When I first contacted my rage it was pointed out to me that I was smiling as I spoke angrily. Smiling! We have all been taught from early childhood to channel or mask rage in ways it doesn’t naturally want to, in order to toe the denial line.

What broke me open into a more pure expression was when I got into the woods, deep enough where I felt safe that I wouldn’t be heard. I started to let my triggered rage move through my body by taking fallen limbs and swinging them like baseball bats against dead trees. Eventually I contacted primal desire to express sound by doing this. In the woods I also let myself jump up and down and stamp around, and that also helped me contact my sound, swinging my arms sharply up and down. In other words, I let myself “throw a tantrum” to use the terminology our elders used disparagingly growing up.

Nowadays I realize that “throwing tantrums” is a marvelous way of expressing primal rage. Body will communicate quite clearly how it really wants to express, if we let it. Any forceful, yang, physical movement can activate deep release. Indoors I throw clothes around the room, stuffed animals - things that won’t break – although sometimes anger wants to smash breakable things. Throwing old crockery against a wall when triggered could satisfy this urge. It’s important to intend to allow your sound to come up once your body is in motion (smashing, pillow-punching, stamping).

The moment of “impact” can be a great time to allow a short or long shout. If it comes naturally, let the emotion take over and become screaming, even if you’re scared about losing control. If judgments swim up that say you’ll never recover, make sure to release them when your sound dies back…during these times, judgments can be released more easily.

Even in more densely settled environments, it is possible to find safe places to express. Spending time in parked cars at the edges of empty parking lots with the windows rolled up even on hot days, slamming towels off the dashboard and hitting the steering wheel with open palms can work well in cities. This works when no other safe space is available. Once the sound starts to come forth, no matter what you have to do to get it going, it gets easier, and over time, subconscious, kneejerk control over expression in sound begins to loosen.

Our subconscious fear of repercussions for moving rage in sound has got a vice-grip on its organic expression. Focus on releasing judgments of what will happen to you or how you are (”bad”, say the internalized judgments) if you allow loud brash sound to come out when you are angry, and start expressing the fear inhibiting the rage. Fear can express in sound too, and it’s just as important as anger to allow in its pure expression - they have a symbiotic relationship and can often be holding one another back. Fear can express sometimes in keening wails, in teeth-chattering weird noises that vary in pitch, in short clipped barks (that often emerge from allowing teeth to chatter) to sudden yells of pure anguished terror.

Crying can come before or after anger or fear expression. Tears coming after release are golden, because they are only accessible once the rage/terror sitting on top of them shifts. These “underneath” tears connect you to your deepest denials and can bring the most profound healing. Sometimes, anger will express in tears as well, and that should be allowed also.