We are socially conditioned to believe that it's a very 'wrong' emotion. That if we get angry, we're not very evolved, civilised or enlightened. And so, we're often encouraged to "forgive and forget' , "let it go" and just "chill out" and "get over it" 

But if we don't give anger the acknowledgement and respect it deserves - we are doing ourselves and society a great deal of harm.

Anger is a valid, and entirely appropriate feeling to have when we are mistreated, abused, disrespected or our boundaries violated in someway.

It's a very powerful, hard-wired survival emotion that gives us the determination, motivation and strength to protect ourselves and those we care about. 

So when we were brought up in an environment that was harsh, abusive, dismissive and neglectful, it would have been biologically unavoidable to experience anger. But in these kind of conditions - it was probably very dangerous to express how we felt. 

Many of the people I work with were given the message that anger was just not acceptable - that to show anger was disrespectful, rude and totally inappropriate.

Expressing anger in any form would have probably resulted in more abuse, rejection or humiliation. 

So what do we do when anger isn't allowed? What do we do with all this powerful energy that's building up inside of us?

We either suppress it - pushing it down, turning it in on ourselves. We tell ourselves that it's our fault we are angry - that we have done something wrong - that there is something very wrong with us at our core.  

Or we repress it - not even allowing it to surface into our conscious awareness - shutting down our emotions at a brain level.

Or it leaks out - like an overflowing sewage pipe - infecting our lives and those around us in subtle, unpleasant ways. 

Or we direct it at others who had nothing to do with the original perpetration. 

Suppressed anger energy doesn't just disappear - it continues to circulate in our system, fuelling a whole host of apparently unrelated problems. Anger often underlies other difficult emotions such as anxiety and shame. And when it's turned inwards onto ourselves, it causes chronic, unrelenting depression.

When it's repressed, the same brain mechanisms also repress other emotions - joy, enthusiasm, passion, hope, excitement - resulting in a flat, colourless existence.

And when it's projected, well look around you - the extent of the violence in the world today is evidence of the effects of mis-directed anger. The mass school shootings, the murders, rapes, assaults, racist attacks and general hostility towards vulnerable targets.

Some researchers believe that Hitler's atrocities were actually a result of repressed anger towards his parents.

And the effects are not just psychological - there are countless studies that link unexpressed anger to the onset of diseases such as cancer, and heart-disease.

I think you get the picture - we need to express our anger or we're pretty much doomed.

So where do we start?