by Leonard Jacobson: If you are feeling depressed, it more than likely indicates that you have anger repressed within you…

If you repress anger, it will turn inward and can lead to depression and anxiety. If you want to come out of a state of depression, you will have to learn how to express anger in a conscious and responsible way.

Whenever you feel angry, it is an indication that you are not getting what you want, or you are putting up with what you don’t want.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Is there anything I want that I am not getting? Am I angry about that?
• Is there anything that I am putting up with that I don’t want? Am I angry about that?
• Did I express what I want or what I don’t want in a clear and loving way? If not why not?
• Do I even know what I want or what I do not want?

If you don’t know what you want, or you failed to express what you want clearly and lovingly, how can you be angry at others if you do not get what you want?

The belief that you cannot have what you want, or you have to accept what you don’t want, can form in early childhood, and it then affects the whole of your life. This unconscious belief is often accompanied by a subtle and constant feeling of anger. It is possible that anger has been repressed within you from early childhood.

Anger is usually a response to feeling hurt. We often feel angry as a way of avoiding the hurt.

If you want to liberate yourself from depression, you will have to liberate the feelings of anger and hurt within you.

This means that you will have to feel the anger and allow it into conscious and responsible expression. Then allow the hurt or sadness to surface. Have a good cry. You will feel much better afterwards.

Right expression will clear depression.

The true expression of anger is not about catharsis. It is much more about hitting the right note. You have to allow anger its voice. You have to let anger express as anger. Anger is not nice. It likes to rant and rave and blame and hurt. You cannot express anger without swearing and blaming. Anger wants to get even. Anger is outrageous, but you cannot discover this unless you allow it full expression in a responsible way.

It is important that you do not dump your anger on anyone. Do not involve anyone else in the expression of your anger. It is usually best to go to your room, close the door, and in private, express the anger towards the one who has hurt you. Exaggerate it. Ham it up. Let anger be all that it can possibly be.

Anger has a story.

Express the story, but do not believe in it. The story is from the past. It has nothing to do with the present moment. If you believe in the story, you will be locked into a painful past. If you allow anger to express fully in the way that I am describing, you will start laughing.

Anger expressed consciously and responsibly leads to laughter. Anger repressed leads to illness, depression and even violence.

When you are allowing the anger to express, you are not trying to get rid of it. You are simply allowing the anger the right to exist and express as itself. The anger needs to feel accepted. If you are trying to get rid of the anger, it is a subtle form of judgment and it will not release from you.

Do not be angry towards yourself.

To be angry towards yourself is extremely unhelpful and unhealthy. You will have to find someone or something outside of you to substitute for yourself. You can be angry at your boss, or your mother or father, or your spouse or your children. That doesn’t mean that you go up to them and involve them in the expression of anger. It has nothing to do with them. They are simply triggering anger that was already there, repressed within you. You can even be angry towards God.

Make it a daily meditation

You can’t afford to allow anger to internalize within you. At the end of every day, get in touch with what made you angry during the day. And then take 5 or 10 minutes to express it in a responsible way. You can to make it a daily meditation. Not that you believe in it. Not that you act it out against anyone. But go to your room and swear and cuss and scream and blame and kill and maim, until laughter arises within you.

To be in touch with feelings of anger and to allow the anger conscious and responsible expression is just as important a meditation as sitting quietly and watching the breath. It is impossible to remain present if you are carrying repressed feelings of anger and rage within you.

About Leonard

Leonard Jacobson is an author, teacher and mystic, who is deeply committed to helping others break through to the joyous experience of living in the NOW. For more than 35 years, Leonard has been teaching people how to become fundamentally present and arise in mastery of the mind and ego.