(#124) How to Process Anger in a Healthy Way & Somatic Healing Tools

Why does anger feel so overwhelming and how do you actually process it in a healthy way?

In this replay of one of the most popular episodes from the podcast (originally Episode #24), Rae dives into the truth about anger—what it really means, why it matters, and how to process anger somatically instead of suppressing it.

If you’ve ever been told that anger is “too much,” “wrong,” or something to avoid, this episode will completely shift your perspective.

From a nervous system and somatic healing lens, anger is not something to fear—it’s a powerful signal that something within you needs attention, boundaries, or protection. 

✨ In this episode, you’ll learn:

•  What anger actually is (and why it’s not a “bad” emotion) 
•  How anger connects to trauma responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) 
•  The cycle of anger: irritability → anger → rage 
•  How anger reveals boundary violations and unmet needs
•  Why suppressing anger leads to burnout, people-pleasing, and disconnection 
•  How to safely process anger in the body (somatic practices)

✨ You’ll also learn powerful, practical tools to process anger in real time.

🌿 This episode is for you if:

•  You struggle with people-pleasing or suppressing emotions
•  You feel guilty or uncomfortable expressing anger 
•  Your anger builds up and comes out all at once 
•  You want to feel more emotionally regulated, empowered, and boundaried

 Anger isn’t something to fix—it’s something to listen to. When you learn to work with it (instead of against it), it becomes a tool for healing, clarity, and self-trust.

💫 This episode is a re-release of one of the most streamed episodes—bringing back one of the most impactful conversations for deeper healing.

📩 Want more somatic tools?
Check out the Breathwork Resource Library + monthly newsletter for guided practices, journaling prompts, and support on your healing journey.

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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is intended to inspire, educate, and support you on your personal journey. It does not substitute for professional mental health advice. I am not a psychologist or medical professional. If you are experiencing distress, mental health challenges, or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified professional.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Anger Now

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello my friends, welcome back to the podcast. If you are new here, I'm Ray. I'm a somatic coach and breath work facilitator. And if you aren't new here, welcome back. I am so glad that you're tuning in for today's episode. So, disclaimer before we dive in, I am on the last day of a little bit of a cold. So if I sound a little funny, that's why. But I'm feeling okay, you know, given um it could be a lot worse. It's just like a little head cold. So I will survive. And I chose this topic of processing anger because I found that it was coming up a lot in the one-on-one work that I do with my clients. And it's just been this common theme that keep tends to keep coming up over the past few weeks. I figured today would be a great day to just kind of dive into, you know, what anger really is, understanding it, why it matters. We'll talk about healthy anger, the cycles of anger, a little bit about boundaries, and then at the end, we'll also talk about processing anger somatically. So in the body and why it's really helpful to approach it from that lens of including the body in the conversation. Alright, so let's dive in. So typically when we are feeling angry, it is usually because our mind, body, our soul, this emotion is really trying to send us a message. And anger can be really helpful in that sense because it is sending us a message of some sort. It might be giving us courage, even, or helping us speak out against something or for something that is important to us, and can also be super motivating. So you might experience that like you're so angry, and then you you work out and you have like a great workout or something. Like it can be really motivating too. And so often anger gets such a bad rep and make you know make sense. Like it's a definitely an uncomfortable emotion to feel. And I would say, even as women, like we're raised really from society to be, you know, people pleasers and keeping the peace. And if you get too angry, you know, you might be called as a bad word or something. So I don't curse on the podcast. Maybe I'll curse in this episode and just mark it as explicit, but we'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. So yeah, anger gets a bad rep. And somatically, the approach that we're always wanting to take with really any emotion, big or small, is that we're always inviting the thing into our human experience, right? So we're never pushing an emotion away, we're never pushing a feeling away, we're always getting curious and seeing how we can build capacity in our body to feel the emotion fully all the way through and really understand why it's here for us, right? So although anger gets a bad rep, somatically we are always inviting in our anger and taking a look at it and see what, seeing what message it might have for us. It's not a bad or wrong emotion to have, and it's a very normal, human felt emotion. And the reason why we feel it so powerfully is because it does hold a lot of energy, right? So it's when we're feeling anger, we're might our minds might be racing, we might be feeling it in our bodies, but ultimately it can be used as a tool. And so I'm going to share, I have another quote actually from Holistic Psychologist, and I'll link it again in the show notes, her information, but I'm going to share a quote with you about anger from her uh Instagram. Anger is the start of the healing process, but we're conditioned to think anger is wrong. If you're angry, that's a good thing. From a young age, we're taught to apologize, to be nice and polite, and if not, we were punished. Reinforced throughout childhood, the core belief becomes it's not okay for me to be angry. And what this can lead to is allowing our boundaries to be violated, staying quiet in order to appear easy, allowing abusive behaviors in relationships to avoid conflict, and good person conditioning. It also enables all sorts of dysfunctional behavior within society. We might blame people for their reactions. We see people's emotions as the issue rather than looking at the deeper dynamics. Ultimately, though, anger is healthy. It tells us when enough is enough, it lets us know when we need to set boundaries, it gives us the message it's time to finally leave and choose ourselves. If you'll feel if you feel angry, good. You're no longer numb and now you can heal. We need to stop acting as if anger is to be repressed. Anger is our internal alarm telling us something is wrong and it's time to listen. So I really liked this post from Holistic Psychologist. She's really great at you know, summaries, summarizing these larger concepts into bite-sized, tangible, digestible information. So I always appreciate her posts. And what I'm taking away from what she shared is that really anger is healthy, and it's usually one of the first signs that you're emerging from maybe a previous trauma response. The four trauma responses freeze, fawn, fight, or flight. So you might be emerging from like a fawn trauma response and feeling more angry, and that's usually a good sign. And there is this cycle of anger. So usually it starts with an irritant, something that is, you know, slowly starting to irritate you and get under your skin. An example of that might be uh loud music or having the TV too loud in your house. And then it moves on to anger. And anger could look like maybe there is a boundary that was violated, or maybe you feel like you're getting taken advantage of in your friendships or your relationship or at work. And then we have the third cycle, which is rage. And that's usually when our bodies don't have the capacity to hold such a large emotion. And this could be similar to like feeling extreme grief, even. So there is a level when you're in, when you're feeling rage of like a disassociation. So that might be, you know, we've heard of people saying they were so angry they just they don't even know what happened, or they said things that they didn't mean, and then they're like, oh no, I didn't say that. So the cycle of anger starts as an irritant, then it goes into anger, and then it goes into rage. And if you are somebody that has experienced people pleasing in the past, there may be such a large threshold of irritants that you've kind of suppressed. And then the anger comes out because your capacity of all of these like micro moments have added up and now become this like bigger boundary violation. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just kind of like observing and being like, oh, okay, I'm I've had all of these irritants throughout the day, and now I get home from work and maybe you're a little bit short-fused with your partner or something like that. So it's just like really being observing your personal relationship to anger and how you respond to it. And oftentimes with anger, there's this subject of boundaries. I've brought it up a few times already. And this could be its own episode and its own masterclass in itself, but I'll talk a little bit about how boundaries and anger can be connected in ways. And oftentimes we think a boundary is like outside of ourselves, it's external to external to us, it's something or someone. Oftentimes, we can also work with a boundary and make it more of like an energetic and somatic boundary. So that might look like if you take a step back, if you're in a conversation and you literally step backwards and you kind of like move your body away from this thing that doesn't feel good for you. Um, another example might be you're in a heated discussion and you say, I need I need to tap out. I need to leave the room for a little bit. This is getting a little too heated for me. So it can oftentimes be a felt sense in our body too that we are changing our environment to help our bodies feel more safe. Another example might be closing a door, lowering the music if it's too loud, or the volume on the TV if it's too loud. And I'll give a personal example. A few weeks ago, I was out with a few friends, and there was a conversation going on that I really didn't want any to be part of it at all. I was just like, this is not what I want to talk about. So I went to the bathroom. So I got up and I was like, I had the awareness to be like, yeah, I don't really want to be part of this conversation. This is like not my cup of tea. I'm gonna leave. So I just went to the bathroom. So super easy example and something that you can also kind of incorporate if that feels good for you. And so oftentimes with anger, it's a very uncomfortable emotion to feel, especially if you have any kind of history with people pleasing or kind of appeasing other people and their emotions to keep them comfortable. It can be kind of pent up over time. And the sensations that we feel in our body, you know, you might get very warm, your heart might start racing, your fists might clench, and that's okay. It's uncomfortable to feel, but that's kind of what the somatic work helps you to do is have the capacity to hold these like uncomfortably feeling emotions. And when we're working with anger, we can also take on the lens of what is your anger protecting you from, right? So there was a part of you that previously wasn't able to be vulnerable potentially. And what does that part need? And what is your personal relationship to anger? What was modeled to you growing up around processing bigger feelings? And this is where kind of like parts work comes into play, where you have the part, so this is the hurt vulnerable part of you. Uh, you have the protector, so this might be the anger or even the people pleasing, and then you have the deeper emotional need. So it's like, what does that part need on a deeper level? Is that love, safety, belonging, understanding, purpose, connection, encouragement, community? It could be, it could be anything really. And so taking this emotion, this anger, and really understanding it on a deeper level. And also naming that oftentimes when we have anger present, there's usually combined feelings, right? So maybe you have shame present around how you're feeling or really needing to validate yourself and feel like safe and justified in your anger, not necessarily in terms of like right or wrong, but it's like, okay, you feel angry, right? So, like, how can we practice self-compassion? And this is where working with somebody really is helpful because they're able to walk you through these processes. And then once you have that skill and it's integrated, you have that for life, right? So when anger does come up, you're able to hold yourself through the emotion. And so I'd love to share some ways that you can self-regulate and use these tools to process your anger somatically. And the first is, you know, something I've talked about quite often, but I do believe in it and I think it really helps is doing some mindful breathing. And you can even do this, like even when you're not angry, really. You can just do it to kind of let your body release and relieve any kind of stress it might be holding on to. And what that would look like and sound like is you would just kind of take a deep inhale. And on that exhale, you just want to make a sigh or a sound. And you can do that a few times, right? So three, four, maybe even ten times. And what you're doing is you're really allowing on that exhale your body to release and your body to regulate. And that will be really helpful. The second tool that I'd love to share with you is this was actually in my newsletter this month for January. So if you're not on the email list to receive the newsletter, I send out one at the beginning of every month, and it includes somatic practices, journaling prompts, uh, updates on current events, um, just like a bunch of different fun things. But it's like a little toolkit, which is pretty cool. So this tool is called the butterfly hug. And what you're going to do is take your palms out in front of you. So your hands are in front of you and your palms are up, and you'll put your right hand over or under, I should say, your left, and your thumbs are going to interlock and touch in the middle. Then you'll bring your thumbs up to the center of your chest, and your fingers will kind of go out on the sides, um, almost like touching your shoulders or your collarbone. And from here, you're just going to kind of hold yourself in this experience, in this big emotion that you might be feeling, or really at any time where you might need some self-regulation or some self-soothing. And in this position, you're going to breathe. So you'll take a few breaths for as long as you might need. And you can even tap your fingers too. So you can even kind of like gently tap on your shoulders as you're holding yourself here. So that one is called the butterfly hug. The third is what's called wall work. And wall work, I will describe it, but basically what you're going to do is take your palms, you're going to go against a wall, and you're going to stagger your stance, and you're going to physically push your hands and your body weight into the wall. And while you're doing this, you're going to yell, scream, make noises, let yourself process the anger that is in your body, right? So this is really helpful for anyone that's working through people pleasing or the fond trauma response or really just trying to work on their firmness in the world. And this is one that I've done so much. I swear by it. I think if you were to do it, you know, even once or twice, you'll see how uncomfortable it is. But then you'll also see the benefits of it on the other side. And then two more somatic practices that help with processing anger. The first is grabbing a pillow and really allowing yourself to punch the pillow, right? Like let yourself take any kind of anger or rage that you have in your body and actually process it. Let your body move, let your body release any kind of emotion that you might be feeling. And then the other is allowing yourself to march in place. So you're going to kind of pick your feet up and down as you stand and move as your one leg is coming up, the other opposite arm is coming up. So you're going to kind of like bring one hand up and one arm up, one hand up and one arm up. But you're going to do this with, you know, intensity. You're going to do this to move that emotion and energy through your body and see how much of a release and how how helpful it is really to process the feeling instead of necessarily like pushing it away. So these are all very simple, somatic-based self-regulation tools that you can use anytime that you're feeling anger. So we don't want to push the emotion away. We want to invite the emotion in, hold it, see what message it might have for us. Let our bodies know that we are safe to feel a big feeling. So if you do try any of these practices, definitely let me know. I'd love to hear how they feel for you, how your body responds, and what it brings up for you. Thank you for being here and tuning in to Somatic Healing for Wellness Focused Women Podcast. If you were moved or inspired by today's episode, please take a moment to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It truly helps the podcast grow and helps more people find me on their healing journey. Make sure to check out the show notes to sign up for the monthly newsletter, links to more resources, opportunities to work with me, and ways that we can stay connected. If we aren't already connected on social media, head over to Instagram to follow me at Ray the Somatic Coach. Send me a DM. I'd love to connect with you, and I answer each note that comes in. I am so happy you're here, and I cannot wait to talk with you on our next episode of the podcast.