Although anger generally has a bad reputation, it is an effective and vital signal of an imbalance in our soul’s wellbeing or environment. When anger is balanced it can be transcended into empowerment, clear action, or even no action. It can motivate us to set appropriate soul boundaries or to get out of a threatening situation. From this vantage point, anger has a clear purpose, to help us maintain balance in both our internal and external worlds.

Anger’s bad reputation typically comes from our tendency to get consumed by its untamed energy often leading to a desire to hastily rid of it in any way possible or to anchor in the energy in an attempt to achieve a sense of justice that is typically unstable. Both scenarios can negatively impact not only ourselves, but others and our environment in the process. There are several ways we irresponsibly harness anger energy which may include: 1) projecting it outward in the form of verbal and/or physical outbursts, 2) primarily blaming others for our distress, and/or 3) using passive aggressive behaviors such as withdrawing (silent treatment), making underhanded comments (“under your breath” comments), or gossiping. All of which carries an excessively dense energy that travels with you like a thick, smoldering dark fog. The dense fog over time may then create anxiety and depressive symptoms and/or negatively affect relationships, to include the relationship with self.

Anger needs our attention and understanding, but it does not need thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate it as an untamed and even harmful cyclic energy. Anger typically arises from feeling threatened in some way either emotionally, physically, or environmentally. In my opinion, rooted from fear and in fear. For anger to be effectively transcended into empowerment, it first requires compassion and understanding for its presence. A simple, but loving curiosity for the reason it’s alarming us of a potential internal or external imbalance so we may heal and resolve it. I get it. Just hearing the words: compassion, understanding, or loving may provoke some anger, especially when the relationship with yourself is a volatile. But in my opinion, all the more reason to try the soul healing practice, to begin relating to yourself in a different way.

SOUL HEALING PRACTICE

The following steps are effective ways to transcend anger before it becomes a cyclic harmful energy, that sits heavy in your soul, smoldering, while waiting to be expelled. These steps can be done individually or together and are only a guideline. Experiment with the soul healing practice, change it, refine it so it truly resonates with you and it becomes YOUR personal practice. When you listen to your inner guidance, you are connecting with your sacred self, to your unique wisdom and vibration.

STEP 1: Gently ask yourself: why am I feeling so angry? The more compassion and understanding you offer yourself, the clearer your mind. This gentle curiosity can be obtained by detaching from the feeling of anger as if you are an observer of your experience, you are merely curious about the presence of anger, and you are perceiving it from an unbiased, nonjudgmental view.

If you begin to harshly judge yourself or begin to justify your anger while asking this question, then it will fuel the anger cycle granting it extra power over you and overriding any clarity. If you find the anger is a bit too consuming to fairly ask yourself this question, then it would be beneficial to further ground the energy by implementing your preferred grounding practice such as, but not limited to: physical activity or exercise, deep or diaphragmatic breathing, mindfulness, grounding using your senses, or meditation (transcendental, loving-kindness, intention, visualization/imagery, prayer). If the energy is still having a difficult time grounding, then try the “primal scream” practice as described in Step 3, below.

As you practice a genuine interest in your interior world, you may observe the unfolding of a trail of thoughts prior to discovering the central thought igniting the raging volcano within. The central thought may surprise you because you may find the thought is actually a core belief rooted from the past, possibly from childhood or adolescence.

As an example, imagine driving a vehicle, the thought process may unfold as follows:

• “I can’t believe they just cut me off!” (notice personalizing the situation as if they intentionally cut you off to specifically upset you).
• Ground your energy and gently ask yourself: why am I feeling so angry?
• The answer may include: “they’re so disrespectful”; “they could of caused an accident”.
• Further explore the thought, “they’re so disrespectful”, be curious if there is an “I” statement attached to the thought. An example of an “I” statement corresponding to this thought may include: “I feel disrespected”.
• Compassionately ask yourself: what does it mean to be disrespected or what does it say about me when I’m disrespected?
• The answer may include: “I’m not worthy”; “I’m hidden”; “I’m invisible”; or “I don’t matter”. These types of thoughts are deeper, core beliefs.

Notice in the above example, the trail of thoughts can quickly identify a deeper, core issue. As the above example demonstrated, it is helpful in order to identify these type of core beliefs to ask questions such as: what does it say about me when… or what does it mean to be…, so you begin to identify “I” statements rather than projection statements (“he”, “she”, “they” statements). The “I” statements are driving your reaction or response to the situation. “I” statements are a powerful way of regaining ownership and responsibility, thus regaining your power of a situation or circumstance that feels out of your control.

Once these thoughts are identified, ask yourself with compassion: where in my life have I felt this before? You may find a core area of your life in need of attention and healing. The current event may have only been a trigger for you to explore and heal an unresolved past wound.

Often the mere act of being compassionate and understanding of yourself and identifying or illuminating self-defeating core beliefs offers enough light and higher vibrational energy to transmute and resolve the denser energy. However, if you still feel attached to the anger energy or the self-defeating thought/belief, then you may need to further explore it for deeper processing. Please read my previous blog, The Art of Disentangling Your Mind, for an effective tool to challenge the validity of limiting core thoughts/beliefs and to identify more empowering thoughts/beliefs.

STEP 2: After offering yourself compassion and understanding for the reason of anger, then replay the events from a different perspective. This perspective is grounded in peace, love, and clarity. This step requires you to first imagine yourself flooded with love, golden/white light, peace, and clarity. You may need to incorporate a form of meditation, visualization, diaphragmatic breathing, grounding, and/or prayer to elevate your energy to this level. It is most effective when using this soul healing practice to really FEEL the new energy vibrating within you, while imagining the re-experiencing of all events from a space of peace and clarity as if it is occurring in real time.

You may notice several changes to the original anger event when using this practice that will be unique to you. From this elevated energy and as you are reimagining the scenario, you may find the following: still setting appropriate boundaries without projecting harsh, harmful energy; offering the other person/people or circumstance compassion and an intention or prayer for their safety and peace; or just letting go of the situation with an intention of clarity and peace. Energy doesn’t know time or space so you can replay an event with the new energy and have a profound impact on your state of well-being and possibly the other person/people or circumstances involved in the event.

STEP 3: If the anger energy is still quite persistent and you are having difficulty with the first two steps, then another effective way to move the energy is what I refer to as the “primal scream”. Of course, I am not the first to speak on this practice, but through my own experience I have found it to be incredibly helpful in moving out heavy, dense energy such as untamed anger. The practice is simple. Find a safe space where you won’t alarm others of mistakenly assuming you are in distress. I like to do this practice while driving, but would recommend trying it in a stationary space first so you are familiar how you respond to it. In a stationary space, I’ve used a pillow or blanket to muffle the sound, especially if others are in another room. From the depths of your core, summon a scream. The key is to release the scream without any filter from your mind telling you how silly this is, but allowing a pure raw emotional purge. You may need to summon the scream a couple of times. You should experience an emotional, mental, and physical feeling of relief and cleansing. I suggest sitting in this new energetic feeling, breathing deeply, to calm your nervous system back to balance. Once feeling centered and balanced, try the first two steps again.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE SOUL HEALING PRACTICE 

The morning began with a little irritation because my daughter was running late for school after requesting the night before, she wanted to get to school early to finish homework. We left the house in a haste, knowing we would arrive to her school only 10 minutes early as opposed to 25 minutes.

As we were driving to school, still in our neighborhood, a car was tailgating me. I remained persistent in maintaining the neighborhood speed limit. The tailgating car turned on a parallel alley driving at a high speed in close proximity to homes in order pass me, but failed because they had to stop for me at a stop sign. I asked my daughter to get their license plate number so I could report them for reckless driving. I proceeded to give the driver a foul, angry look and I noticed they were teenagers. I thought “figures…teenagers…”.

As we entered the school drop-off carline, a security person directing traffic was trying to keep the carline moving and motioned me to continue driving towards the main entrance even though I was approaching a side door that was closer to my daughter’s classroom. I decided to disobey his direction and pulled over so she may enter the nearest door. The security person was clearly frustrated with me and we exchanged mutually irritated looks.

After those three events which began to derail my day, I immediately felt terrible and heavy as I was flooded with pulsating dense anger energy. I noticed I wanted to harshly judge myself for being angry and for my reactions following the anger. However, I interrupted the judgment with compassion and reminded myself the presence of anger was only a signal of an imbalance.

During my morning run, I processed the previous events. For me one of the best times to “get out of my head” and for processing spiraling thoughts and emotions is while I run, specifically running outdoors. It is instantly grounding and helps to clear my mind enough to where I can view my experience with objectivity and altitude. I asked myself: why did those events make me so angry? I explored the question with gentle curiosity and not with harsh interrogation.

I realized in all instances, I felt “pushed around”. I further explored and asked myself: where else in my life do I feel pushed around? Upon this question, I identified a core self-defeating belief (“I don’t matter”) and felt immediate relief for illuminating this shadow aspect within me which elevated my state of being. I decided to replay all the events from this elevated perspective, while still running (moving meditation for me), I imagined how I would respond to each event from a space of peace and clarity.

I imagined, while truly feeling this new perspective, that I let go of control of my daughter running late knowing she was already feeling the consequences and hoped with a silent intention that she would have enough time to complete her work. I imagined, I still maintained my speed while obeying the neighborhood speed limit and possibly would still want to report the reckless driving, but without exchanging a foul, angry look. I also set an intention the drivers would learn a lesson of reckless driving in the future, but without harm to anyone. I imagined, I still “disobeyed” the security person during the carline because I wanted to get my daughter to the nearest door, but rather than becoming defensive for my actions, I committed to my actions with this new perspective. I knew I was disobeying his direction (without harm to another), but respected his efforts for keeping the carline moving efficiently. Rather than exchanging an irritated look, I offered a smile and a genuine “thank you” and “apology” wave.

Upon completion of this imagery and meditation, I felt the anger energy dissipate and lift from my energetic body. I trusted this new vibrational frequency traveled to all who were affected by my previous harsh, dense energy and were lifted in some way as well.

The practice of the primal scream is poetically described below in my poem.

PRIMAL SCREAM

You make your presence known,
once again.
A heavy mass of dense, churning fiery energy,
slowly, methodically rising ablaze
from the internal depths.

Why? Why again!

The initial impulse is to push down
with locked arms, full force,
brute strength.

Your entry brings fear.
The fear of confusion and distraction,
searching, scavenging, ravishing
through the thick brush of the mind.

An impulse to hastily clear the thicket
with a machete composed of razor-sharp words,
swinging wildly, blindly, intensely.

Clear it!

The frenzy blocked, skillfully
by a pervasive energetic shield, a pause in the fight,
so clarity can beam through the chaos of the mind,
through the turbulent emotional waters
like a teleportation from another dimension.
It finds a way, with bold determination
through the mental and emotional black hole.

The clarity comes in peace,
brings suspension of time, of space,
and within the depths of the soul
a soft, faint whisper of mystic knowing
flutters forward,
landing softly upon the petals of the heart.

It is heard.

It knowingly suggests to allow the fireball
of fury, of rage to elevate.
See it for what it is —
underneath the burning, fierce flame
glows a timidness full of fear.
This flame of anger cries for help, to be seen,
the only way it knows how,
with a raging tantrum.

The whisper nudges to greet the blaze
with more than reluctance, synthetic hospitality,
but with curiosity, openness, compassion,
understanding.

It says to resist the urge to succumb
to the raw, untamed anger
with grinding teeth, clenched fists
or to be paralyzed
by the electric charge of terror,
pulsing through the highway of nerves.

Release the building tension, explosive emotion,
with a primal scream tucked deep in the soul’s core,
containing ancient wisdom, transcendental power.
Expanding the soul’s tectonic plates,
triggering an earthquake of release
rumbling through the physical body,
collapsing old limiting cognitive structures,
built in fear.

Allow the grains of release
to fall effortlessly through the sieve of perception.
Hold it steady,
with tenderness, with unconditional love.

No shame,
summon the primal scream,
release, rest, and be.

— Stacy L. Pintor

Thank you for another opportunity for healing, expansion, and soul elevation.

The purpose of this blog is to share with you how I integrate my professional mental health experience, personal experience, and spiritual awareness in the form of soul healing practices. By sharing my experience, it is my hope it will provide a practical example of how to interrupt and eventually resolve the cyclic energy of suffering and to elevate your soul. 

These practices work best when you are ready to heal and expand. It is OK if you are not quite ready. Please be gentle and patient with yourself. You will heal and expand when you are ready. Sending you so much love, warmth, and compassion.

Visit my website if you want to learn more about me and to check out my poetry. 

https://www.baresoulworks.com

Donations are always deeply appreciated 💚: https://paypal.me/baresoulworks

Thanks again for visiting my blog and for your support. Stacy 💚

 PLEASE BE ADVISED

The soul healing practices provided in this blog are meant as a tool to aid in healing and not for psychotherapy or social work practice requiring a contractual, professional relationship. If you need consistent therapeutic care and/or crisis intervention due to being at risk of harming yourself or others, then seek professional and/or emergency services immediately.

© Stacy L. Pintor 2017. All Rights Reserved.

Updated in 2022 by Stacy L. Pintor

(No part of this blog may be reproduced without written permission from the author.)