I DO WHAT I WANT because I use the POWER of conscious ANGER
By: Jennifer Van Damme
Tags: Empowerment, Freedom, Anger, Feelings

I DO WHAT I WANT because I use the POWER of conscious ANGER Jennifer van Damme Aug 16·8 min read

Have you ever felt stuck because you had the feeling that you had to do something in a way someone else wanted you to?

I had this feeling a lot of times during my life and it made me feel super angry from inside.

For a long time, I felt stuck by living in a way that modern society wanted me to. I felt stuck while I was in relationships because my partners expected me to behave in some kind of way. I felt stuck at school because I had to follow the teacher’s rules. I felt stuck in different jobs because I had to follow the company’s guidelines, and so on...

And every time that I felt stuck, I had to deal with an immense amount of anger inside of me. Sometimes this anger was building up so strongly that at some point I just exploded! And after those explosions I started crying. I felt so sad because I had no clue what I was so angry about and I was judging myself for my explosions of anger. It was a really hard time for me to deal with all my emotions and I destroyed a lot of things and relationships.

During that time I never realized that my anger was related to the things that I felt stuck about.

Because of my old beliefs that I had to behave in some kind of way, or that I had to fit within society just as everyone does, or that I have to do what other people ask me to do because otherwise "I’m not nice" I stopped listening to myself and what my feelings had to tell me. I was very disconnected from myself and this kept me from living my own truth.

This year I learned about conscious anger through Possibility Management and I joined a Rage Club. This is one of the best things I have ever done: I finally figured out why I was so angry my whole life!

While I participated in the Rage Club, I learned to connect with my anger instead of pushing it away and this was a whole new way of looking at my anger. I always thought that it was not okay to feel angry and that there was something wrong with me. But now I know that by becoming more aware of the subtle forms of anger inside me, these small percentages of anger have messages for me. My anger is communicating with me and it actually tells me when I’m being true to myself or not. Wow, I never realized that there was so much wisdom behind my anger!

While I was in the Rage Club, I learned how to let my anger come up and go away in a controlled way. This was really weird and uncomfortable when I did it for the first time. I had to scream and shout and twist a towel to bring my anger up to a percentage of 100% for about 3 minutes. Afterwards, I had to come back to neutral and breathe in and out through my nose to become aware of how the anger felt inside my body. It was a completely new experience for me to consciously wake up and stop the anger inside of me. I experienced the feeling of anger without letting the anger take control over me: this time I had control over my anger!

I experimented with different kinds of exercises and bit by bit I became more in touch with my anger.

I discovered that every time I did a conscious anger exercise, afterwards I had so much clarity about what is really important for me. And this clarity had many layers. Sometimes I knew immediately that I had some anger inside of me because I didn’t express my truth to another person. And other times I felt the anger deep in my soul because we live on a planet with a large amount of unconscious people who are destroying our mother Earth. So in the first case my anger showed me that it is really important for me to express myself in an authentic way and in the second case my anger showed me what is really important for my soul and why I am here on planet Earth.

I learned that my anger is telling me what I truly care about. And by consciously choosing to connect with my anger, my anger is bringing me clarity on things that I wasn’t even aware of. A whole new way of working with my anger opened up for me.

Through these exercises, I became more aware of how the energy of anger feels within my body, which allowed me to recognize it when I feel a little bit angry about something. And I learned to listen to the subtle feelings of anger before they get bigger and become an explosion. When I feel these subtle feelings of anger I already know that I’m doing something that is not aligned with my own truth.

When I feel anger, I start reflecting on my life and on which actions I take and how I express myself. Is it still in line with what I really want? Or am I doing something for someone else? Or because of an old belief that I have to do something in a particular kind of way? These subtle feelings of anger give me the answers right away. And when I don’t receive the message from my subtle feelings of anger, I choose consciously to make the feeling bigger and allow my anger to speak about what is not aligned with my truth.

The second thing that I learned at the Rage Club is to use my conscious anger to take action. It is really helpful to know what my anger has to tell me, but if I am not able to change the things that I’m angry about, I will still be angry!

So I learned to use the energy of anger inside me to take action and give direction to my life the way I want. In the beginning this was really scary, because I was not used to using my anger to speak up for myself and to say "no" to someone, as an example. This was very much out of my comfort zone.

But the Rage Club gave me a lot of tools to practic this in daily life situations. One of the experiments that I did was saying "yes" or "no" without thinking for one week. This exercise made me aware of my patterns, like the patterns that I used to please people or to feel accepted. I also learned that if I cannot say authentically "no", my "yes" is also fake! In that case I actually lie to myself all the time if I am not able to say "no". Wow, this was a big eye opener for me.

Another thing that I learned is to use my anger to stay centered, because if I am not centered, I am not able to feel what is going on inside of me and I cannot connect with my anger. And from an uncentered place I will automatically follow other people’s rules and opinions. I learned how to become more aware of keeping my own center by doing very short centering exercises frequently during the day. And I practiced keeping my attention on my own center while I was in conversation with other people. These exercises made me more aware of the moments when I was able to stay true to myself and the moments when I was not, which caused me to get trapped in someone else’s opinions.

Before the Rage Club, I was not aware that I got trapped by other people’s opinions so frequently. This exercise was a big eye opener for me: I was living other people’s truth more often than I realized.

And from here I learned how to use my anger to set boundaries. When my anger is telling me that I am not truthful to myself, it is time to use the energy and information of that anger to speak up. I stay centered and I say what I want to say to give the direction to my life in the way I want. That I use my anger doesn’t mean that I scream or that I am aggressive. No. Because I feel my anger in a subtle way communicating with me, I am able to speak up before the anger starts getting bigger. I just use my anger to make sure that my voice is loud enough so that the person in front of me can feel the energy and understand my message very clearly.

So through understanding the messages of my anger and using the energy and information of my anger, I am now able to live the life that I want to live and to do things in the way that I want. I am so grateful that the Rage Club and I crossed paths. I feel liberated because I don’t have to fight against my anger anymore. I realize now that my biggest enemy has become my biggest teacher.

The last thing that I want to share is that I learned how to use my anger to start new things. Because my anger gave me so much clarity about what is truly important for me, I know now what I want to create in this life. Through connecting with my anger, I know that one of the most important things for me is the regeneration of mother Gaia. I care so much about our planet that I would love to bring more awareness to the importance of taking care of her. And one other thing that I truly care about is the well-being of humanity. I know that a lot of people are still struggling with their feelings and their anger, which causes confusion and frustration and not knowing what to do. And one of my biggest wishes is to bring more awareness on the power of working with conscious anger, because this is a way to bring more clarity into their lives. I would love to see more people who are able to connect with what they truly care about. I would love to see more people stepping into their power and feeling free to do what they want!

And joining a Rage Club could be a doorway for many people to step back into their power. That’s why I am on a mission to bring my own Rage Club into the world.

I would love to tell you more about it, but I am afraid that this article will get too long.

So keep an eye on me if you want to know more about the Rage Club and the Power of Conscious Anger.

I will keep on using my anger to take action and do the next thing, so I will be back soon.

Much love,

Jennifer

Check out the following websites if you want to know more about Conscious Anger, The Rage Club or Possibility Management: