Working With Our Emotions – Anger
Disclaimer: The tips and thoughts in this blog are shared from my personal experience. If your emotions are affecting your ability to function in daily life, please ask for professional help – hospitals and the NHS (UK) offer therapy, counselling and other mental health services. Check with your health provider.
“Sloth, apathy, and despair are the enemy. Anger is not. Anger is our friend.
Not a nice friend. Not a gentle friend. But a very, very loyal friend…
Anger is meant to be acted on. It is not meant to be acted out.
Anger points the direction. We are meant to use anger as fuel to
take the actions we need to move where our anger points us.“
Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way
Anger in this day and age often gets a bad rap, as if we shouldn’t ever feel it or if we do feel anger, then we shouldn’t talk about feeling it. When we’re diagnosed with cancer, anger is one of the first emotions that can show up. Some of us don’t feel anger and that’s perfectly normal too – we each have our own unique relationship with our emotions.
In the days after my diagnosis, I felt angry about many things. I was angry about having cancer. I was angry with myself, because I felt I’d squandered years in my past. I was angry that I hadn’t achieved what I wanted to achieve. I was angry with having to give up the things I was doing and wanted to do. I was angry with myself for all the times, I’d allowed myself to be bullied, silenced, and put down. I was angry with the tumour – I felt it was something that could chuck me out like a piece of trash without regard for me as a person. I was angry about losing control and losing my independence. Sometimes during my treatment, when I felt physically weak, I felt angry about not being able to do things I’d previously taken for granted. I was angry about the possibility of my life being cut out, of my voice being shut down at a time, when I had so much, I still wanted to do. I felt angry about feeling angry.
As Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way:
“We are meant to use anger as fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us.”
Anger becomes destructive when it’s repressed and explodes outwards and harms other people or when it’s turned inwards, and we engage in self-destructive and self-defeating behaviours.
It’s normal to feel angry with our own body too. I certainly did in the beginning. How dare my body create this? How dare my body let me down in this way? Then later I learned to love my body, and to love my body that had created the cancer and my body going through the cancer.
If anger is fuel, then there are many ways we can channel our anger safely and creatively:
I find physical exercise very effective. I love to do free-style dance, just playing music and letting my body move how it wants to – (always work with your medical care team and physiotherapist when starting exercise and movement.) Writing how we feel, can also release pent up emotion. Just by saying we feel angry with a trusted friend, relative or therapist can be a relief. Communicate with your feelings and talk with them and about them. I can’t say this enough. Our bodies are designed to express. We have tear ducts for crying, a voice for speaking and sharing, a body for dancing with.
Our feelings are complex and often one emotion blends into another. Sometimes beneath our anger, is fear and equally so, our emotions can transform quickly into other more uplifting feelings. For me expressing my anger through dance and movement, can transform it into inspiration, passion and motivation.
We don’t have to go through our cancer, nobly, or positively or bravely. We’re allowed to feel anger about the whole rotten situation! But rather than let the anger paralyse us with inaction (when our anger can turn into depression and despair), or take it out on others, I would say work with it, not against it. If anger is fuel, ask yourself how you can use this fuel.
When we hold in our feelings and judge them as ‘bad’, in a sense we are not taking responsibility for them, we’re not ‘owning’ them. Or we project our anger onto others, expecting them to be responsible for our anger.
I believe if we acknowledge and embrace our anger, we can use its fuel in safe and creative ways
Here are a few examples of how I chose to channel my anger:
Anger Trigger –
Being angry with my body and my tumour.
Ways I chose to channel my anger:
I think this is probably a very normal reaction to have. When I was first diagnosed and saw the tumour on the screen, the most overwhelming emotion I experienced, was dread. Then I did have feelings of anger towards myself, and I suppose within that, there was anger towards my body. I kept saying on the phone to my family, “Why did my body have to create this during the pandemic? Couldn’t it have picked a better time to make cancer?”
But then I decided, rather than to fight my already weakened vulnerable body with more anger and stress, to work with my body instead. As with talking to my fear and my anger, I talked to my body and my tumour and asked myself questions – How can I work with my body and my emotions to allow myself to get better? Different answers came up: to slow down, to practise greater self-care and self-compassion, to know that I can go through this experience one day at a time. To comply with the medical professionals in treating my tumour, to take an active part in my treatment plan.
I take action, by choosing to listen to my body rather than blame my body, to engage with the treatment and removal of the tumour by participating fully in the process. Seeing this as an experience which tests my strength, rather than a battle that I have to win.
I take action by transforming my anger I have with my body for creating the cancer, into self-love, self-compassion, gentleness and self-awareness.
Anger Trigger:
Anger and regret about my past – not having achieved everything I felt I should have achieved.
Ways I chose to channel my anger:
Meditate on these thoughts and feelings. Asking myself – does achievement mean for me, gaining the ‘stuff’ that society expects me to achieve or realizing that my feelings of self-worth do not depend on successes I can show externally– for example how far I’ve developed my career, what my wealth status is, whether I’ve conformed, whether I’ve got my life all ‘figured’ out, goals that I should have reached by a certain age, etc, etc. Or do I now recognise that just by being me, in the here and now, just by being born, I have achieved an enormous amount and my ‘success’ does not have to be visible to the outside world. So, I actively thank myself for being me, I thank myself for doing what I’m doing in the present, I thank myself for my courage and my humour. I recognise I am enough exactly as I am right now.
Anger Trigger:
Having to give up what I was doing in my life, for cancer.
Ways I chose to channel my anger:
I was angry about having to postpone my MA, not being able to audition (although this had been limited by the Covid pandemic anyway), not being able to travel, etc. I asked myself do I want to live, or do I want to die? I chose to do my best to live, so I told myself in the grand scheme of things, I had to temporarily sacrifice these desires to be ‘doing’ stuff. I took action by remodelling my thinking. I chose, to see cancer as, an experience, and as an opportunity to share my story and help others going through it. There are many things I did continue to do, even while I had cancer and was going through the treatment, such as resuming my MA studies when I could.
I chose to do what I was able to do, in order to transform my feelings of anger into feelings of inspiration and excitement – writing a book, making a documentary, writing songs were useful ways for me to channel my uncomfortable feelings such as anger. I took action by choosing to share my feelings with those people I knew I could trust and those people who I knew would not judge me for being angry.
Anger Trigger:
Anger for allowing myself to be bullied, silenced and put down.
Ways I chose to channel my anger:
Accepting that I allowed this to happen in situations in the past. Having self-compassion for not being assertive in those past situations. Recognising that the past can’t be undone and that today, this very moment is a new opportunity, where I can choose to trust my intuition and remove myself from hostile people quickly before allowing myself to be hooked in. I take action by choosing to trust my intuition. On being silenced, this is where a good healthy dose of defiance and rebellion comes in! – I take action by expressing myself through writing, by recording my songs and by celebrating my voice, which is my human right. I recognise that my voice is unique and that by vocalising, and expressing, I contribute to the human family and to the whole.
Anger Trigger:
Anger about loss of control, loss of independence, needing to rely on others.
Ways I chose to channel my anger:
For me this is about valuing my vulnerability. Cancer and illness make us vulnerable – there’s no way around this – physically, emotionally, mentally, and sometimes financially vulnerable. Our bodies are fragile and vulnerable, our feelings are vulnerable, our minds are vulnerable. Being vulnerable is a fact of life. Rather than fight it, I allow myself to see my vulnerability as a strength not a weakness.
During cancer, there are many things we can be in control of – our thinking patterns, how we ask for help, who we go to for help, making choices, learning about our treatments, taking an active interest in our care plan. I take action by letting go with love my feelings of “I can do this alone” and replace my thoughts with, “Asking for help, is not weak, and depending on others gives them an opportunity to learn and grow with me.”
