How unexpressed anger and fear mute our authentic desire.
We often talk about lack of desire like it is a mental problem. We say get a vision board, list your goals, find your voice. Well, it is to a small degree, but it’s more complex than that.
For most people this is not the problem, they can do all of these. The issue is their body doesn’t feel safe to ask for what they want. This is a somatic issue.
For decades many people suffer their boundaries being trod on, told that to want is selfish, keep people happy, ‘keep the peace’. We swallow our anger and become afraid to speak out loud what we are afraid of. For some of us our brain develops a crazy logic that if we speak our fears, they will come true. Over time the body adapts and it physically creates an armour so we cannot get hurt. It creates an armour around the heart to protect it.
If you feel resentful of others for what they want and receive or achieve or if you feel completely disconnected from your own desire, the last thing you actually need is another strategy session. You need to understand what your body has been holding onto to keep you safe.
Digital art Kellie Stirling - Woman wistfully looking out the window, her armour is protecting her heart and it is also keeping her from reaching out for exactly what she wants.
Why does the heart armour up?
Well it does this to protect our heart physically but also it does it to protect us emotionally, from our heart being broken.
When you were younger asking for what you want may have brought with it rejection, conflict or shame. Saying ‘no’ might have come with anger, withdrawal or punishment. Armouring of the heart may feel like a tight chest, clenched jaw, tight throat, tense shoulders and shallow breathing. Sometimes people feel it as anxiety because there is so much repressed resentment, fear and anger.
One of my old teachers used to say resentment is unexpressed desire. When your heart is armoured up because you have stopped expressing your desires they don’t go away. The bury themselves deep in your unconscious. When that buried desire meets someone who lives freely and is doing what we want, it ferments and bubbles up as resentment. Clients often tell me with resentment they feel both frustrated and angry.
It is easy to label resentment in people as bitter, selfish and bad, but actually it is a beacon of light. Because what it is telling you about are the hidden wishes and desires that you buried a long time ago that someone else is now receiving.
When you feel resentment for a friend who is taking time out for themselves, your body is saying to you I want a rest too.
When you resent a colleague who asked for a pay raise and they receive it, your body is saying to you, I want my worth to be seen also.
When you experience a flash of bitterness for someone who is simply enjoying themselves your body is saying, why do I have to keep holding it all together.
Resentment and jealousy give you a very clear map of what it is you desire.
To open your heart and find your own voice you cannot skip over anger. Many women especially were taught that anger is dangerous, destructive and unrefined. They smother it over with guilt, anxiety and passive accommodation of others needs.
Anger, somatically, is very important for us body, mind and soul because it expresses our boundaries and it is the energy of self-advocacy. It is the very clean intelligence spoken from the body that say ‘this is where I end and you begin” and “This is what is okay and not okay for me’.
When you cannot express a clear no your body doesn’t know how to say a clear yes. If your body doesn’t trust you to express your boundary, to speak the no, it will never feel safe enough to give you the green light to step into the open hearted, vulnerable expression of what you desire.
Often we are also working with shame. Most people feel immense shame when they experience envy toward a friend, their own children or a colleague. Like I said at the start, this is complex.
The work to do is being able to feel the sensations in your body of the things mentioned here. The tight jaw and shoulders, acknowledge the protection, say to your body ‘thankyou for keeping me safe’. When I work with clients I always work on boundaries and desire at the same time through different exercises. They are the opposite sides of a coin. Then we start to develop greater capacity in your body for anger and fear, so you have more space to feel these very normal humour emotions.
We begin to slowly de-armour our heart, working somatically with all the points of tension in the body. When we do this we open the door to deep, vulnerable connections with each other. It is the pathway to greater intimacy with others and a deeper knowing connection with ourselves.