Getting To Know My Anger
You got angry in the last exercise and felt some of the anger without harming yourself or others. Well done!
Today, I want you to become aware of the people that have angered you during your grief journey.
Example: I am angry at my husband for not understanding my grief and telling me that it’s time to get over it and get on with my life.
This exercise is not to punish or judge those that have angered you, it is to become aware of those that may have been unavailable to you and how it made you feel angry and neglected. When we are grieving, often we want people to be loving and supportive, but sometimes those around us just can’t offer that kind of support and this angers us.
Remember, all you are doing is getting to know those that have angered you and how that makes you feel on the inside. This is NOT about judging others; it is an awareness exercise.
Let the anger that is living inside you, have a voice. Internalising anger causes “dis-ease” and can result in disease.
Remember, this is an awareness exercise only. You won’t be calling those that have angered you or those that have been unavailable to you after this exercise. What you will be doing is gaining awareness of the pain that has been caused by those that haven’t been able to support you on your grief journey.
Not everyone can give us what we need when we are grieving the loss of our mother. Even though this hurts we need to accept that this is part of the grieving journey for many of us.
Ultimately, we want to connect and feel loved by those around us when we are in pain, but this isn’t always our reality. Remember we are witnessing the anger through the eyes of awareness.
I hope that some of you begin to have compassion for those that haven’t been able to be there for you and realise that they didn’t intentionally hurt you, they just didn’t know how to help you.
awareness is the key to understanding
Forgiveness (optional exercise)
For those of you that want to take this one step further, you could consider the forgiveness statement below. This is a beautiful way of forgiving those that weren’t able to be there for you. If you do use the forgiveness statement make sure you write each person you forgive in your journal.
Forgiveness Statement
………….(name)……………… I forgive you for not being what I wanted, needed and expected you to be for me. I forgive you for things you did to me, real and imagined, conscious and unconscious, in this lifetime and others. I release myself from any toxic energy attached to the past and I am ready to embrace today empowered by LOVE.
For those who are really close to you, you may wish to add the following:
And I ask for your forgiveness for not being the person you wanted, needed and expected me to be for you. And for the things I did, real and imagined, conscious and unconscious, in this lifetime and others. Very significantly, I need to offer forgiveness to myself.
Feel free to add to the bottom of your forgiveness statement anything that you wish to say to the person you are forgiving.
