Next culture relating — new frontiers using anger consciously
By: Annika Korsten
Tags: Anger, Relationships, Choices, Feelings

The last 24 years I’ve been dating men I was in co-dependant relationships — full stop. And with that came a substantial amount of fear. This is also true for my current relationship, except for the first time I am breaking this pattern consciously. How? Let me tell you a story about conscious anger.

For me the new way of relationship is blank yet full of possibilities. This means nothing is certain. Gone are the days of Disneyland-Dirty Dancing-Romance where my inner child can lull itself in the secure arms of my hero man who will protect and save me from danger — life. Yes: What this unspoken contract does is I stop myself from life and I choose death. How I did that? I made an unconscious decision to be imprisoned. I stopped dreaming and I stopped making space for myself and my passions and desires. In short I gave my centre to my current partner and did not express my clear YES’s and NOs. How that manifested itself was that I have had him constantly present in my energy field and as a result my fear levels were on alert 24/7. Thoughts like ‘Am I saying the RIGHT thing?’ , ‘Will I do it WRONG again?’ “Oh god what will his response be now — will he punish me and control me even more?’ and so forth. I turned him into my mother figure and projected my stored up emotions onto him for a long time.

Even though we were aware of this pattern (I leave his part out of this article but rest assured we are both aware that the pattern created was a result of both our responsibilities and our Gremlin playing out) it took several months (still ongoing) to start disentangling the mess we had created. How did I do this?

It takes a certain amount of my anger to be activated to make decisions. Decision one was clear: ‘I want to stop this pattern and live an adult-responsible, extraordinary relationship!’ In order to keep this decision present in my system my anger reminds me of this decision especially in times when I slip into child responsibility or Gremlin (the shadow part of me) games. My anger is particularly useful when we are expressing something to the other and a conversation/exchange starts turning into a fight. Then my anger can stop this fight, remind me of the purpose of the relationship and say ‘Hey — we want to create something different!’ or when I am not aware of what’s happening, yet my partner shows awareness, I can use my anger to choose not to react and simply say ‘Thank you for reminding me. I don’t want to be like this’.

Essentially we are committing to something new which is singing each other our BEING song when one of us is starting to forget IT. And that’s where the new way of relationship starts for me being filled with wondrous surprises every day.

My relationship with anger

In the last months my relationship with anger has shifted hence the expression of it also. I have had emotions from early childhood related to my mother that expressing my anger was either ‘bad’ or it would not bring any wanted results. My mum would always have the last word. My system had learnt that anger can’t be of any use other than suppressing it. What I constructed on top of my anger was fear of expressing myself at all. I silenced many feelings then. And today I silenced many emotions in my relationship. The new learning (after many Emotional Healing Processes, Removing my mother from my energetic space etc.) is to start expressing my fear (I would frequently disassociate in conflicts because my fear was unbearable) first. Ask my fear ‘What have you got for me?’ and express it. Then the other feelings will emerge from that space. My muscle of expression started growing with my partner also growing his capacity to simply be with me and my experience rather than reacting or wanting to change it (him to just be with me has also been a request of my anger in the process leading to it). In that I started experiencing that it ‘was ok’ to feel and express and that I can hold space for my emotions.

Today I don’t always have to hold space for the fear anymore. My inner child is being cared for and my system has now understood that my partner ‘is not my mum’ and that I don’t need to protect myself anymore.

With this, for the first time in my relationships with men I show up and say what I want, set boundaries, make offers, celebrate, am clear, set intentional spaces, and keep the space clean of unconscious activities. Becoming friends with my anger has allowed me just that.

In the next article I will talk about the same topic in the context of sexuality.

If you are keen to discover the potential of your anger come and join me and Julia Neumann in the upcoming 6-week Women’s Rage Club.