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Healing Unresolved Anger

Write three (3) things of beauty down in your life every day.

Analyzing repressed or unresolved anger

  • You need a map or blueprint. Otherwise, how do you know where to go?
  • Understanding: core of the human being
    1. to be loved
    2. to be accepted or longing for acceptance

Where love is denied, that's where you're wounded.

All of us are born with the NEED, but we are not born with the skill to meet those NEEDS. We are dependent on our family system. Ask yourself, what were the rules in my family system for ME to get love? --this creates anger, in return this is the emotional trauma that you experienced and must deal with.

If we look back to when you were 4-5 years old, many people who suffered from child abuse have these common beliefs:

  • everyone is bad or hurtful
  • I possess no power
  • low self-esteem
  • feel unloveable

How did you cope with that anger as you matured:

  • not eating
  • became perfectionist
  • self-deprecating humor
  • displaced anger
  • physical symptoms, like migraines, appeared

COPING becomes HABIT
HABIT dictates REALITY
REALITY is OPTIONAL


 


If you don't feel it, you can't heal it

  1. Intimacy and Anger don't co-exist
  2. Anger is emotional response to perceived injustice
  3. Anger has many signs, many faces
    1. Inward - Depression
    2. Outward - Hostility
    3. Passive - Obsession to please others

Anger causes consequences. Ask yourself: "What problems does repressed anger cause me?" Especially consider:

  • Humiliation
  • Shame
  • Health consequences

Anger's Common Traits

Rate yourself 1 (that's me) -10 (not me) in the following categories:

  • need to control
  • caretaker
  • people pleaser
  • workaholic
  • martyr
  • perfectionist
  • procrastinator
  • tap dancer
  • hypersensitive
  • body shame

Anger to forgiveness, forgiveness is for ME

Things to think about:

  • The most painful and difficult thing you can ever deal with is yourself.
  • If you don't feel it, you can't heal it.
  • Unless I hang on a cross - I will never feel good enough (craziness).
  • Life is like a sieve for those who don't want to get help.
  • Get over the feeling that you don't deserve to have fun or enjoy life.
  • Stop setting yourself up. You can say NO!
  • I need to go as deep as the hurt. If I had a splinter, I would need to get all of it out, not just a portion. It would still hurt and eventually might get infected. Later it would be healed.

next: Getting Past The Bitterness
~ all Holli's Triumph Over Tragedy articles
~ all abuse library articles
~ all articles on abuse issues

APA Reference
Staff, H. (2009, March 21). Healing Unresolved Anger, HealthyPlace. Retrieved on 2024, November 2 from https://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/articles/healing-unresolved-anger

Last Updated: May 5, 2019

Medically reviewed by Harry Croft, MD

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