As we settle to turn inwards.
I encourage you to close your eyes.
Or just simply lower them.
And then turn to notice the quality of your breath.
And feel it flow in and out through the nostrils.
In and out of the lungs.
Witnessing the body breathing itself.
Now adjust your seat if you need to find yourself to be 5-10% more comfortable.
And allow my voice to become your voice as we journey inward.
Now when you're ready.
Bring to mind a recent situation in which you felt enraged.
I'm sure this isn't difficult.
There are plenty of situations in our current world and in our current lives that have the potential to lead to this feeling.
Bring to mind whichever Whichever naturally comes forth.
And if the situation that comes to mind is particularly intense,
You can put the person or the situation in a room by themselves where you're able to watch it play out through a window.
And as you bring this situation to mind or as you put it in a room all by itself and you observe,
You find yourself in or observing this situation again.
Really pay attention to not only the other.
The other person.
The other's behavior,
The other's words.
That is leading to the rage.
But really pay attention to your gut reaction.
Your initial response to the situation.
Are there certain things you're wanting to say?
Are there certain actions you're wanting to take?
And without judgment,
Whatever those actions may be.
Whatever those words may be.
Just notice that they're there.
Notice that those impulses and let your curiosity wander.
How else do you notice your body respond?
To the original situation.
What emotions might be present for you?
They could be some branch of rage,
Frustration,
Anger,
Irritation.
Just notice whatever emotions may come up for you.
And what sensations might you be experiencing?
And where.
For me when my angry part is present.
I can feel it in my chest.
Some people feel it in their stomachs.
Or in their shoulders.
So these are all good places to check.
Maybe you might notice that your hands are clenched or your jaw is clenched.
Just notice sensation.
Wherever it might be present.
Notice where and when.
You could be feeling a heat.
Anger is really hot often.
You may be experiencing a tingling,
A burning,
A churning,
A sharpness.
Pain.
Tightness.
Maybe you feel nauseous.
And again,
Without judgment.
Make note of the intensity of these sensations.
You may use a 1 to 10 scale where 0 is you feel nothing and 10 is a fire is about to burn out of your chest and burn the house down.
Which your scale and how you measure your intensity may be unique to you.
Just make note.
There's no right or wrong way for a sensation to manifest.
Simply for you to know that when you feel those things,
You could know.
Rage is present.
Your little signature markers of your rage.
Unique to you like a fingerprint.
And when you feel like you've really got the sensations down,
You understand where and what and the intensity.
Allow yourself to feel into and focus on them.
And when you feel as if you've gotten the gist of what your anger feels like physically,
Notice anything else that's a little less physical.
Maybe you see an image of this angry part?
Maybe you see certain colors or shapes.
Maybe there's an energy around you.
Like a tense energy,
A blocking.
Powerful energy in the ether around you,
Like a force field.
Maybe you hear it telling you things and it has a certain mantra to it or a certain tone to it.
Again,
No judgement here.
Just noticing your signature manifestation.
Of rage inside of your being.
And before we do anything else.
.
.
Notice how you feel towards this angry part.
Not what you think about it,
Not how you understand it,
None of that.
How do you feel?
Towards this angry part.
Maybe you notice immediately when I say that you hear yourself saying that you don't like it or you wish it would stop or that it doesn't feel good.
Maybe you notice a feeling of powerlessness.
In response to it.
Or hopelessness because there's nothing you feel like you can do with it.
Maybe you like it.
Maybe it energizes you.
And maybe you're curious about it.
Or you feel compassion towards it and how much pain it holds.
Do you resent how it dominates?
Or do you feel as if you depend on it?
Whatever it may be,
Just notice how you feel.
Towards your angry part.
In this present moment.
You have a relationship with this part of you.
And if you feel anything other than some permutation of openness,
Curiosity,
And willingness to get to know it.
Then that's coming from other parts that have been trying to deal with it.
And so we'll kindly.
Non-forcefully.
Ask those other parts to relax back for the rest of our time together so that we can continue to get to know anger.
And so see if they're willing.
And if not,
Then we pivot there.
If those other parts that feel something towards anger do not want to Relax back.
Then I encourage you to follow the rest of what I'm about to offer with those parts.
We're not bypassing anything.
Now,
If you find yourself open and curious and connected and willing to get to know the anger,
Then we'll ask a few questions to get to know it.
Now without searching for the answer,
We'll just wait for it to come.
Now I encourage you to ask the angry part.
How old is it?
Now how long has it been around?
What's its job?
Or its honorable intention for you.
What has it been trying to achieve?
What does it want you to know about what it's been doing for you?
And what does it want you to know about its place in the system?
Does it like its job?
What is it afraid would happen if it didn't show up in the way that it did?
And now you may want to pause the recording and ask these questions again and journal,
And that's okay.
But I want to make note that when we ask these questions,
It is in service of getting to know this part and to really understand it.
The intention here is not to change it.
But to give it the time of day.
To give it the air to breathe because it is so often suppressed.
So often pushed back down.
So often that parts of us feel some types of way towards it.
They push it back down and it just never gets a chance to.
.
.
Scene.
Heard and understood in the way that all of the parts of us deserve.
So if you pause and ask these questions again and explore them further,
Know that That's all we're doing here is just getting to know and allowing anger.
To have a chance to be seen.
And I encourage you now,
After asking all of these questions,
And really hearing what anger has to say.
Pay attention to physical sensations again.
Have they changed?
Have they decreased in intensity?
Have they intensified?
If the intensity has increased,
That's okay.
Sometimes when we pay attention to our parts for the first time,
They increase in intensity because they get so excited to finally be paid attention to.
And they feel like they have to get everything out for fear that they will not ever have someone come back to them again.
So just note.
What now is physically present?
And how.
And I'll ask this question from before.
How do you feel towards the angry part now?
And is how you feel towards it now.
Different than it was a few minutes ago.
Just noticing.
Now ask anger.
What it might need.
Maybe it needs to hear from you that It deserves to be heard.
And it's worth being in the room with.
Despite decades of being told that it deserves otherwise.
And if you find yourself feeling open,
Grateful,
Appreciative.
And feel like you see it in its struggle?
Let it know.
And now we'll ask.
How would your anger like to be expressed?
And I'll offer some options as well on top of what your own part may offer or if your own part doesn't even know what the options are,
I will offer options now.
And I'll offer body and breath-based options.
And community-based options and we'll just we'll explore together and we invite anger to be a part of this exploration and see what lands for it.
So maybe here you find an opportunity for some body-based honoring of the anger.
And then anger is asking to move through you.
To express itself.
Through the body.
And so these somatic practices are imitations.
To honor and nurture the anger and to Gently move its energy.
Rather than alleviate or make it go away or to force energy out.
So as I read through these options,
Notice if anger responds in a way that it wants to engage.
Or wants to engage later.
Or it's not interested in that option at all.
So just notice as I offer these invitations.
That maybe you notice your jaw wants to clench.
And you let it clench without trying to change it.
And then you offer a release of the jaw.
As an invitation for relaxation,
For anger.
And you repeat that cycle.
Or maybe anger wants to move through your hands and it wants to squeeze really hard.
It really wants to clench your hands and you allow them to clench or you allow them to slam a pillow.
And then you release your hands and allow that energy to flow.
And you follow that cycle.
Or maybe anger wants to move through your legs,
And it wants to stomp,
And it wants to jump,
Or it wants to run.
And then you stand still.
And follow that cycle.
Or maybe anger wants to move through your whole body and it wants to shake,
Shake the whole body.
Or it wants to sway.
And then you find stillness.
And notice the energy coursing.
And repeat the cycle.
In these cycles of.
.
.
Movement and stillness of tightness and release.
These are two-year-old timing.
And these cycles can repeat for as long as they need to until you feel complete.
And one last offering for the body.
So we ask anger.
What type of touch?
Does it need?
If it wants or needs touch at all,
What might it need?
And if the body didn't feel like an option for anger,
That's okay.
Maybe it wants to move through your breath and your voice.
A voice that's often suppressed and silenced and not free.
And so if you're interested in trying to move with the breath and voice now and to move through this with me,
I encourage you to sit up if you are lying down so that we can make space for air in the lungs.
Otherwise,
You can just follow along and again,
Invite anger to just notice that there are options here.
So maybe anger wants to move through you through a sigh.
A grunt.
Shouting.
Cussing You can try each and see how anger responds.
And if there's a part that's restraining,
If you find yourself saying,
I really want to scream right now and I can't.
I really want to cuss and I shouldn't.
Just notice that there may be a part that is restraining you from doing that.
Without judgment,
Without trying to change it,
Just notice that it's there.
And we offer rage breath.
There are two different breathing techniques.
And one is lion's breath,
And I will guide it.
But lion's breath It is kind of goofy looking and so it's really wonderful.
For putting self-consciousness aside and when you need to speak up,
Right,
To use the voice in certain situations but find yourself shying away.
For the really confidence making because it can look so silly.
So lion's breath starts with a big opening of the mouth and the tongue hanging out.
So when we inhale We take in breath and when we exhale,
We open the mouth wide,
We stick out the tongue,
And we let all that breath out pretty strongly.
Pretty courageously.
I'm not going to say forcefully,
But pretty courageously.
And so we inhale.
When you open the mouth,
Stick the tongue out.
Exhale.
And it can just be the breath or it can be sound.
We can inhale.
Stick out the tongue,
Open the mouth,
And really let out some sound.
Ah.
An either option is available.
And we'll practice three.
We'll practice three rounds of that.
So each round is an inhale.
All the way deep down into the belly.
An opening wide of the mouth,
A sticking out of the tongue in the exhale,
So.
3 rounds.
We find stillness after three rounds and check in with anger and see if anything's changed.
And so that's one imitation for breath,
For anger to move its energy.
The other opportunity for breath is horse breath,
Or if you've ever heard of fluttering your lips or blowing a raspberry.
It's that type of breath.
And it's less fiery and confidence making,
But it's still an opportunity to move breath and make sound.
And it's something that horses do to down regulate and it works for us too.
So we still get to make sound,
We still get to take up space,
We still get to move a lot of breath and move energy.
But in a more down-regulating,
Calming way compared to lion's breath,
Which is more activating.
And so in the way that you know a horse to flutter its lips when it makes that sound,
We will do that on our exhale.
So it's an inhale,
Big,
Big,
Big inhale.
And the exhale is through a fluttering of the lips.
As long as you are able to keep it going.
And we'll do three rounds of that just to practice if you're interested.
And then we'll check in with anger in the body.
And so we'll inhale all the way deep into the belly.
Exhale,
Flutter the lips.
And then we'll check in on anger again.
Once we find stillness.
And bring our breath back to its natural pattern of breathing.
And so we've offered so far an opportunity for anger to be expressed through the body,
Through the voice,
Through breath.
And now we offer.
How might anger or rage want to be expressed in the presence of community.
So anger bridges the gap between what is and what ought to be.
It's a forward-looking emotion.
It's rooted in the idea that there should be change.
It invokes the possibility of change.
And so we ask.
What does your anger want you to do?
How might it want you to bridge this gap?
We're meant to be in community,
To share resources,
To support and be supported by others.
And so I'll offer some options,
But before I do,
Send a gentle inquiry to your part.
And ask how might it want you to connect.
Or make change.
Or be expressed in your community.
And not my offerings and these are only a small,
A small selection and might want to make a donation.
Or have some public creative outlet to make art and share it publicly.
It may want to be able to tell someone that you feel safe with that you're angry.
Or start testing the way that you show up with people.
Maybe it wants to write a letter to your congressperson.
Or get involved in some other way.
And activism in your local community.
Maybe it wants to pick up a sport.
And find community and body competence and an outlet for its energy and build self-esteem through playing a team sport.
Or maybe there are other small acts of resistance.
That feel possible in your community.
In the life that you are.
And we've been on quite a journey here.
A journey of inquiry.
A journey through the body.
A journey through action.
And before we come to a close,
I invite you to turn inward towards anger one more time.
And again,
Notice.
Its sensation.
And its intensity.
Is it different than before?
Are the same.
Again,
No judgment.
And if it feels possible for you.
Thank it for being present.
Thank you for doing what it does.
And offer a gratitude.
For taking on a much needed role in our systems.
And if it feels right to you.
You can also let it know that you will be back.
And then you can continue to strengthen your relationship with it.
In the future.
And as we move our way back to the external world from being internal for so long,
Just begin to notice.
The sensation of the surface beneath you.
And the weight of the body.
Resting into that surface.
To If you found stillness again,
Gently wiggle fingers and toes.
To move your head side to side.
To maybe reach up in both directions,
Out with the hands and out with the feet for a big stretch.
And to bring the hands together,
This is my favorite way to open the eyes again,
To bring the hands together and rub them together and create that heat.
Just like our anger often creates that heat,
Create that heat rubbing them together between our hands and bring the palms of the hands in front of the eyes.
And feel the warmth from the hands emanate into the eyes and cheeks.
And when you're ready to slowly begin to blink,
The eyes gently open behind the palms to let a little bit of light in.
And when you're ready,
Slowly take the hands down and come back to your waking present.
