Anger (used consciously) can help you stand your ground and set good boundaries. But what if you can’t feel your anger?

A Reader writes:

I was Focusing on feelings that came up in a talk with a neighbor.

First I felt confusion and hurt. Then for a moment in the background I experienced anger and rage … but it was fleeting, slight, small, almost like a ghost.

I wish I could expand and widen the anger, so that it comes into its own … and even help me with good boundaries and self-assertion. Any ideas?

Dear Reader:

I’m not a fan of making feelings bigger… or smaller. I like respecting that feelings are exactly as big or as small as they need to be.

But it sound like you have a sense that your anger “belongs” bigger. You are puzzled why it seems so faint and fleeting… when you sense that its nature would be to be stronger.

So rather than trying to make the anger bigger, let’s ask instead if there might be something else there… a part of you that is muffling or shutting down the anger.

That could well be, right? So many of us were taught that anger is bad. (I know I was.)

And just a quick reminder here that feelings are not good or bad… but actions are a different matter. We have a choice about the actions we take to express our feelings.

So you could make a guess that there might be a part of you that is “sitting on” your anger, something in you that doesn’t want the anger to be allowed to come fully and strongly.

After you make that guess, make an inner invitation. Say, “I’d like to get to know the part of me that is in the way of the anger.” And wait. After a while, you may begin to notice or sense something… for example, it might feel like a thick blanket or a wall.

You’ll be able to explore what that part of you is worried about if the anger comes… and let it know you hear it. That is likely to bring a shift.