Many times you are angry and you pretend not to be to save appearances. With that, what you do is repress what you feel, that is, you repress anger. The fact of not expressing it leads you to have inappropriate behaviors, which even in the long term negatively affect your life.
In this article I am going to tell you what happens if you suppress anger and to show you how to express it in a healthy way, to recover your well-being.
Anger is the emotion you feel when you notice that you have been subjected to something unfair according to your values and standards On many occasions it leads you to lack of control, to make decisions that you later regret, or to give those around you a treatment that you later feel bad about.
If you suppress anger, there are harmful effects on your physical health, (headache, digestive problems, insomnia, increased anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, skin problems or heart problems), and also problems with your behavior.
You repress your anger with the intention of not hurting the person causing it, and for the moment you feel relieved, but If you do not take time later to express that anger that you have felt, your emotion will come out on its own and without your control in another situation or in another circumstance inappropriately.
The anger you repress has to come out
Imagine that one day you are in a meeting with strangers, listening to a talk by someone you know, and they suggest you do an introspection exercise. After doing so, they ask you what you felt and you say, openly and calmly, boredom. You are not worried about expressing your opinion.
The person giving the talk misinterprets your comment, thinking that you are referring to the exercise itself and not your experience. You realize this and try to clarify your comment. While you are doing it, someone says about you, in public, that “don’t take that into account, he is very demanding”, a comment that offends you.
Your anger is unleashed
You feel labeled, and you begin to ask yourself a series of questions such as: How dare you say in front of everyone that you are a demanding person? How dare you interpret what you said, that way? What you feel is called anger, and It is accompanied by a torrent of other emotions that you are not able to control
From that moment on, it becomes difficult for you to continue with your day peacefully…. You feel agitation and tension with everyone. You feel an internal aggressiveness, which you do not want to transmit, but you realize that it is difficult for you. This is what happens if you suppress anger.
When you use your resources and the anger remains
Once the meeting is over, you try to do the things that you have been told work (sport, breathing, etc.) but the anger doesn’t go away. You realize that everything makes you angry You could even say that you are angry with the world, you feel that the world is unfair to you and that no one understands you.
You have an internal fire that screams at you: listen to me! It’s your anger giving off signals: He wants you to pay attention to him to find out that there is something personal, a need of yours, that you have to take care of. Sometimes the complicated part is precisely identifying that need.
How to Identify Your Need and Avoid What Happens If You Repress Anger
I recommend that you take your time, on the one hand, to allow the emotion to pass through you, that means daring to feel it fully, without running away, and on the other hand, to connect with the internal damage that that emotion has caused you. In that damage is the key to the need that you have to take care of.
Choose a quiet time and place; You are going to need paper and pen.
Relive the situation in your mind, try to identify the thoughts and judgments that are causing your anger, and write them on paper. With the thoughts you identify, I suggest you do a deeper introspection exercise, with a series of questions that encourage you to look inward. Answer them honestly.
I give you some clues, as an example:
Maybe with this exercise you will be more aware of your anger, and you will get even angrier.
What else can you do?
Become aware that there is an aspect to take into account in all questions. Your answers reveal a rejection of something that is worth exploring Regarding your answers, ask yourself the following: is that true? Or rather, is it true that he disrespected you? The answer must be yes or no. If you answer “why… but…” is not the answer and you are not doing the exercise. If you want to continue the exercise, close your eyes and let the emotions arise, reconnecting with the situation experienced.
Can you know for sure that his intention was to disrespect you? How do you react when you think you have been disrespected?
Explore what you feel now
You may feel frustrated, exposed, violated in your privacy, accused, or more angry. Observe if these feelings are coming to you associated with certain images from your past. Give yourself time to see and feel them
What images do you see? What other feelings appear when these images emerge? Let yourself feel that emotional discomfort, without blocking it, without trying to escape. Hold him.
Associate your emotion with your thoughts
Continue with the exercise: ask yourself and answer: who would you be without that thought of “he disrespected me”? She closes her eyes and tries to imagine you in that same situation without “believing” that you have been disrespected. What do you see now?
It is possible that other situations come to mind in which you have not been respected, emotionally speaking.
Realize the thought: that is the change
When doing the introspection exercise, the initial thought or statement “he has not respected me, or I have not been respected many times” becomes “I did not respect myself many times, or rather, I did not respect my emotions.”
When you do it, you feel inside like a volcano about to explode. Let yourself feel what you feel with the maximum intensity you have Don’t fear, you are safe. The normal thing is that you burst into loud crying. It’s the anger that starts to come out, and you feel better. The idea that you have been disrespected no longer has any strength. After that, you feel free and, with extreme love and tenderness, you can now forgive yourself for all those times that you have not respected yourself.
Conclusion
If you become aware of what happens if you repress anger, you will pay more attention to not doing it When you take care of expressing what you feel, you realize that many times you “adapt” to situations that go against your values, thus violating your being, your emotions. Maybe you have kept your mouth shut many times, hurting yourself, and now your body and your heart are ready for you to understand what you have to change.
In short, let the anger out, understand what aspect of your past life it affects, take charge of updating the thoughts you have about it, and let it out, so that your body and your emotion regain their balance and control.
In my emotional therapy consultation I can help you stop repressing anger and learn to express it with emotional management techniques that are easy to integrate.
In what situations do you find yourself repressing anger? Comment and share if you liked the article.
