I don't want to release my anger!

The Question
"My daughter at 24 has a chronic 'mental illness' with a severe eating disorder... in and out of hospital every couple of months with no desire to get well. I have tried to help her and have made agreements with her that she has broken. . Her behaviour has been manipulative, lying, cheating, secretive, and very hurtful.
I find myself rageful that I have allowed myself to become totally exhausted mentally & physically with financial difficulties, turning myself inside out, trying to help her, thinking my efforts could change the situation, but, she doesn’t want to help herself. She is addicted.
I even I lost my job and looked after her 24/7 for 6 weeks while waiting for a supported care place to become available. I could not leave her for even 1/2 hr.
I have been doing the welcoming of the anger, exploring what comes up, and find I don't want to release it, I am still so incredibly angry and I don't want to be in touch with her at all. I know the anger is damaging. I need some advice please.”

Alice's Response
It's very understandable that you are resistant to releasing the anger. This is a difficult situation which would press anyone's buttons.

It’s important to remember that the fiercely angry feelings you are experiencing come from programs from your own past, from the traumas of your own childhood, they are not actually caused by the situation that triggers them. The good thing is that when the feelings are triggered that’s your chance to release those past programs.

Remember also that what you are doing is releasing the power of the anger to control you, and your wanting to control the anger. This is how you become free of the power these old programs have over you. You can just let the anger be, allow it, welcome it, and it will simply pass through. Allowing yourself to have the anger, allowing the anger pass through, is different from 'being angry'. In other words you let go of identifying with the anger as who you are.

Anger is damaging, as you said, however trying to stop it or control it and make it go away or judging ourselves for having it are also damaging. All efforts to change our feelings are limiting to us. By allowing our feelings we are not giving them more power but actually less.

You could welcome all the layers of feelings that are arising. In your ragefulness about having let yourself become so affected by this, can you hear that there is judgment of yourself? You could welcome that judgment too. Just welcome each layer of feeling as it arises. Everything that is arising can be welcomed and you could let it go.

Is there also some fear that is lurking under the anger? Often we fear letting anger go because we believe that we will become powerless without it. Anger is a very limited way to have power. When we allow our anger and fear and all the other lower order emotions to arise and subside, we gain access to our higher energies and when we act from those we serve ourselves, others and the situation much better.

Don’t look for instant results. Consider each time that you release that you are making an uplifting choice that is much more beneficial than getting caught in the usual turmoil of churning thoughts and feelings. It’s worth persisting. This is also the most loving thing that you can do for your daughter. It is not necessary that you force yourself to be in touch with her. Allow your feelings to run their course and dissipate themselves, by welcoming and releasing. The energy to contact her will arise at the right time. You could hold the intention to do whatever best serves the situation and trust yourself to do that, while keeping your focus on releasing the feelings as your current action.

Releasing your heavy emotions around this situation will serve you and your daughter and your relationship. There is no danger in it. Releasing is never dangerous, although because we are so used to suppressing and holding on, it feels as though it might be.

Remember the dropping of the pen. You really can drop any emotion like that. Feel that sense of dropping it inside and keep doing it over and over. Sometimes the results are immediate and sometimes they are felt hours later or the next day.

What are the origins of “misbehaviour”?
Also you might explore the idea that all misbehaviour has its origins in the person's past and how their brain has been affected. It is about them not about you. Perhaps because it is so hard for you to understand how your much loved child could have sufficient reasons to behave in these awful ways, you can't accept or forgive her behaviour.

When you behave "badly", can you sense that there is a reason underneath, even if you don't know what it is? Do you sense that there is an explanation in your past experience? Even with our own children, we don't know all of their experience, we don't even know that she wasn't born with some brain lesion.

My studies in this area have led me to see all human misbehaviour as the result of neurological programs reflecting our past - and that could include physical differences in the brain that we not aware of, as well as emotional experience, and past lives even. Certainly the evidence is that people's behaviour is rooted in their past.

This is not to say that you should forgive her or should do anything different. None of this is about shoulds. Just that it might be easier to respond to the situation in the most helpful way all round, if you can see it with understanding and the sense that no-one is to blame. The less we feel angry and blaming the stronger we can be in setting up appropriate boundaries. However we become less angry and blaming by allowing our feelings and letting them release, not by denying or suppressing them.

Not blaming also does not mean exposing ourselves to attack or danger. We don't blame a fierce animal but we do make sure we are not in danger of attack. Your ability to make detached decisions about what to do will be greatly strengthened by releasing. Your decisions will also be more heart centred. It's paradoxical perhaps, but that is definitely what happens. So there's no downside to it. There really is only gain from releasing.

I hope this helps you to release.

warm regards, Alice