I had a little epiphany a few weekends ago after a situation over mistreatment occurred. Coming home from the grocery store with 3-4 bags of chocolate chip, I realized my anger goes into eating feel good foods. And I manage my anger that way until I hit a breaking point; then I yell, slam and throw things.
How might this affect me and my mental and physical health? Might I think I’m an uncontrollable, psychotic, bad person with no self control? Would this be something that contributes to making me fat? Hint: yes.
What might be a better way to handle it? Boundaries. Expressing myself. Allowing myself to feel anger instead of stuffing it until I explode.
Anger is there for a reason: to tell us a boundary, conscious or unconscious, has been crossed. Anger is there to keep us safe, but women especially have been conditioned to not express it and what is it doing to us??
Learning to express anger is vital to our health. I would argue that most illness has, at it's root, a component of unexpressed anger. Learning to feel anger when a boundary has been crossed and then allowing it to move through us, but not consume us, will likely be one of the most difficult skills we ever learn unless healthy anger was modeled for us when we were young.
While I am not a therapist, I do know that BodyMind Coaching and learning what my boundaries feel like inside of me has definitely been helpful. Heck, even learning about boundaries has been helpful (honestly, I didn't know what my boundaries were and I continue to learn).
(I offer stressed-out, burnt-out women in pain + overwhelm opportunities to begin and continue on their healing journeys via hands on nervous system regulation, otherwise known as bodywork, movement instruction for nervous system regulation via improved communication with the body, and BodyMind Coaching to help put all of this together to help you heal and take charge of your health. I offer in person services in Spicer, MN and online BodyMind Coaching. Additionally, I have an online group coaching program launching this year. For more information, check my website kirstinbergman.com).