I had an angry father. I grew up into an angry daughter. I married a passive man who felt safe. Instead of yelling, he freezed out, like my mother did.
As a child, I was quiet. I tried to be good, to be loved, but never quite felt it. As a teenager, hormones and unprocessed pain spilled out of me in nearly every interaction. A few people met me with softness and saw beneath the attitude and melancholy; a hurting little girl who never learned how to feel pain in a healthy way. For much of my life, I was unhappy, searching for someone or something to take the pain away.
I grew up in my body, but not in my emotions. I focused on “the enemy,” shamed for not fighting what i thought was sin hard enough.
Later, I learned about trauma and how it reshapes the brain. I began to see the many ways trauma lived in my family of origin. I committed myself to healing, for me and for my children, determined to pass down empathy, emotional safety, and healthy communication.
Through years of inner work and tears that went unfelt for decades, I came to understand that anger is not an enemy to defeat. It is a signal. A messenger asking to be felt.
When anger rises, I feel tightness in my chest near my heart and a heavy pit in my throat. My breath quickens. My heart races. When I pause and name these sensations out loud, my body softens. Often, I cry. My nervous system releasing what it no longer needs.
I once hated crying. It felt shameful and unsafe because of how tears were treated when I was young. Now, when I hold space for my children’s emotions, I am also holding space for the child in me who was not heard. I listen and gently say, “I am here. Where do you feel this in your body? It will pass.”
In learning to hold space for my children’s emotions, I learned how to heal my own.