Why Your Anger Will Heal You in Deconstruction

If you grew up in a religious environment where you were trained to resist or ignore anger's cues in order to be "godly", you will struggle to feel and navigate your anger in helpful and healing ways, especially during your faith deconstruction. We're guessing that anger still feels:  

 Rachael here, and I can completely relate! I grew up so terrified to feel or express anger that I turned all that energy against myself and started pulling out my eyelashes, eyebrows & hair. For 3 years I continued until I had no facial hair whatsoever.

In order to feel safe I became a "good little girl" who followed the rules and didn't rock the boat. I was cruelly picked on but never once stood up for myself. I wanted to be a godly girl, and godly girls weren't allowed to feel angry.

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I continued on this powerless path until my 20's, believing that in order to be my healthiest and godly self, I had to reign in my frustrations. But here is where the irony really sinks in: Anger was the very emotion I needed to heal. And anger is the very emotion that you need to heal right now. Though you have been conditioned to think anger is an enemy to resist, it is actually your best friend in this healing process. Here's why... 

Anger simply tells you that something needs protection. It will help you gauge where you need to honor your boundaries and can also lead you back to the source of your wounds as a means to heal it. Here are 4 questions you can start asking yourself whenever anger arises: 

1. What just happened? (What's making me angry right now?)
2. What needs protection? What needs to be restored?)
3. What do I need right now? (What's my anger telling me?)
4. How can I give myself that? (based off of what I need right now).

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Do you feel the difference between when you work with your anger as a means of being helpful and necessary vs. being wrong and to be denied?