Anger and boundaries in the IFS Informed Parent
The pathologizing of our anger was a smart move of a society that wanted to enhance social control.
As we learn to fear, dismiss and shame our own anger — and therefore not hear and respect our own boundaries and truth — we are a lot easier to fit into the mold and become deeply focused on outside expectations, rather than balancing this with our inner integrity, connection and knowing.
As parents, not knowing our own healthy anger and boundaries (and we’ll discuss more here what that actually means), parenting becomes difficult, because (1) as a parent you must trust in your own knowing and lean into your loving authority. And (2) rather than controlling our children, it is our job as parents to support and guide their growing self-control and autonomy.
When anger and therefore our felt sense of boundaries becomes the enemy, there is no allowance for how do I feel and how do you feel. There is not a real yes without a no and there is no chance for our children to stay true and connected to themselves as they grow into the unique human beings they are. When we as parents fear and pathologize anger, we pass on the disconnect.
There’s some healing to be done.
What is anger then?
Anger is not a part. But parts can carry anger. Anger is not a burden but a reaction and an emotion that can be either primary or secondary.
I often hear people on SoMe proclaiming that there is always sadness under anger. This is not true. There can be sadness under anger, just the same as there can be anger under sadness.
Both sadness and anger are primary emotions. This means they are inborn, part of being the social beings we are, part of our survival and not something we learn.
(Happiness, disgust and surprise are also considered primary emotions).
Anger shows up when our boundaries are being crossed or threatened. This is primary and important to our survival.
Anger shows up as a secondary emotions, when another emotion, like sadness for instance, is hidden underneath it. Sometimes we need to go through the anger to get to the sadness and sometimes, if sadness has not been allowed, the anger shows up instead. For women it’s often the other way around, where anger has not allowed and we may start crying instead.
In this way anger as a secondary emotion or reaction is a protective layer (often held by protective parts of our internal system). It protects what is under or protects you from feeling or expressing what has not been allowed.
Anger as a primary emotions is also protective, but rather than as a layer of protection it has a clarity to it and a movement of energy.
At its core anger is part of both life-force and survival energy. This means that anger is both closely related to Self-energy and held by our parts.
We are born with anger as part of our core emotions. Anger tells us two things about ourselves: This is me! It can be felt like an inner fire or spark and is very much related to the element fire that we may also connect to when burdens are released in IFS therapy. This shows us how releasing burdens is a function of our innate human boundaries and our deep connectedness with Self-energy.
Who I am is something I feel all the way from my core. It is my life force, my inner fire, that, when I am connected to it, burns bigger than my body and illuminate my boundary to the world. Without my boundary no one can see, know and feel me and without my boundary (and fire) I cannot stand strong as I am.
In this way my boundary is not only my no to the world; my this-far-and-no-longer; my knowing where I end and you begin. Rather because of this my boundary also opens me up the possibility of having a yes to the world, to relate, to negotiate, to invite someone in or to go along with the fire of someone else.
My anger; my fire; my boundary says This is me; here I am! It is from here that I feel myself as I am, it is from here I stand up tall to be seen; witnessed by the world, by the not-me. And it is from here that I feel my no — my inner Gandalf “You shall not pass!”
Especially women have not been allowed to have their anger, their boundary, their truth and through their core relationships to their caregivers and the society at large, many learn to people-please and fawn.
Here we lose ourselves and let the boundarylessness of others overflow our internal systems. This is not a conscious choice but a survival mechanism that shapes our personality based on our circumstances. As I wrote about in this article about the nervous system, we all lean more into one of the survival responses Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn. Those more connected to Fight will typically be more connected to their anger, but as we shall discuss, anger as a Fight response can become boundaryless towards others (in an attempt to keep our boundaries) when not balanced and Self-led.
As explained, anger is both life-force — This is me! This is where I begin — and anger is survival-force — This is my boundary! This is where I end — but because anger has been pathologized, it is out of balance for most of us.
Many people are scared of anger, both the anger of others because they have seen — and felt — what it can do when it is let out of the box (where it did not belong in the first place) and their own anger because they have been taught it was not welcome (like “you can’t be angry at someone you love”) or they have been left, sent away and isolated when it showed up, leaving them shamed (shut down and disconnected) and dysregulated before they were old enough to Self-regulate.
Therefore the parts of us that carry anger, have often been exiled (ie not welcome and repressed or suppressed) and are often feared or even hated by other parts of the system.
Because of this, we may go through life feeling bitter at others (and ourselves) for not seeing us or for crossing our boundaries that we did not set clearly, because the anger was not allowed or that we did set, but others didn’t hear because they had learned not to.
Or we may go through life in an inner tug of war between suppressed parts carrying anger and it’s opposite: rage and explosion. — Both of which are problematic as one oversteps your own boundaries (and as Gabor Maté claims in his excellent book “When the body says no” makes us sick) or it oversteps the boundaries of other peoples through rage coming out at them.
As Maté names at the very end of this book, rage is not clean anger, but anger mixed with anxiety. That’s why it comes out as a storm or a whirlwind rather than as a clear and calm no; a clear and calm boundary.
Anger gets mixed with anxiety when it was not allowed (like when your parents did not accept your expressions of anger) when it was not safe (like when one of your parents could not control their rage) or when it has not been respected (like when people have overstepped your boundaries physically or emotionally).
I remember Peter Levine (creator of Somatic Experiencing) saying that the reactions from our anger — like a fist hitting — is not the anger. We might need to hit and we might need to fight in a survival situation, but that is not what the anger itself needs. It needs us to feel it, it needs us to listen and let it move through us as the clear strong energy it is.
When Fight becomes the go-to of our nervous system, we may feel a lot of anger, but outside of survival situations, acting from the fight, flight, freeze and fawn reactions of our nervous systems, will typically take us away from what it is informing us about the present or past, rather than connecting with it.
So how do all of this translate to parenting?
Being connected to our anger as parents, does not mean you get the green light to yell at your kids, scold their behavior og use punishment to keep them respecting your boundaries. All of those “parenting technics” are, as I hope you see, overstepping their boundaries rather than showing them yours.
What is most important here is to start noticing and feeling your boundaries and your anger. Anger often starts as a small irritation. Something does not feel quite right or quite okay. Notice that.
When we don’t notice these signals from our body or inner system, they tend to get louder until we hear them. Or maybe we first hear reactions from other parts who may be shaming or diminishing the anger.
Notice and listen. When we slow down, we create space to be with.
Practicing this alone (for instance in a daily meditation practice) or with someone you trust (for instance in therapy) is a lot easier than when you’re standing in the middle of a difficult situation.
When we listen to our parts and their reactions, we can chose how to respond. This is what IFS informed — or Self-led — parenting is all about and when we practice this, we become relational inside and out.
Sometimes our anger is informing us about things that happened in the past that need connection and healing. When we don’t listen inwards, but just react, we pass on pain to our children that have nothing to do with them, rather than healing the past and breaking the circle.
And sometimes our anger informs us of our present day no, boundaries or concerns. Here you also want to listen inwards rather than simply reacting, and chose what to express and how.
When we feel our anger, we are calm and clear. Ie Self-led. When we are calm and clear, we can express our boundaries in ways that our children can hear and we can give space and listen to their boundaries as well.
In this way boundaries lets us be relational in a way where we are two human beings being themself rather than one overstepping the boundaries of the other.
The old paradigm of parenting often gets in the way of Self-led parenting. So here are some updates (some of which you may have heard me name before):
Your child is not testing your boundaries, but is rather searching for you (who you are in this moment) and thereby trying to find out who they can be in relation to you. You and me.
Set boundaries around yourself, not around your child.
We often say you this and you that. But that is not your boundary, that is you trying to create a boundary around your child, which takes away their sense of self-control and autonomy. Children always do the best they can, but without self-control and autonomy that becomes very difficult and it will be natural to rebel against it.Being you as parent, rather than stepping into the role as mom or dad, lets your child feel and know you. That feels safe. And it includes making mistakes, laughing and crying. The important thing is that you take responsibility for your mistakes and that your can carry yourself when showing painful emotions (so your child don’t have to). Children learn much more from that than from some perfect (maybe slightly passive-aggressive) parent that they never really get to know.
Use your triggers as trailheads and do your inner work. When we mess up, we get more clarity on what needs connection and healing so we don’t need make the same mistake again and so we don’t pass on the pain that we carry.
The more you connect, know and understand yourself on the inside, the more yourself you can be on the outside and the more your children will get to know you. What a gift.
Thank you for reading this far. Let me know how all of this lands with you. What made sense? What didn’t? What surprised you? What did I miss? What stood out?
Comment here or write me on SoMe.
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