One of the emotions I repressed as a child was Anger.

Now, after years of self-healing, every time I feel Past Anger, I invite it in fully. I intend each time to stay awake and aware so that I don’t identify myself with it and end up putting it on other people. Thus when Anger shows up, I say: “Hello, old friend. Welcome. I see you, I feel you, I hear you, you are here and I welcome you fully. What do you want this body to do? What do you want to say? What do you want me to experience? What do I need to learn?”

And I spend time with Past Anger. I breathe into it while either hitting a pillow, running, moving my body in any direction it needs to, yelling, writing every single word that Past Anger has to say for me to acknowledge.

And we are friends, we connect. I love my Past Anger. And I love my Present Anger for it tells me a lot about my boundaries, when anyone disregards them including myself; it tells me when to move on and when to stay.

Present Anger reminds me I want what I did not have as a child: honest relationships with emotionally available human beings who are present, have the capacity and space to listen, go past their stubbornness and ego, love and allow others to love them, be aware of their own needs and boundaries, human beings who want to grow, embrace all of themselves and shed layers, whose words match their actions and if not, be aware that they might have “fallen asleep” and acknowledge their humanness.

Present Anger and Past Anger help me see that, as a child, I did not allow Anger to come up in a way that I could listen to it. I put Anger on everyone else yet did not learn what it came to teach me. I shun Anger by projecting it outward. I know Anger has been waiting for me to allow it to move through and I am deeply grateful that it is.