A popular comedy meme has this caption: “Stay in your lane!”

It’s a funny joke that is particularly relevant on the Internet, where there is no shortage of trolls and people with… let’s say “toxic opinions”! While it has that jokey connotation, stay in your lane is also an expression of anger. Anger is a very important emotion that has a lot to do with our mental health. So those memes make us LOL for good reason; humor often makes difficult subjects more palatable. And the reason anger is so connected to our mental health, is that it is all about one of the hallmarks of mental health: boundaries. 

It may not seem like an obvious connection at first, but the link between boundaries and emotions is actually one that is about survival. When our emotional or physical boundaries are trespassed, we typically feel anger.  Think about what type of reaction a mother bear has if her cubs are threatened; if mammals did not have this care system in their brains, no infant would survive! We must conclude, then, that being in control of our emotions, including anger, is largely responsible for protecting us and keeping us safe, and is therefore a major indicator of health. 

And while there’s more that could be said about the science behind it, emotions are fairly straightforward: they either a) invite other people to engage with us or b) to stay away from us. They attract and they repel. When expressed in a healthy way, anger protects us from people who we are feeling threatened by. Yet because it can be an overwhelming and disorienting emotion to experience, be it coming from us or from another person, anger is often misunderstood or labeled as inherently bad. But since anger has a lot to do with boundaries, it is essential for our health that we come to understand how it works, and learn to express healthy anger ourselves. 

Anger can result from a few different sources: 

1) Not speaking up at a time where we felt anger (aka repressing the anger).  Doing so will cause the throat chakra to be blocked. Check out our YouTube channel giving tips for reducing overthinking

2) A specific trigger.  Sometimes an experience from our past becomes a trigger to a much more intense emotional response.  With hypnosis, triggers can be turned down so the emotional response is more in our control.

Or it may be the case that 

3) Stress levels are so high in a particular moment that the additional stress of feeling that anger could no longer be contained

4) The anger is coming from some imbalance in our physical health.  With biofeedback and reiki, we can determine if there are stress blockages in the body that are amplifying the anger.

When it’s the first two instances, this is very likely coming from conditioning put in place by past experiences. In those times in the past, we may have deliberated saying something, but swallowed the anger instead, only for it to explode later on. Or, our subconscious mind may be recalling past experiences where we perceived that we were in danger, and is thus trying to protect us from that danger happening again. If this is the case, we want to bring closure through different modalities like hypnotherapy or reiki. 

If it is 3, we want to learn to identify the different stressors in our lives, and look for ways to diminish the ones that are overwhelming us. 

For 4, we can refer to the wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine, where every organ is associated with an emotion. The liver is associated with anger, and is also the organ responsible for detoxing the body. If we are not eating properly, or we are ingesting an abundance of emotional, chemical or environmental toxins, then the liver will be working on overdrive and exasperating anger. Additionally, when we are not receiving adequate nutrition, our stress tolerance diminishes. 

The good news is it that is never too late to start working towards healthy boundaries in your life with the people you live with, work with, and spend your time with in any capacity. As with any improvements, the first step is recognizing our behavior and staying away from self-blame. Try to bring curiosity to why you may act or overreact when it comes to boundaries in your life. Especially when dealing with anger, it is common to fall into a victim state.  When we feel this overpowering emotion, we want to put the blame elsewhere. Energy Healing in NYCcan also be a powerful tool to help cleanse ourselves, since anger is, in simple terms, about too much bad energy in our bodies. 

An effective exercise is to write in a journal about a time in recent memory when you felt anger. Does it fit into any of the 4 sources mentioned above? If it is involving another person, could you reframe what happened in order to identify what brought it out in you? The more you can see anger from the perspective of neutral curiosity that does not blame the self or another person, the more you will be able to express healthy anger when the situation calls for it. 

It can be difficult to redraw boundaries especially with people we have a long history with. However, when we are self-aware of the reasons for feeling anger, boundaries can be expressed in a much more constructive matter.  If you are looking to diminish the triggers or release blockages that are causing anger, Book a Free Consultation with us today!