Could Self-Betrayal Be a Trauma Response?

When you feel feelings & do not express yourself you are teaching your body and heart it doesn’t matter, you are telling your intuition/worth to you don’t trust it and you are treating your inner child like she is invisible.

And, if you were the nice girl, the adaptable partner, the easy going friend or the coworker everyone loves, you are probably a PRO and minimizing how you feel for the sake of others- especially your anger.

Anger is a normal emotion. Not negative, not scary, not bad, not wrong...

However, if you were traumatized by someone else’s anger, if you were traumatized by continually being shut down when you were angry as a child...anger doesn’t feel safe. Familiar = safe. If you physically were never allowed to express anger, it feels terrifying to your nervous system because it’s unknown. If you had a parent act our anger in a destructive way anger could feel wrong, bad or simply something you would “never do” because you were hurt by it. I GET how anger can feel NOT OK. Yet, the lack of self-expression in childhood can end up morphing into: burn-out, chronic pain, fatigue, depression & anxiety. This lack of expression outward, makes you act inward causing yourself pain. How can you safely let out anger? When you feel even the smallest of frustrations arise, remove yourself from the situation and let it out.

This can look like:

• kicking a wall

• punching a pillow

• screaming into your scarf

• sprinting around the block

• blasting music and head banging -hitting your mattress with a bat

• twist a towel super tight while making noise

Emotions are PHYSICAL and stored in our physical body/nervous system. When you do not express them in a healthy way, they will, 99.9% of time manifest into anxiety (often times after a period of suppression /depression). If you complain about feeling taken advantage of, always being obligated, are sarcastic/passive aggressive, are tired all the time, have road rage...you may have some stuck anger. Trust your body’s cues. It is talking to you. Trust in your capacity to let anger out safely. This in turn, will take the anger decibel level from 10 eventually down to 0.

If you are struggling or scared of your own inner anger you’re not alone. I hear you. I feel you.

Anger is an emotion I didn’t let myself feel for year and years. I always went to sadness because it was “safe.”...until I learned to express my anger and to use it as fuel for passion, I would shut it down. Swallow it...and for me, it turned into chronic fatigue and chronic pain. Your feelings matter. ALL OF THEM. If you want support learning how to express yourself do not hesitate to reach out. I am here for you and you don’t have to go it alone.