades away.  Yes, it’s a simple as that, and yes, it can be very tricky to break these old ingrained unconscious habits of being.

Anger Explored

In the beginning of my mind-body healing journey I realized I didn’t know how to feel anger appropriately.  Most of the time I suppressed it and then sometimes I got out of control with it, especially with my family.  I went through an exploration of what anger felt like as physical sensations in my body, then practiced allowing myself to express my anger without getting out of control or hurting anyone else or damaging my relationships.  It was a little messy at first.  I remember throwing a corncob into the sink in a disagreement with my husband.  Later I learned to feel my anger in my body without throwing things and to also be able be okay with being angry.  Now when I feel angry I feel it in my body as physical sensation, then after it rises and falls I sense what action needs to be taken.  It’s best to take action after the wave of emotion falls so I can consciously choose how to speak or convey my truth in a kind and compassionate way.

Anger Gets Skillful

In practicing feeling anger I learned what worked and what didn’t.  It definitely included failures and noticing what I liked and didn’t like.  When my daughter was a teenager in high school one night she wasn’t yet home well after her curfew.  I finally called her on her cell phone she told me she was on her way home.  I met her at the door and spoke to her about why I was angry while I was still quite angry.  I remember how dry my mouth felt.  I remember noticing that this behavior of mine with anger did not feel effective and didn’t make me feel any better.  I apologized to my daughter the next day about my behavior at the door and I decided I wasn’t going to do anger again that way.  When my son later challenged me in this way I did it differently.  I allowed myself to feel the anger, but I waited until the next day to have a civil conversation about his behavior and how I wanted it to change.  I became a more tolerant and forgiving parent as well.  I just wanted to be sure my kids were safe and they were good about answering their phone when I called them in a panic late at night to check up on them.

My Inner 3-Year-Old Knows Rage

In mind-body healing I’ve also interpreted Sarno’s “rage and other emotions” in a broader way.  It’s any uncomfortable emotion that we have an unconscious habit of not feeling.  I’m also softening around my resistance to rage.  I really can relate to the concept that I still have an inner 3-year-old who can easily go into tantrum when I don’t get my way.  Sarno related the inner raging child self as Sigmund Freud’s Id.  The nervous system still has the programming (neurological pathways) that was set when we were 2 or 3 year olds still learning to be in our bodies and with our emotions.  We were probably rejected by our parents and other care givers when we had tantrums.  Tantrums were not allowed.  So they went into unconscious rage.  I remember when I was about 3 or 4 years old I was so mad about something that I ripped the pages out of a picture book.  I knew it was bad to rip books up but I was so mad I did it anyway.  I don’t remember what I was mad about.  But I can remember that feeling of rage in my body which I obviously later learned to suppress.  I now know how to feel my rage even when it’s illogical, as 3 year olds often are.  I still get to feel it and then get a sense of my truth and whether I need to communicate it or not and if so how.

Dissolving Pain

When my old mind-body symptoms come up now I tell them I’m onto them.  I know there’s nothing wrong with me.  I allow the sensation to be there as I focus on my emotional life instead, bringing any emotions I might have unconsciously not felt into consciousness and also feel the sensations of them in my body.  Now I get to have my emotions in a skillful way even when they are illogical, childish or selfish.  I get to work through them and find my truth, rather than reject them.  Then I take action from my adult self in a kind and considerate way without abandoning myself.

Endorsed Coach – Gail Kenny

When I found Abigail I had been struggling with chronic pelvic pain (including pain in my lower abdomen, IC symptoms, yeast infections and myofascial pain) for over 20 years. Mind-body coaching was the last thing I needed to truly get my life back. I know first-hand the challenges of healing chronic pelvic pain and I’m well prepared to help you with your healing. I’m also a certified Martha Beck life coach and trained psychic.

I work with people in physical pain who have already tried all the normal solutions. I help them heal old dysfunctional habits of thinking and feeling. I teach them to relate to their body, emotions, mind, and soul in new ways, creating relief from underlying tension, healing pain from the inside out and getting back to living the life they want. Start with your free pain relief practice here.

Photo Credit:  freedigitalphotos.net

So, it might seem odd for me to say this: Anger is one of the most healing emotions you can feel.

To feel anger is to be present with the sensations of anger in the body. You might feel heat, sweating, rolling waves of energy, a buzzing in your chest, a thundering in your ears, or, fill in the blank here with whatever you feel in your body! Being with that energy, walking around the block as it flows within you, or sitting still while you allow your awareness to track it is not dangerous to your health.

In fact, it’s the only healthy way to handle any emotion, because there is no other way. You can’t make anger vanish by thinking positive thoughts. You can’t suppress it, because it will simply return or leak out when you least expect it. And, of course, if you do suppress it for a long period of time, your body will start to have chronic tension and eventually pain. Suppressed or unfelt anger causes TMS, (aka Mind Body Syndrome).

Feeling anger is actually essential to your health.

Without feeling anger, you don’t know your own truth. Anger lets us know when we’re not setting clear boundaries, when we’re feeling trampled or invaded, and welcomes us back to our ability to take care of ourselves.
Here’s how you do it:

1. Feel the energy of the anger as sensation in the body. Use your mind to notice what it feels like when anger is present. Walk or move if that makes it easier. Sit still if that makes it easier.
2. Let the anger energy simply exist, and don’t try to make it leave. It will dissolve in its own time when you’re present with it. Just noticing it as a physical sensation in your body allows it to pass.
3. Be open for any insight to arise. Sometimes it may show up immediately, and other times it may take days. Insight may show you where you need to speak up, where you need to create change, where you need to take care of yourself, where you need to own up to something or admit wrongdoing, or more. You’ll know when it arises because you’ll feel clarity.

What isn’t so healthy is the reaction we sometimes have to our own anger. I’ve had many experiences where, instead of feeling the anger energy and simply being present with it, I jumped into reaction. Reaction might look like yelling at someone, stewing for hours in a mind-loop about a situation until steam comes out your ears, physically harming yourself or others, treating others rudely, saying something cutting, or any form of acting out the anger with behavior.

Reaction to our own anger prevents us from actually feeling it.

You could say that our reaction to anger is what causes a negative impact on our bodies, because suppression and behavioral reaction both carry similar consequences; lots of tension, amped up heart rate, and a prolonged fight or flight response in the body.

However, learning to stay with the anger itself instead of suppressing or acting it out is a life’s work. All we can do is practice, and with each experience, get a little bit better at feeling the emotion. Self-judgment around having done it wrong simply makes it harder.

There is no perfection. There is no battle against anger. There’s just the ongoing process of being human, noticing ourselves with self-kindness, and openly welcoming the chance to practice staying, yet again, with the discomfort of emotion.

P.S. Want to learn how to feel emotions and heal your body? (And maybe even to help others?) Take the 2016 Mind-Body Coach Training! Click here for details. Only a week left to register!

by Endorsed Coach, Linda Fennell

I’ve been finding myself annoyed and frustrated lately. Nothing clear I can attribute it to. Feels like I’ve been wearing way too tight knickers, a.k.a. the dreaded “cranky pants.”

It got me thinking about the emotion of anger.  Sociologist and emotion expert, Karla McLaren, in her fabulous book, The Language of Emotions, indicates that anger helps us to protect and honor our boundaries. That includes not only our physical space, but also our idea’s, thoughts, beliefs and ways of being that are valuable and important to us.

Metaphorically, anger is like having your own inner super hero. For example, I have a friend who imagines their anger as Wonder Woman.  I love that. Isn’t it fun to imagine Wonder Woman watching over your internal and external space? Flying around you in her invisible jet making sure all is well. Ready to alert you at a moment’s notice to any disruptions. Her Lasso-of-truth, standing by, waiting to rope-up any intruders that cross the line into your sacred territory or internal invaders that wreak havoc in the form of your own inner critic.

In Karla McLaren’s book, she came up with questions you can ask yourself to help clarify the possible message inside the emotion showing up.

I love her questions for Anger: “What needs to be protected?  What needs to be restored?”

Asking the question helps you to get clear especially when you’re not consciously aware of why you’re angry.

When I asked myself the questions after my own recent bout of crankiness this is what I discovered: That I need to be protected from my own inner pushy perfectionistic self. I’m trying to pressure myself to move forward with my goals, faster … faster … faster … in my business, my home projects, and in losing the 5 pounds I gained over the winter. This internal pressure is making me crazy.  I’m disrupting my own inner calm.  It’s not helpful and it’s counterproductive.  Yours truly is also pressuring herself to do it all perfectly with no messes, short term failures, or readjustments along the way.

Good heavens. No wonder I’ve been cranky …

My own inner Wonder Woman is essentially asking me to stop harassing myself. She’s wrapped her Lasso-of-truth around me and is reminding me that what would really feel good is to release the self-pressure.

What needs to be restored is my safe inner utopia.  I do that by stopping, breathing and feeling into what my inner wisdom wants me to know. This is the message I received, “All is well in this moment. It doesn’t all have to be done today. One step at a time.  It’s ok to make mistakes and readjust as you need to.  You can grow your business, work on your home projects, and exercise and tend to your body in ways that feel good without the excess pressure.”

Ahhh … that feels so much better … and I notice that as I relax into less pressure and taking one step at a time I actually get more done. Imagine that.

If you’re struggling with frustration, anger, or inner hostilities you can channel your own inner Wonder Woman (or other favorite super hero or helpful figure that resonates with you.) Then find a quiet spot and ask yourself the questions for anger: “What needs to be protected?” and “What needs to be restored?”

Don’t over think it.  Notice what pops into your mind without judging it. Be curious.

Please feel free to share what you notice if it feels good. I’d love to hear about it … or if you have questions about the process, please feel free to shoot me an email.  I’m a bit of an emotion geek, I love chatting about them.

Endorsed Coach – Linda Bayly-Fennell

I am a Mind-Body Coach and a Martha Beck Certified Life Coach. I live in upstate NY with my husband, two elementary school aged kids and our dear and wild Australian cattle dog.

Most of my life I’ve struggled with trying to be the ‘right’ thing … the right person, daughter, friend, employee, mother, wife, coach … whatever it was, I desperately wanted to do it ‘perfectly’ and be ‘good’. Not a fun way to live. It took its toll on my body and wellbeing. Through my coach trainings I learned how to tune in to my own internal wisdom, letting it guide me toward what was right for me. As a coach, I’m here to help you on your journey. My clients appreciate the warm, welcoming, safe space I provide. They also say I’m wise, funny and open…. irreverent and kind.

If you would like to learn more about coaching together, please send me an email or visit my website.

Which reminds me that this is always the hardest part for my clients, too. It can be so frustrating. Here we are, in this moment, with whatever we don’t want. Maybe it’s extra weight. Maybe it’s pain. Maybe it’s anxiety. Maybe it’s something else. Whatever it is, we want to move away from it, make it change, control it, or beat it with a baseball bat. Well, at least I do!

Sadly, that does not work. Despite my extensive experience with befriending physical pain, anxiety, fear, and extra weight and my arsenal of helpful mind-body tools, I have had the hardest time surrendering to this physical experience I’m having. I’m kind of stubborn.

Instead of being friendly toward the pain, I’ve been kind of grudgingly using my Core Anamsong Mind-Body Practice, while swearing angrily at my body. (Kudos to my body for actually giving me messages while being so treated.)

The problem is that I know I can’t focus on getting rid of the pain. It can’t be the end goal. I can’t wait to live my life when I feel better, because life is happening right now. So, in addition to everything else, I’ve also been beating myself up for being so ridiculously angry and resistant to this pain. I’ve expected myself to be doing my mind-body thing with aplomb and dignity, befriending my pain with serene, loving calm. While, in reality, I’ve sobbed on the phone with friends, wept on my mother’s shoulder, fallen apart daily, and generally been a hot mess. I’ve been a tad bit hard on myself.

Then, I finally took a page out of my own book (literally!).  For the past two weeks, I decided to try something revolutionary. I decided to be kind to myself and allow myself to be really, really, really angry at this experience. And to allow myself to want it to go away. And to be awful at my own mind-body practice. And to be exactly as I am, hot mess and all. All I asked of myself is that I keep using the practice, badly or not. I asked that I keep moving through emotions and keep accessing the wisdom my body is giving me.

So there I was, angry at the experience and sucking at my own mind-body practice. I resisted like mad. I got obsessed with my pain. I did all the same things I’ve been doing for five months – except I stopped beating myself up for the way I’ve been doing them.

As a result, an interesting thing happened.

I started to see things a little differently. I could look back and see where I have listened to my body’s messages. I have moved forward a lot on this current path, even in my frustration. I realized I’m hearing messages daily from my body, and I’m still following them, even if I’m angry at my body. I saw that those messages are adding up. It’s like my body is giving me clues in a scavenger hunt, one at a time.  And even in my resistance, I’ve also not resisted.

A new insight popped in this week. I notice that every time I’m super obsessed with getting rid of my physical pain, I need to connect with my body and feel through a rising emotion. Sometimes it’s anger, sometimes it’s sadness, and sometimes it’s fear – or a mix of all three. If I let them all happen, on the other side is the message from my body.

The obsessive thoughts about the pain are like a red flag, letting me know some wisdom is ready to emerge via emotion. Sometimes I resist. But it’s ok, because the message is still there for me, whenever I’m ready for it. When I allow the emotions to flow, my body speaks.

You need more rest, it says.

You need to reach out to this person for support, it says.

You need to talk to your spouse about that thing he said yesterday, it says.

You need to read that book, it says.

You must trust yourself, it says.

 Every day, it gives me more and more information. More clues in this scavenger hunt.

 So what’s the prize in this scavenger hunt? The focus on pain relief or getting rid of what I don’t want just doesn’t work. It can’t. Because right now, I’m in pain. Right now, you’re in whatever you’re in. Here we are. To reject what’s happening now makes the suffering much greater. We can want pain relief. We can want to lose weight. We can want and even expect these things. But we have to focus on the connection to ourselves, to our emotions, to our bodies, and to our souls…in between the times when we don’t, of course…

…which leads to the good news I want to share. You don’t have to be perfect at that focus. You can really stink it up. You can be a hot mess. You can obsess. You can do your mind-body practice terribly.

It still works.

You will still end up connecting to yourself, and you will still be guided by the incredible wisdom of your body. In fact, trying to do it perfectly slows the process down. (I can vouch for that first hand, having just experienced five months of it!)

Which leads me to even better news: you can have the prize right now. The scavenger hunt, the little nuggets of guidance from your body – those ARE the prize. That’s what creates a sense of wholeness, a sense of stability, even in the biggest of storms. That’s what we’re really looking for when we want the storm to go away.

We want the storm to leave right now, so that we can feel a certain way. Sometimes it might be peaceful, or content, or joyous. I don’t know about you, but I’ve wanted to feel good about myself. I’ve wanted to feel like a strong, whole, confident, me.

So yes, I have wished the storm away. But when I have befriended it, quite imperfectly, I have surrendered to it. I have let it sweep through my life and destruct what needed destruction. I have allowed myself to fall apart, in order to be rebuilt. I have let everything show me how it wants to be rebuilt. My body is asking for a rebuilding. It wants me to work with it differently and stop ignoring important inner truths. My relationships are asking for a rebuild. My business is asking for a rebuild. My mind-body coach training is asking for a rebuild. My soul is asking me to rebuild my sense of self.

The prize is learning to stand in the storm and let it wash through my life, bringing me a much deeper connection with myself. The prize is letting go of the ways I held myself away from others, afraid of being seen as emotional, messy, or imperfect. I didn’t know that I had to be a mess to find out I’m actually ok. My favorite message from my body is this: I get to be me.

There will always be storms. Some will be hurricanes. Others will not. I can push away the storms, resist them, and fight them. But when I’m ready, I can let them in and let them bring wisdom, truth, and necessary change to my life. That is the ongoing prize of imperfect, messy, and incredibly magical mind-body work.

This week, I listened to my body just that much more. I felt a little less resistance. I trusted myself a little bit more. I felt like a very strong boat floating in the stormy seas. I am tossed around by the waves. I am buffeted by gale-force winds. Sometimes I want out of the storm. Other times, I surrender to it and all that it’s bringing me.

Here I am, in this moment, exactly as I am.  I get to be me.

While home renovations are certainly exciting, and I’m looking forward to the end result, I might be a tad tired of the process. It’s been nice to get some fresh air in the basement via the large hole in the wall, but since it’s eleven degrees outside, I wouldn’t mind if it were patched soon. And though I quite like the contractor who is renovating our house, it is starting to feel like he lives with us.

As I searched around the house for a spatula and pan this morning, I will admit to feeling out-of-sorts. Okay, maybe even grumpy. I felt stretched, as though some internal limit had been reached, quite suddenly, and I was very much done with this renovation process.

Except, the renovation process is not yet done.

The handy thing about mind-body skills is that they can be done on the fly. As I rushed around, trying to find kitchen implements and muttering under my breath, I reflected on what my emotions, body, and soul were telling me. Here’s the summary:

Emotions: Anger and Irritation – a limit has been reached.

Body: Tired – it’s time to rest.

Soul: Space is needed now.

I immediately felt better. Understanding what I need solves the stress.

The interesting thing about listening to my needs is that it doesn’t involve any kind of problem-solving or action steps. Instead of trying to solve anything or jump right into “fix” mode (which often just increases stress), I can sit back and listen. First, I listen to what is needed. Then, I listen for the solution.

Amazingly, without any work on my part, the solutions always appear. Whenever I listen for them, they show up. They come as ideas in my own mind, words spoken from someone else, or a phrase in a book. They can be in any form – my job is to recognize them.

Today’s solution came in the form of an email. The contractor wrote to detail out his plan to finalize the kitchen. Order and space arrived out of nowhere. He then reminded me that he will be gone next week – all week. A week in which I will rest, clean sawdust off my countertops, and enjoy the pause before we jump back into the game.

Life itself is pretty much a home renovation process. Just when you think it’s going smoothly, something springs a leak or some such surprise arises. There will be many moments when you are stretched to your limit, ready to snap. When stress happens, it’s time to stop and listen. Your emotions, body, and soul are there to help you navigate. Discover your needs, listen for the solutions, and stop trying to figure it out.

When I work with clients around feeling emotions, anger is almost always the hardest one for them to allow and feel. They reason with me, analyze their anger, and explain why they shouldn’t really be angry. If they’ve learned thought-work tools such as The Work, they sometimes even try to use those tools to stop feeling the anger.

The truth is, anger is not bad. It is an important emotion, like all emotions, to feel, allow, and experience. Anger is not something we need to eliminate. It’s something we need to celebrate.

If you didn’t have anger, you would miss out on important information about yourself. Anger lets you see when you’ve been saying “yes” but meaning “no.” It tells you when you’ve pushed yourself too far. It alerts you when someone is crossing your boundaries. It keeps you vitally connected to all kinds of vital data from your soul.

For example, I notice, in myself and clients, that irritability often signals a need to stop, breathe, rest, and take a break. Ignoring this irritability, trying to make it go away, or thinking you shouldn’t be irritable prevents you from realizing the essential message in that irritability.

So what is this middle ground between stuffing and dumping our anger? It’s simply allowing the anger to be in our bodies, in our boundary-space, and noticing why it’s here. Letting it tell us what we need to know from our soul. This doesn’t ever have to involve another person at all.

I learned this technique from The Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren. I cannot recommend her book enough for mind-body pain syndrome sufferers. It is pure genius, and allows you learn how to feel emotions without stuffing or over-expressing them – which means your body will get to stay relaxed, healthy, and energetic.

To feel your anger, imagine that you have a boundary in the shape of an egg all around your body. Let this boundary extend out around your body as far away from your torso as the length of your arm (extended straight out). Imagine it above and below yourself.  Make it any color you want – maybe it’s fiery red, to represent anger. Maybe it’s made of fire. Whatever feels right is perfect. Then, notice the sensations of the anger within your body. Let them pour out of you and into your boundary space. Notice if you see images, colors, or even words. Just let this anger do whatever it wants. If you’re doing this for the first time, you might give yourself five to ten minutes to really experience the anger. You’ll probably notice that eventually it just gently dissipates. However, you might want to ask it why it’s here. What is it trying to tell you? Even if you get no answer, keep asking each time anger comes up. Eventually, you’ll be able to hear what it’s trying to tell you.

I’ve noticed that clients who are struggling with victim mentality (feeling like others are at fault for their suffering) are often afraid to connect with their own anger and take responsibility for saying no to demands that cross their boundaries. As soon as you learn how to feel anger, you’ll be able to take back your power, step out of the victim role (we’ve all been there, and it never feels good to be in that powerless position), and choose what works for you in your life. When you do this, you’ll experience much less physical illness. You’ll become a master of the art of saying no, of taking care of yourself, and honoring your true needs. This is the ultimate act of self-love.