In this episode, Sarah discusses the importance of expressing anger in a healthy way, especially after a breakup or divorce. She shares how releasing anger can lead to insights, clarity, and the ability to set better boundaries. You will also learn her process of expressing anger so that you move through the emotion and access breakthroughs. Anger is a natural and valid emotion that can be used to fuel personal growth and healing if channeled constructively.
If you are in the Baltimore area, come experience this process live on May 30 at Tribe Baltimore. Tickets are available here.
Follow me on Instagram and DM me your anger breakthroughs. https://www.instagram.com/sarahcurnoles/
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Have you gone through a breakup and you're tired of feeling low lonely or lost? I've got a pep talk for you. I'm Sarah Curnoles, your breakup bestie. I'm a certified life coach with years of coaching experience, helping people just like you turn your breakup into the best thing that ever happened to them. Each week, tune in to get a pep talk, to heal your heart. Let go of the past, reclaim your power and get back into your main character energy. Your breakup may have shattered your world as you know it, but together let's build a new better world. Let's go.
(00:44)
Hello, my friend, Sarah Curnoles here, your breakup bestie. Welcome to another episode of Breakup Pep Talks. This week we are talking about the gift of anger and how rage can actually help you towards a breakthrough. I know for me personally, I have not always had the healthiest relationship with anger. And I remember as a kid, I would really repress my anger for a long, long time until I exploded. I don't even know what caused this, but my sister and I still laugh about this, that at some point I got so angry I was chasing her around the kitchen with a knife like a butter knife. It wasn't like a serious knife, regardless. That's a scary level of repression. And then explosion of anger. And my sister's response to when somebody was angry was she laughed. That was how she diffused that kind of tension. So yeah, neither is necessarily a healthy expression.
(01:52)
And when I would get angry as a kid, I was told to go to my room and I could come back down when I was a good girl. And that's my parents doing the best they could. I'm not placing any blame or they're saying that they were wrong. They were probably growing up in households when they were kids. That anger wasn't allowed either. So I find it so interesting that most of us either grew up in a house where anger was not allowed and so we learn to repress it or we grow up in a household where anger is accepted and sometimes it's even encouraged or supported as like this is an okay emotion. And you might find you fall on these extremes of either you can tap into your anger really easily and you express it maybe too much, maybe perhaps, or it just feels second nature to you and you kind of get stuck in anger loops or you are somebody where anger's not okay, and you have a really confusing reaction of crying when you're angry because you were allowed to be sad, but you weren't allowed to be mad.
(03:03)
So I'm curious for you, where do you fall on this? Do you fall in the area where you're crying when you're mad or you the person who feels like they're exploding almost all the time? And it was really interesting recently I was at a mastermind where there was a group of women gathered and we were talking about our experience with anger. And there was one from each. There was one person who really easily tapped into her anger, and there was a person who was very scared of anger. And so seeing the way that they interacted was really interesting because if you've been taught the anger isn't okay, it can be really scary to be around somebody who's tapped into their anger. So the reason this is important after a breakup is that anger is a naturally occurring emotion that can come up for many reasons.
(03:55)
And we're going to dive into all of that today. But we're going to talk about how to notice if you're suppressing it, how to express it safely, and then how you can use it to fuel a breakthrough for yourself. And I want to start by sharing a story of a client I worked with. We did a private VIP day, which just meant that he and I got to work very closely for an entire day that we could go very deep into what was going on with him for his divorce and any issues that were coming up. And we got to go through a lot of information in a really quick period of time. One of the things that came up was anger. He was so, so angry at his ex and he felt like he wasn't allowed to express it and that he didn't have any right to express it and that it would be scary for his kids.
(04:53)
And so I hosted him in my home. I said, you're here. This is a safe space. I'm going to guide you through my entire anger release process. And he still felt scared. And he said, well, won't we scare your neighbors? Won't that be too much for them? And I said, I'll text them and let them know just that everything's fine and there's nothing going on. And I texted both of my neighbors and I let them know what was going on. And the funny thing is I had an elderly neighbor at the time who was probably in her mid seventies and she responded, that sounds fun. Can I join?
(05:35)
But you see, I laugh because that's probably somebody who's done her own work around anger or who just really wanted an excuse to release on her own. So anyway, after I made sure everything was safe, I explained my anger burn process, which I will also give to you as well. And I guided him through it so that he could get it out in a healthy way. And what happens when we allow an emotion, when we allow ourselves to express it and move it through our body by using our body, not by using your brain and talking it out, you have to take it to the body level when you allow it to happen, what happens is that you clear the way for anything that might be going on at a deeper level or you also might clear the way for some space. So one of those two things usually happens after we do an anger burn process.
(06:42)
And what happened for him was he gained a lot of insight into the areas where he was compromising his standards and his boundaries and where he needed to reset. And so we were debriefing the whole process of what was going on, what came up and what did he learn and what's he taking away from it. And he said, I'm going to be a much better parent to my kids now because I won't have this simmering under the surface where I feel like a pot that's ready to boil over at any moment. I can actually, I feel like I could be a lot more present with my kids and help them too, to learn how to have these skills, which I think is huge if that's the takeaway, that you get to be a better parent, that you get to be more present, that you're not on the edge of boiling over that is major, okay?
(07:40)
So that's what's possible is that you can really change how you relate to other people when you learn how to handle your anger in a way that is helpful to you and not necessarily harmful to you or to others. So if you're still not sold on the anger thing of why we need to express anger, why anger is important, here's some background on why anger can actually be really helpful, especially after a breakup. So first thing I want you to know that if you're feeling anger, that's totally normal. It's also a good sign because usually the first phase right after a breakup or a divorce is a phase where you feel really numb because there is so much change happening. Sometimes we might disassociate for a little while where it feels like we're in denial of the reality of our situation and we feel almost attached from emotion.
(08:47)
Well, for me it was I felt detached from any emotion other than deep, deep, deep grief. But there's almost this numbness of this be real for a period of time. And when you move to the phase where you're starting to feel some anger, that's a sign to you of I'm still alive, I'm coming back to myself, I'm waking up from the numbness. So it's moving out of the phase where you're numb and you're moving into the next phase, and that's a great sign because that means you're progressing and your energy is coming back and so everything is coming back online for you that you're getting a little fire, you're getting energy, you're getting aliveness back even though it might still be really uncomfortable to feel angry, okay? It is a wonderful sign that you're progressing in this process of healing. Anger is also a sign of self-respect because anger shows up when a boundary has been crossed or when there's something that needs protecting.
(10:01)
So it might show up. I had a client recently that when we went through the process, he actually tapped into a lot of sadness and grief after we went through the anger process because what was happening was the anger was a more accepted emotion for him. So he was allowed to feel angry, but he didn't feel comfortable feeling sad, and so he was just getting stuck in anger. And when we moved that all of the grief came up to the surface and it had the space it needed for it to be felt. So it was protecting the anger was really protecting this very tender, very raw, very vulnerable part that was just really sad. Anger might also show up to show the places where a boundary was crossed that you need to reset, where it feels like maybe you over compromised on your standards perhaps, and that you need to reset your standards.
(11:10)
And so I'm also going to show you as a part of my anger process, I will also show you how you can tap into understanding like, okay, well how do I know what boundary was crossed or where did I over compromise? We're going to get into that as well. And I also just want to give a little note of mourning for anybody still has the habit of suppressing your anger, of pushing it down, of pushing it away, of like, I don't want to feel that it's not okay to feel that. The problem with repressing your anger is a fiery high energy type of emotion. And if you think about pushing something down with a lot of energy, if you continually push something down with a lot of energy, what's going to happen is that your body is going to react by lowering your energy in general.
(12:03)
And if you continue to repress and repress and repress and repress and continue to push it down, that energy has nowhere to go. So it can create habits of self blame, of self denial, of self-rejection, self abandonment even, and sometimes it can lead to points of depression because it has to keep your energy at such a low level that you get to this low energy place where you start to be in cycles that feel like depression. This is not clinical, this is not psychology 1 0 1. This is looking at energy cycles. So this is not me giving a diagnosis of any kind. I should be clear with that, but you want to have your anger expressed in a balanced way so that it moves through so that energy moves through. It doesn't get trapped or stuck, and then we don't want it to create unhelpful systems within you.
(13:12)
Okay, so that is some background on anger. Now I want to move into how to express your anger in a healthy way. So the first thing first is to give yourself permission and container. So what I mean by a container is that I actually like to have a place where I will do my anger process. So for my client, what I taught him, he had a garage. I was like, if you're afraid to do this around your kids, take it outside and say that I'm working through something and I just need to get it out, and then I'm totally available and I'm back online. Some people like to do this in their car or a particular corner of their room. I like a particular space. I kind of roll out my yoga mat and my yoga mat becomes the place where I can express things and that's my container.
(14:08)
The other way you can create a container is I use music. So you might say, this is my one song that I'm going to use to feel through my emotion and I will use the length of the song or two songs or whatever amount of time that you want. I will use this container of a song three and a half minutes, and that's the amount of time I'm giving this. What this does is it gives you a beginning and an end point so that you don't have to worry about it being endless. Sometimes people are worried if I start to tap into an emotion, what if I can't turn it off? What if it never stops? That doesn't really happen. The only emotion that that happens is love. Love is the only infinite emotion. Everything else does have an end, but for those of you that might be worried about that, you want to give yourself a container.
(15:03)
It also, there's this thing they say of creativity happens within limits. And when we have the safety of this is the space where the one thing happens, then we can do whatever we want within those limits and it sets you free, but you also feel safe and held. So that's the purpose of giving yourself permission and giving yourself a container. So what I encourage you to do is to activate the emotion and to give it sound. And here's what I mean by that. I'm not going to be the person that's going to be prescriptive, and I'm not going to say go scream into the void. I don't like that personally because it blows out my vocal cords. I don't like screaming. What I mean by activation is that you're going to want to move your body somehow so you can stomp your feet. Sometimes I'll do this on a bed, especially if I'm at a hotel, they've got those big giant beds and I have this nice big space, stomp my feet, kick my arms, kick my arms, punch my arms, whatever, roll around on the bed, all crazy.
(16:19)
But you want to move. You could get a pillow and beat a wall with the pillow or the floor. You can get a foam bat. You could throw the pillow at the floor, you could get a wooden spoon and beat a bed or a pillow, take a towel and do that. You could go on a rage walk where you're kind of stomping it out as you go. You can dance, you can jump, you can get on your hands and knees get really primal with it. Growl whatever you want. So any way that you want to move your body, that's activate. And then I want you to also make sound because sound is inherently actually releasing and it will heal. So you don't have to scream, actually find it's better if you don't scream. I love nonverbal sounds of open your mouth and go for low tonal sounds of like ah or growling.
(17:26)
That's really powerful. You can also say, I am so angry with emotion. Obviously I'm saying it a little flat right now as I speak into my microphone, but you can really yell it of I'm so angry at you. You can curse, you can be free of like, you betrayed me. There's no filter here. You're not saying this at a person. Remember you were just saying this in the safety of your container out into the ether because this isn't for anybody. This is for you. This is allowing your expression, and I love to pair this with music. I'll get out my yoga mat and I have a playlist for when I'm angry and I'll put on a couple songs and I will move my body and I will make sound. Of course, this feels weird because most of us are taught to be prim and proper and to be good and to play by the rules of society. And you don't make weird noises if you are in the culture that we live in. You follow straight lines, you speak in normal sentences. You don't curse unless you're in certain circumstances, right? There are no rules to allowing yourself to express your anger. So it's going to feel a little awkward at first, but just embrace it, lean in, move your body for the length of a song and make noises. You can huff your breath. Even that feels really good even just now.
(19:04)
And this again is about you. It's not about anybody else. You're allowed to say these words because there isn't anyone that you're directing them at. Okay? That's a big, big difference because what happens when you move this? Like I said, notice what comes up at the end. So let that song close if you want, you can transition to another piece of music that you can put on something else that's maybe a little bit slower and you can let yourself just breathe and notice what comes up. How do you feel in your body, not your head? How do you feel in your body? And you might come up, there might be some sadness that comes up and you might feel some space. You might feel a little bit of peace because you finally let go of something that maybe you've been holding on for a while. You might feel clear, some clarity.
(20:15)
Okay? So follow whatever comes next. If sadness comes up, that's okay. Feel your way through the sadness. Same process except it's sadness. So usually there's some crying and you can even tone your voice with that as well. Like a good whale. Good whale is a great thing, okay? When you get to the place where you're feeling a little clarity, this is a great moment to grab your journal and you're going to ask yourself, what was anger trying to protect? Was there something that hurt me or hurt my feelings? Or was something violated like was a boundary violated?
(21:03)
And allow your anger to be like a flashlight, or it's guiding and pointing the way for you towards something that matters to you. Maybe you weren't even aware that it mattered, and this is also a great moment to check in with yourself of what am I no longer willing to tolerate? What am I no longer available for? Let this be your way to guide yourself to new boundaries and new standards going forward. Boundaries are just a way to teach people how to love us. They aren't fences keeping people out. It's actually an invitation of this is what's okay with me and this is what's not okay with me, and this is how to best love me.
(22:07)
You may find it helpful to begin to channel this into something else. So if you had a lot come up for you in this exercise that maybe it felt like it needed more than just one song, maybe this is an invitation that you take up a regular practice. Maybe you enroll in a boxing class or you do a regular rage walk, or you stomp it out on a daily basis for a little while, or try a class where you are making something with your hands, or I just found there's a place near me that does axe throwing, and they also have splatter paint. So you could throw some axes and splatter some paint on the wall and stuff and make a big giant mess. There are also rage rooms, which I find incredibly helpful, but this might be a good way to continually tap in and let the anger burn off and learn what you need to learn from it. So anger isn't something to be afraid of. It is something to wield with caution and careful consideration, but you do not need to be afraid of it, and you don't need to express it at a person. If there's a boundary that needs to be set with somebody, the anger can inform what the boundary is and then you can communicate with your heart what needs to happen and what needs to change. Anger doesn't make you less lovable, it makes you more honest. When we are being more honest, that's where healing begins.
(23:51)
As a takeaway, I want you to start journaling and maybe use this prompt of what does anger want me to know? What does my anger want me to know? That might be a better way to phrase it. What does my anger want me to know? And if this really resonated for you, if you want guidance around this, I am leading a in-person workshop at Tribe Baltimore on Friday, May 30th from six to 8:00 PM So sometimes what people will do is they go through a whole week and they end up going to happy hour and they try to drink away their problems. We're going to actually put this all into a guided practice in community, which is incredibly healing in a safe space. Like the floors are padded is stuff that we can beat. There are medicine balls we're going to throw, we're going to have some temper tantrums and doing it in community, which is incredibly freeing and it actually is very connecting as well.
(25:00)
So that is Monday, I'm sorry, Friday May 30th at Tribe Baltimore, which you can find them on Instagram or at their website, and you can buy tickets and you can come if you're local. If you're not local. I will have to figure out a way to do one of these online. I haven't found the magic sauce of leading this online yet. It's a little easier in person or one-on-one. I definitely can lead these in private sessions for you if that's what you're looking for. So feel free to reach out with questions. I'll be over on Instagram definitely all week talking about anger because we all experience it. There's a lot to be angry about in the world right now, and we want to use this to inform how do we want to keep showing up in the world and how do we want to move forward. So I look forward to hearing from you and connecting with you about your anger. And feel free to reach out and tell me what was your takeaway? What is your anger trying to tell you? I want to hear from you. Connect with me over on Instagram at Sarah kernels and I can't wait to connect with you more. Alright, my friends, go get out there, practice some anger releasing and let me know how it goes. Take good care of yourselves this week and I will talk to you next time.