Anger can come suddenly and surprise you with its strength. Sometimes the reaction is bigger than the cause, sometimes it always appears in the same situations and with the same people. Afterwards come guilt, shame or tiredness, and the question of why it once again proved impossible to stay calm.
Many people have been taught that anger is bad and should be suppressed. The systemic view offers a different understanding. Anger is neither good nor bad: it is energy that carries a message, and that message often reaches further than the situation in which it appeared.
This text draws on the books Soul Codes, Codes of Consciousness and Decoding the Soul and explains how anger is understood in systemic work and how it can be released.
Anger as a pressure cooker
On Dr David Hawkins’s scale of consciousness, which the books use as a tool for understanding emotions, anger has a value of 150. The book Codes of Consciousness describes it as a natural mechanism of our energy field: when lower emotions have been stored in the body for too long, anger pushes them to the surface like a pressure cooker and so releases our energy system.
Soul Codes adds that anger is a reaction to triggers from the outside environment or to inner thoughts and emotions that disturb us. Through anger the body and mind release excess accumulated energy. That is why the book emphasises that anger is not bad by nature, any more than any other emotion. It is part of human experience.
“Other people and situations are only triggers for releasing the energy we call anger.” (from the book Codes of Consciousness)
This is an important shift in understanding. If the other person is only a trigger, then the key is not to change them, but to see what has built up in us and is waiting to come out.
Codes of Consciousness also compares anger with other emotions. Fear, as the book says, is hard to process spontaneously, because it stops the flows of life and energy. Sadness has its natural outlet through tears. Anger has explosive energy. Therein lie both its danger and its value: it sets in motion what has long stood still, and that is why on the scale of consciousness it sits above fear, sadness and guilt.
When anger becomes destructive
The problem does not arise because we feel anger, but when we do not know how to manage it. Undirected anger can hurt us and the people around us. Soul Codes describes a path on which we learn to recognise our anger, understand its causes and release it with conscious intention.
When we become aware of anger, it stops controlling us. Instead of overwhelming us, it becomes a signal for introspection and work on ourselves. That energy can then be redirected and used for personal growth.
Where anger in the family system comes from
Bert Hellinger spoke of anger as a strong emotion that often has deep roots in the family system and arises when the natural flow of love and respect is disturbed. The book Soul Codes lists several of the most common reasons:
- Disregard for hierarchy: for example, when a child takes on care or responsibility that belongs to the parents.
- Exclusion or rejection of members: those who remain may feel anger as a reaction to the injustice done to those who were excluded.
- Imbalance in giving and receiving: when someone in the system constantly gives more than they receive, or the other way round.
- Family entanglement: when a person unconsciously takes on the ancestors’ unresolved conflicts or unexpressed emotions, including anger that was never expressed in the past.
This explains why anger sometimes seems disproportionate. Perhaps you carry anger that belongs to someone before you, or anger that is the result of a role you should never have taken on.
How to work with anger
The book Decoding the Soul offers a simple beginning: first name the state, and then turn to it with conscious intention, with a sentence such as “I want to eliminate anger”, pausing and observing what appears in the body. These questions can also help:
- Where in my body do I feel anger when it appears?
- Who else in my family carried anger like this?
- Was anyone in my system excluded, treated unjustly or forgotten?
The aim is not to make anger disappear by force, but for it to stop being blind. When its origin is brought into awareness, it calms down by itself. If anger endangers you or others, it is important to seek professional psychological help as well, because systemic work does not replace it.
Anger can be the first messenger of change. It shows where order has been disturbed and where love could not flow freely. When you listen to it instead of condemning it, it leads you to where healing is needed.