Today’s question from a reader goes like this: “For years I’ve been struggling with what sometimes seems like a bottomless pit of anger. I’ve had some success at releasing some of it. Do you have any tips?”

We all carry anger inside of ourselves, but we may not recognize it because it can show up in many different forms.

We think of anger in its more powerful expressions – hostility, shouting, attacking others – but this is not the feeling itself, it is behavior that is acting out the feeling.

There are more subtle expressions of anger as well, such as sarcasm, teasing, gossip, blaming, self-righteousness, and passive aggressiveness.

Depression too is anger turned inwardly towards ourselves. We can become depressed when we repress our anger and don’t give it a healthy outlet.

Basically, anger is a signal that we have been violated somehow – our boundaries or values, our integrity – sometimes we are the ones violating our own heart’s desire.

Anger is a protective mechanism. It rises up in us when we feel the need to protect our vulnerability. What anger is really covering up in us is our hurt, pain, insecurity, feelings of helplessness or humility, and fear.

So what is the best way to deal with our anger?

I use what I call Emotional Processing. There is a free report on my website that describes this process called “How to Gracefully Recover From an Emotional Trigger.”

The way to deal with ANY of our emotions is first to OWN them. As long as we blame someone else for “making us” feel a certain way, we have given away our power to heal, to someone or something outside of us.

Once you realize YOU are the one that has this feeling or reaction, you can take command of being able to do something about it.

I recommend finding some time alone to do the processing work. You need to allow yourself to FEEL the feeling in your body without any outside distractions or interruptions. Notice the sensations in your body.

Different areas of your body correspond to the different chakras and the issues they correlate with, and that is one way to interpret what this anger is really about.

As you are feeling the sensations in your body, listen to the voice in your head and what is being said about this feeling. You will get a message that will help you under-stand what is really going on.

Only after you get the message do you begin the process of releasing the energy from your body. For some, tears will flow readily – crying is a great and direct form of release.

For others, release may take the form of shouting or screaming (you can do this into a pillow if you don’t want to be heard). You can also punch a pillow, run really fast in place, or take a run outside if your climate permits.

This should bring some of you a tremendous amount of relief. For others, this may have released a little of the energy, and you will need to repeat the process another time to keep whittling away at releasing more and more.

Artists are known to take whatever emotion they’re feeling and channel it into a creative outlet. This is another form of release.

How do you know all the anger is gone? When a similar situation no longer triggers it.

After the release work, it’s time to reprogram the unconscious mind with a new message to take the place of what the painful / fearful message was. This can be done through affirmations, visualizations, intentional raising of your vibration, visioning, and other methods. I use a combination of different modalities, depending on what is going on in you.

And of course, after processing the emotion, there may be a need for some forgiveness work around whatever the original issue may have been – which is a subject for a different blog article!

Now it’s your turn – do you have some realization to share about anger that you have felt, what was causing it, and how you dealt with it? I invite you to leave a comment below, or on my Facebook page here, with either your share or a question or something else you may have gotten from this article.

Wishing you much peace!