What happens if you suppress Anger?

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.

• Related article: "How to control anger: 7 practical tips"

The effects on your health of suppressing anger

Anger is the emotion you feel when you notice that you have been subjected to something unfair according to your values ​​and patterns. On many occasions it leads you to lose control, to make decisions that you later regret, or to give those around you a deal 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 in your conduct.

You suppress your anger with the intention of not hurting the person causing it, and for the moment you feel relieved, but If you don't take time to express the anger you've felt afterwards, your emotion will come out on its own and without your control., in another situation or in another circumstance inappropriately.

• You may be interested in: "Emotional management: 10 keys to master your emotions"

The anger you suppress 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 ask you to 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 and try to clarify your comment. While you are doing it, someone says of you, in public, that "don't take it into account, it is that 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 he interpret what you've said, like that? What you feel is called anger, and is accompanied by a torrent of other emotions that you are not able to control.

From that moment it is difficult for you to continue with your day in a calm way…. 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

After the meeting, you try to do the things that you have been told work (sports, breathing, etc.) but the anger does not go away. You realize that everything annoys youYou could even say that you are angry with the world, you feel that the world is unfair to you and that nobody 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 find out that there is something personal, a need of yours, that you have to take care of. Sometimes the difficult part is precisely identifying that need.

How to identify your need and avoid what happens if you suppress anger

I recommend that you take your time, on the one hand, to allow the emotion to run through you, that means dare to feel it fully, without running away, and on the other to connect with the internal damage that this emotion has caused you caused. In that damage is the key to the need that you have to deal with.

Choose a quiet time and place; you will 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 a piece of paper. With the thoughts that you identify, I propose you to do a deeper introspection exercise, with a series of questions, which aim to make you look inward. Answer them honestly.

I give you some clues, as an example:

• What makes you angry, confused or disappointed? Example: He labeled me demanding in front of others.
• Because? Example: It is a lack of respect.
• How do you want this person to change? What do you want me to do? Example: "I would like that person to apologize to me."
• What advice would you give him to improve his acting? Example: tell him to pay attention to the words he uses because each person has a different sensitivity.
• In order for you to be happy in this situation, what do you need this person to think, say, hear, or do? Example: "I need you to put yourself in my place and understand how important respect is to me."
• What do you think of that person in this situation? Example: That he has no right to talk about me in front of others
• What is it about this situation that you never want to experience again? Example: I don't want to feel that they put me on the spot, or that they “apologize on my behalf for saying my opinion”.

You may be more aware of your anger with this exercise, and you may become even more angry.

What else can you do?

Be aware that there is an aspect to take into account, in all questions. Your answers reveal a rejection of something, which is worth exploring. About 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 you experienced.

Can you tell 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

It is possible that you feel frustrated, exposed, violated in your privacy, accused, or more angry. See if those 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 with that emotional upset, without blocking it, without trying to run away. Hold him.

Associate your emotion with your thoughts

Continue with the exercise: ask yourself and answer: who would you be without that thought of "I have been disrespected"? Close your eyes and try to imagine yourself 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.

Realizing the thought: that is the change

When doing the introspection exercise, the initial thought or affirmation "has not respected me, or I have not been I respected many times" becomes "I did not respect myself many times, or rather, I did not respect my emotions".

When you do, you feel inside like a volcano about to explode. Let yourself feel what you feel with the maximum intensity that it has. Do not fear, you are safe. The normal thing is that you burst into a loud cry. It's the anger that starts to come out, and you feel better. The idea that you have been disrespected no longer has force. After that, you feel free and, with extreme love and tenderness, and 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 suppress anger, you will pay more attention not to do 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. Perhaps you have kept your mouth shut many times, hurting yourself and now your body and heart are ready for you to understand what you have to change.

In short, letting anger out, understanding what aspect of your past life it affects, taking charge of updating your 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 suppressing anger and learn to express it with easy-to-integrate emotional management techniques.

In what situations do you happen to repress anger? Comment and share if you liked the article.