How Do I Release Repressed Anger?

[Fluff]

Really need some sound advice on this.

I have huge problem with procrastination and with physical laziness.
I let the house get into a mess and I just CAN'T seem to tidy it up. I know it sounds ridiculous but it's a real problem. I've tried all the usual advice and none of it works as I am just temporarily winning over the symptom rather than tackling the cause and that never lasts for long.

It could not be any hard for me to tidy my living room if I was surrounded on all side by brick wall and could not escape...that is how real the resistance feels like a wall of energy stopping me from physically getting moving. It's not even just tidying the house, it's moving physically in general, even though there is nothing physically wrong with me and I am not depressed.

I have come to understand that at the base of this problem is repressed anger. I have a lot of anger from things that happened years ago, possibly from when I was a toddler and I do believe somehow it is this repressed anger that is manifesting itslef by blocking me and making me feel illogically rebellious against doing things that must be done.

Can you help me? I need to tackle this as it could ruin my life if I am not careful[&:]

 

[Burchell]

Do you uise EFT? If not have a look at www.emofree.com
Regards
Sharon

 

[peekaboo]

Hiya,

Think I can empathise with you. Cannot really answer your query but would be interested to watch this post. I have little energy and the surroundings get in a mess, never thought of it being suppressed anger, but I wonder if its a case of energies used to hold so much in, thats where the energies go, and have nothing left for daily chores.

 

[dczezjsz]

I will look further into the EFT site...thankyou for that.

Fleur I've been working on myself for a long time and I have realisations about vaious aspects of my behaviour or thinking and that is always the first step in resolving it.

This realisation has been brewing for a week and I firmly believe it is repressed anger, a rebellion against someone or something I had to obey years ago, a long held resentment. I am determined to get to the bottom of it.

I've always been fairly lazy but it's really affecting my life now. I have practically kicked myself up my own backside many times for being so lazy but it does no good.

I have now realised it's just not a case of being lazy. Calling this laziness like someone who is severely depressed being called 'a bit down'. It goes much deeper than that.

Many years ago a drama teacher had us acting out play fights with sticks and he said 'I have to supervise you all closely because role play like this can bring out a lot of anger, for instance, I think *Julie has a lot of repressed anger'. I was so shocked as he meant ME!!!!

I have always been very calm and placid and when I was younger not felt the right to show my deepest most upset feelings, like I had no right to , I should just take it on the chin and get on with it. Some of the situations where I've never shown outward anger are truly remarkable when I look back.

For years I had severe depression (thought I never knew it was depression, I just thought I was a nasty negative person and why could I not be normal like everyone else?'.

That seems to have abated but now I am aware of this laziness problem and won't make the same mistake again of beating myself and blaming myself when in actual fact I need help.

 

[Maru Ramos]

I have recognised myself in some of your words.
Can I ask you a question?

I'd like to ask what it is you want?
Not what you think you *should* want / do / achieve / feel but what YOU want.

I know you can overcome this

How does having an untidy living space affect you? Perhaps it doesn't affect you at all, but society tells you it should......................

Amethyst x

 

[Abdullah]

Oh, and could you consider taking some Holly bach flower remedy for a while? This one helps with anger.

 

[xenic]

Helly Amethyst Cave,

It's that feeling of 'stuckness' within me that results in procrastination, jobs not being done, rooms not being tided etc that I need to clear.

There are things I simply MUST do like look for job. My money is running out like water down a drain. Everyday I say 'I will look tomorrow' and then tomorrow comes and I feel stuck and I leave it till tomorrow again and before I realise it months have gone by.

I want to feel free and flowing. I do want a lovely tidy space to live in. I hate mess and untidyness as it clutter my thinking, I dread people calling round for a cup of tea because of the mess, I can't find stuff so I end up breaking things and then having to fork out money for a replacement etc.

I feel an untidy house does not reflect me as I love order and tidiness and abhor clutter.

I feel fortunate that it is just untidyness and not to the levels of peoples houses on How Clean Is Your House!!

My house is very dusty and untidy but not dirty as such, the toilet is always clean the beds are changed but it seems to be stuff gathering and gathering on the floor and multiplying and once that happends it all goes to pot.

So I want get rid of this resistance within me so my house is always presentable and tidy and I don't have a monumental internal battle for weeks on end before making phone call or sorting something out.

I'm currently getting a lot of frustration bubbling up but seeing this as a good thing and and hitting and thumping pillows and it is helping, though rather frightening as the anger just keeps coming and coming and the only reason I have to stop hitting the pillow is because my puny little arms cant physically take it!!!

I believe in myself 100%. I know I am a capable and intelligent person. I know I can achieve great things. I feel this is the only thing stopping me achieving my full potential so it has to be dealt with.

 

[mesumdude]

I will get some of the flower remedy by they way...

 

[Jeff Lewis]

well folks I am in the midst of starting to clean up...again.

I've got to that state where I am in such a pique of anger I have to do it.

I've realised each time I clean up it's becuase it's just got tothat point where I littrally cannot take NOT doing any more, I am so frustrated and angry and end up taking it out on the housework.

This is obviously better than never doing it and getting to the Kim and Aggie stage but it isn't a very good system.

I don't want to have to wait until the ange becomes painful before I do it. It gets to the point where I feel so angry I could pick up everything that is in the mess, or in my way, whether valuable or not, and throw it in a skip just to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Anyway...I will carry on...living roomto finish.. kitchen to tackle....aaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh

 

[six]

To recap; this is what I am hearing from you as your 'wishlist': (and please correct me if I am wrong)

i) I would like to look for a job
ii) I want to feel free and flowing.
iii) I want a lovely tidy space to live in.

Would you like to share what each of those three things would look like once you had achieved them?

you're doing great with the pillow punching btw - go you!

A x

 

[school]

I guess they are all basically the same thing - movement, freedom , a feeling of pride, of progress and...yes..I never thought of this before...of nothing to hide!!!!!

I feel ashamed I haven't got a job at the moment. I feel ashamed if people come and I have to shut the door on various rooms. I feel ashamed that I have these internal battles to do even the simplest task like right the electric company to query my bill etc... for years I had that problem with the phone as I had a bad stammer but that has now gone so it's no excuse.

also, having a job will mean freedom from worrying about my money going down.

I guess it's STUCK that I'm feeling.

Whilst I was vacuuming (I only have one bedroom and the kitchen to do!!!!!) alot of things were going through my head,

I'm wondering if anger and resentement from my past are manifesting in this particular way because of my particular issues with my mother as a young child and teenager.

One of the BIG bones of contention was housework. My mother was a domineering woman, of granma age, and I had to do alot of housework from a fairly young age,,, round about 10, more than the average teenager of the seventies.

As time went on it got worse as she became ill and in a wheelchair so the main burden of keeping the house clean was down to me.

I did have a happy teenage life and freedom to go out with my mates etc but I also had a lot of anger had having to stay in and clean up at times when my friends were out in the sunshine or of not being able to join them till I had this chore or that chore done.

I often felt like cinderella when I was teenager and very hard done by and remember really basihng stuff about when I had to clean up as I was so angry....ring a bell???

It wasn't just the housework I had to do ...I had to do pretty much anything my mother told me I had to do and was never allowed an opinion.

When I left home out of the blue long before I was ready at 17 it was initially sparked over a row over....housework!

My fiance came on a sunny morning and he asked me to go for a walk. We went for a walk and came back and one of my domineering aunts went mad because I had left 'a sinkful of dishes'. It was the last straw and my boyfriend said he was sick of me always being got at and nagged at and he told my mother he was leaving and taking me with him because he'was sick of seeing me treated like an unpaid skivvy.

Perhaps this is relevant....

 

[Fertility Q]

It sounds like you unearthed some very powerful memories and feelings there, queensmeadgirl

You're doing so well getting to the bottom of this, which, only a few posts ago went something along the lines of:

"I've tried all the usual advice and none of it works as I am just temporarily winning over the symptom rather than tackling the cause and that never lasts for long."

So it would appear, if I am undestanding you correctly, the cause appears to be alot of anger around having to stay in and clean up at times when your friends were out in the sunshine.

As a child and teenager you had to do what you were told and you were never allowed an opinion.

Teenagers are naturally pretty opinionated people, so all of this 'youness' was pushed inside. It's no wonder you are feeling repressed. I guess I'd be feeling pretty mad too.

I'm seeing a perfectly logical pattern here - your resistance to do housework as an adult in your own right is becuase you CAN There is no domineering mother or aunt telling you to clean the dishes or tell you what to do.

The situation you find yourself in now, however, that is causing you distress, is that this illogical rebellious behaviour no longer serves you and you would like to change it. yes?

Well, the good news is that you CAN change it. You can become whomever you choose and you can lead your life in anyway you wish to. You are answerable to no-one but yourself. You have seen the root of your repressed anger and you can release it so that you have nothing to hide. You can choose to show your sparkling, beautiful, Divine self to the world.

Going back to your feelings of being ashamed. You are ashamed that you don't have a job. You are ashamed that you have to shut the doors on your muddles. You are ashamed of the internal battles preventing you from doing the simplest tasks.

I wonder if you could spare yourself a few minutes this evening to explore something. Could you sit with yourself , breathe and just ask the part of you that feels ashamed to step forward. You can do just that if you wish. If you wish to play further then sense what age that part of you is and ask her what she needs. Talk to her with an open mind and an open heart - there is no judgement here, no resistence as *you* will not condem or berate anything that comes up, no matter how simple / crazy / complex it appears to be.

Can I ask if your fiance did, in fact, take you away from being an unpaid skivvy? Is there something there that you could be angry about as well?

Amethyst x

 

[Iamkindacool]

Thankyou for being so very helpful and taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it.

I wil do that exercise in a second...re my fiance well, yes, he did look after me, he was my security and he certainly didn't treat me like an unpaid skivvy, if anything he did most of what had to be done inculding the shopping and cooking. I think through my time with him I was allowed just to be 'young' and not have to do it if I didn't want to which was a direct opposite of what happened with my mother. I had terrible depression but never realised, as I said, I had no sex drive whatsoever and though we lived together for five years we never had sex. I would try the patience of a saint with all that so in the end he got fed up of it and went off with someone else...obviously this was hearbreaking but deep down I knew I was not in love with him.

He was very loving to me but fo many years I didn't know how to accept or appreciate someone spoiling me or being nice to me as I'd not had much of that from my mother. It wasn't all doom and gloom! I had lovely young aunties who did a lot for me and my confidence, nice friends and a lovely boyfriend through high school but I think the main infulences on how I felt about myself and how I developed were those from my mother.

I used to be a big Agatha Christie fan and one day my fiance took me shopping for a book. I couldn't decide which one to have so he bought me all of them.....18 in total...wasn't that a lovely thing to do?

I will do that exercise now..

 

[Hsdhd Sdhshd]

well I just did it..very interesting.

I closed my eyes and immediately seemed to be looking at myself aged 14. Interesting as I consider around that time to be one of my very happiest times as was exceptionally happy at school and with my boyfriend - this is a different boyfriend, not the one who later became the fiance.

But I could feel no anger nor shame so I took myself younger and younger and the feelings of unease began at about age 11 going back to about 4.

I thought of the sexual abuse I had experienced at the hands of my uncle. It made me feel ashamed and dirty, as you would expect. Then I felt what was at the bottom of that and it was anger.

But I've had a huge surprise and an entirely new thought - I was NOT angry at the sexual abuse!!!

I was angry that I was not allowed to speak out and when I did work up courage to speak out to my mother she told me off because he would 'get in trouble with the police if they heard me saying things like that'. I was about 11 at the time and remember feeling devastated.

There was just this pervading feeling in my early years of not being allowed to speak, to shut up, to stop crying, to not being allowed to express an opinion, to not being allowed to every say NO!!It's that that makes me angry and the feelings of shame seem to come from me being complicit in that silent conspiracy.

During the exercise I felt I was a 5 year old girl and I got her to say outloud, several times "James Fellows (not my uncle's real name) sexually abused me".

Then I just let her express herself and say how she felt and it came out ' I do have the right to speak out, to make my voice heard, to show I'm upset, to cry, to say no, to have point of view, to not be made to do things that are not reasonable or are damaging to me. Just because I am 5 years old I have just as much right as you do and you have no right to force me to keep quiet, cover up and comply with what you want'.

I'm feeling some very strong feeling come up here...I don't know where this is leading with the housework as I'm in the thick of it at the moment...it probably seems blindingly obvious..

I never knew I was angry at not being allowed to show my emotions rather than the abuse itself, or I suppose, rather than being angry at having to do the housework when I was younger, I was angry that I did not have the right to protest which is why I took it out on the sweeping brush and various passive aggressive behaviour like pulling the petals of my mothers treasured roses....

Is this making sense???

 

[danman]

Wowee hon, I am *celebrating* with you here - you have played wonderfully this afternoon
Well done you and I hope you are feeling pleased with yourself?

I don't think it is important at this stage, necessarily to try and 'figure out' what this has to do with housework. Doing stuff like this is a little like exercise - you need your rest days.

So for now, I would seriously celebrate your achievment today - wrap yourself up in a big hug (along with your 14, 11 and 5 year old) and just *know* that you have started a process.

Right now I would just live your life for a few days, without judegment, just as an observer whenever possible and trust that the next answers / questions / outworking will find you.
Maybe in your dreams, something someone says to you, a newspaper article or the words of a song. it doesn't matter how the message gets to you but it will.

If you *want* to tackle housework, you might like to play with the idea that you can take your 5 year along with you for a hoover
5 years olds LOVE to help when you turn it into a game and let them do what they want, for how long or short they want.
My daughter at that age liked to pretend to hoover and most of all she liked a squirty bottle with some essential oils in and a cloth to clean the table and cupboards - maybe ask your 5 year old what she would like to do while you tidy up one tiny area of your home.

Maybe find just ONE (don't go into overwhelm here with a massive list of 'must do's) task you would like to achieve and spend only 5 minutes (or 3 or 1) taking one small action towards it.

You can literally go to a pile of stuff and sort just ONE thing from the top of it if you want to. Then stop, give youself a hug and know that the process of choosing to live the life you wish to live is working..............
The secret is not to burn yourself out

A x

 

[Levi K]

Haha...burning myself out isn't a likely danger!!!!

I will do as you say and let the process unfold...I think 'force' here is counterproductive as it's likely to make me dig my heels in harder as we've seen.

People talk about arrested development and delayed reaction..I think I'm the queen of that stuff...I love a new insight though and that's what you've led me to today so THANKYOU AMETHYST CAVE - I will keep you posted.

Just to let you know, my home is like a little palaceas we speak, the bedroom smells of lavender, the kitchen smells of apples and the living room smells of sandal wood...and I bet NO ONE comes!!!

 

[Free Leanding]

i guess I meant on all levels - emotional and mental as well as the physical



yup - that's why it's good to tread lightly; to let that part of you that resists have some space and time out.

I'm glad this has been helpful and that your home smells so wonderful - it sounds awesome there right now.
Smell can be so uplifting, so perhaps that is something to remember if you feel despondant again - perhaps a sniff of sandalwood will remind you how you are feeling now and would help shift your state?

Anyway, keep me posted on your progress either here or through PM. Becuase I *know* it is only PROGRESS from now on

have a wonder-full evening
Amethyst x

 

[nghwjpti]

Well I've had to come back on to report my latest 'flash' so to speak!!

I am rebelling and sticking my middle finger at my mother (and possibly other people) who made me do so much I didn't want to and wouldn't let me disagree or protest - that's a lot of rebellion when it spans years and years as you can imgaine!

So I'm sticking my finger up and digging my heels in thinking 'I'm not bloody doing any housework because, (as you say AmethystCave..I DON'T HAVE TO!!!!'

So I leave it and leave and leave it. I would probably get left and left and NEVER get done if I wasn't a person who secretly liked to be clean and tidy and have lots of nice empty space to move around in.

This is where my rebellion gets scuppered because the rebellious angry teenager is now up against the clean tidy organised 'me' that loves order and cleanliness.

But somehow the teenager feels she's giving in to pressue and being made to do it all over again if she starts to do the housework and she is not going down THAT road again....but it's causing pain and misery to the me who just wants to be clean and tidy, so we have a pull in both directions like tug of war with neither side wanting to give in.


**I think THAT is where this feeling of a wall of energy comes in - it is literal energy being produced from this conflict and it grows and grows with the mess and teenager gets more determined and tidy me gets more sick of the mess!!

Luckily for my own environmental health I only have certain threshold down to which I can stoop regarding the mess...and eventually I just have to start cleaning...but now that side of me has 'won' the teenage has lost AGAIN and she is mad...REAL MAD..which is showing itself in much chucking round of the vacuum cleaner ( I have broken more than a few like this) chucking stuff out without checking it and slamming doors and drawers whenever possible).

But once the work is done and the house is clean and sparkly and smells lovely...what do I feel??? Do I feel angry becaue I gave in?? NO- it feels terrific!! Now my line of thought is always ' I love the house like this! I'm going to keep it like this! It's so easy if you keep on top of it day by day! I don't know why I make such a fuss! I don't know why I let it get so bad!'

Then gradually it seems to pile up without me noticing and before I know it the resistance is building up and sulky teenager is out in full force.

I think there is a resloution on the way and this is another step...

 

[Miciosync]

It makes me wonder if I hadn't been forced to clean so much would I just be a 'naturally tidy person'???

 

[Allan C]

I've just remembered something...I remember when I was younger my mother used to often get up at six in the morning, get on her hands and knees in the kitchen and scrub the lino.

I remember promising myself I would never EVER be getting on my hands and and knees to clean no floor, at the crack of dawn or any other time.

Years later she was in a wheelchair with really badly swollen knees and legs, I think she had rehumatoid arthritis.

As well as often scrubbing the kitchen floor on her hands and knees she used to kneel in the garden alot on the damp soil to do the weeding.

She said that all that kneeling, especially in the damp, is what she thought caused her to end up with bad knees and eventually in a wheelchair...