A Guide to Working with Anger & Healthy Aggression via my Resources & Programs

How comfortable are you with anger?

Can you feel it—in your body—and express it without harming yourself or others?

In my experience, there are two ways in which most people ‘deal’ with anger:

Person A: Feels that if they let their anger out, it might hurt or kill someone. This is often the case with those who grew up in violent homes where they did see people getting hurt, and even killed, so in this case, the body memory says: “anger equals bad.” It’s a valid worry. 

Person B: Is anesthetized to anger. They never saw it growing up. Nor did they see happiness, sadness, grief… Nada. These are the “stiff upper lip” families who pretend everything is okay when mom dies of cancer, or say “you’re fine” to the kids even when they may be seriously hurt.

🧐 Recognize yourself in either of these scenarios?

Here’s the problem with both: 

Anger is a biologically necessary emotion that, if repressed, will eventually make us sick. 

Our fear of anger and not knowing how to release it in a healthy way is the REAL enemy. This fear of our own power (aka: our healthy aggression) is what BLOCKS us from moving forward.

Remember, we are warm-blooded (human) mammals with the same nervous system as a wild animal. Our fight response can be the same as, say, a lion’s or a tiger’s. Only, when threatened, the tiger gets to fight, kill, or be killed—either way, the threat is RESOLVED.

But, in our civilized societies, we can’t express it like our wild friends do.

To let our ‘inner cat’ out (without killing anyone!), we need to work consciously and somatically… So, how to start? 😼👉 

STEP 1: Because this is a delicate and lengthy process, education is key.

This idea of expressing anger and healthy aggression in a therapeutic way is new to us civilized humans, which means we need to understand how our physiology and stress chemistry work. It’s also important to understand the finer details of unlocking emotions that have been held in for decades. For many, once this education is onboard a shift happens, and a person’s circuitry starts to crave and organically move towards a rewiring process almost immediately.

✅ Sign up for my ‘Healing Trauma: 3-Part Video Training’
A solid introduction to all things trauma, nervous system health & the power of neuroplasticity.

✅ Dive into my YouTube Playlist on ‘The Importance of Anger & Healthy Aggression’
By the time you move through these videos, I can guarantee you’ll see anger in a new light.

✅ Explore my ‘Anger & Healthy Aggression’ Archives
A library of my articles and vlogs addressing this important (yet still little-discussed) topic.

After some solid educational pieces are in place, the next step is….

STEP 2: Cultivating a strong sense of biological self-awareness, aka: interoception.

Having a good sense of our internal spaces when we’ve shut them down for decades is not a quick fix. It takes time to rebuild our capacity and to feel and trust our gut. 

✅ Try the Neurosensory Exercises in my Nervous System Starter Kit
Get access to a good selection of these all in one place via this curated collection of resources.

✅ Pick a Drop-In Class Replay to Purchase from my Library of Past Classes
These 1-hour classes are an easy, low-cost way to ‘drop in’ to your somatic self & keep learning.

✅ Get Started with my 21 Day Nervous System Tune-Up
A self-paced nervous system ‘starter course’ that you can begin now & keep coming back to.

Once one gets this (biological self-awareness or interoception) back online, if one really has a significant level of nervous system dysregulation and poor foundational self-regulation, then…

STEP 3: Working at the level of the stress organs is essential.

When we’re in a cycle of unresolved survival energy the brain is signalling danger to the stress organs and related chemistry, which responds and in turn signals danger back to the brain: this is a loop that’s really hard to break. We can interrupt this cycle by learning to work directly with the organs involved with stress chemistry and interrupt their frantic signalling.

✅ Consider SmartBody SmartMind™ (SBSM), a 12-week nervous system rewire
This is where we do the deepest work, including working with these stress organs, and teach you how to become your own medicine.

In SBSM, we go big when it comes to working with anger and healthy aggression. 

For example, I teach two 90-minute training calls solely on this topic, as well as a training call devoted to toxic shame and disgust. (Did you know that disgust is a close cousin of anger?) There are also special neurosensory exercises designed for releasing that inner wild animal (all in a contained way, of course).

SBSM typically runs in live semesters 1-2 x a year and you get access to the learning for life. Depending on the time of year, you can join the waitlist or become a member at the program page linked above. 

Caveat: working with anger and healthy aggression takes TIME and COURAGE. 

> Time to build the capacity inside of us, so there’s enough internal space to safely and fully express anger. Time to build trust in our gut. 

> Courage to go to the deeper, sludgier depths that many shy away from. It’s baring your teeth, digging your fingernails into the dirt of your past, and releasing its toxicity from your cells. 

However, as The ACE Study made abundantly clear, our health really does depend on it.

In conclusion:

Anger is our friend. It can even be our medicine—if we know how to feel and process it in a way that is both safe and powerful.

So here’s to getting comfortable with anger, and to your nervous system health! 🙂