EP 19 Do Spiritual People Get Angry?

I wrote an article on medium about this back in November  but wanted to expand on the topic. I realised the reason why I felt I needed to wait so long before doing the episode was probably my intuition as it turns out that someone whose work I admire a lot, Caroline Strawson, is literally running her first Rage Release Retreat as we speak to help victims of narcissists deal with their repressed anger. https://carolinestrawson.com/  For years, I never got angry and I believe, wrongly may I add, that it was because I was more evolved than other people. What I did not realise was that this wasn't at all what was happening. What was happening was that my nervous system had shut down and I was living in functional freeze. I even remember a dear friend of mine in my twenties asking me why on earth I was such a cool cucumber. I know better now. I had no space to express my anger as a child so I shut it down. My body was frozen. Interestingly, from a law of attraction perspective, I was surrounded by angry people. The anger vibe was deep seated in me, I just couldn't feel it.  I personally believe that it is a spiritual thing to take responsibility for ALL our emotions, negative or positive. No emotion is actually good or bad. It is what society wants us to believe. Anger is just an emotion. It is not a pleasant one but it's not better or worse than happiness. Until we can accept that, we won't really take responsibility for our anger. We will continue to be in denial. Religions have not helped in this respect, except maybe Buddhism which in my opinion is the healthiest of them all because it has integrated psychology into its philosophy, which is something most other religions could learn from. I want to mention in particular Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who is one of my favourite spiritual teachers, and who wrote an entire book on Anger and another one on Fear.  When you don't take responsibility for your anger, there is a risk that you will: - act out - explore - project  - judge - lack compassion - be passive aggressive Acceptance of our anger is the first and necessary step in that road to responsibility for ourselves. If you have been hurt and feel angry about it, why not join our brand new community called Hurt, Not Heard on FB.  It's for women only but if you are a man and need support, I work with men too. Head over to my welcome page and find out about my offers.