The Tender Grief Beneath Women’s Anger
And How To Tend to Anger Somatically
Last week, I was in a facilitated space with other women, exploring the theme of anger.
It’s a subject that can feel highly charged and deeply uncomfortable, particularly for women.
The conversation was deep, and the shares were nuanced and reflective.
What really transpired was the grief, the sadness, the lack of being seen that often sits tenderly beneath the emotion of anger.
For women especially, anger often surfaces from the grief of not being seen, not having a voice, living in systems that we don't feel we fully belong to.
For many of us, anger also surfaces as the residue of the grief rooted in the experiences of the generations of women before us.
Anger is tied to their voices being silenced. Their boundaries having been crossed, and their needs and rights unmet.
This is why we so often slide from anger into tears.
The Path of Collapse: Why Anger Often Turns Into Tears
Holding the charge of anger without becoming flooded is difficult, especially if we don't have compassionate spaces where we can process and express it without judgment.
So, in the absence of these spaces, our anger often turns into tears, our tears into shame, and our shame into isolation. This is the path of collapse.
What I learned from one of my teachers (Kimberly Ann Johnson) is that as women, we need to learn to expand our capacity to be with the charge of anger without immediately collapsing into tears or shame.
From a nervous system perspective, anger belongs to the fight response. It’s energy that wants to move outward, to protect and defend us.
But for many of us, expressing anger was unsafe (socially or even physically), which means that this fight energy got redirected into tears, into internalisation and into collapse. This is a deeply intelligent response from our body doing what feels safest in systems that view anger as an unacceptable emotion.
Learning not to fall into this path of collapse doesn’t mean exploding or lashing out, it means widening our nervous system’s tolerance to hold that fire, to notice what it’s pointing to, and to let it move through us without being overwhelmed by it.
Like finding an anchor in a storm, we can learn root into presence and to centre ourselves in those moments, rather than being swept away by anger’s force and fire.
Anger as a Messenger and a Doorway
Many of us have learned to fear our anger.
We fear the overwhelming sensations it ignites in our body: our heartbeat becoming quicker, the heat rising in our cheeks, our jaws clenching, the fire in our chest or our abdomen, … a level of activation that simply feels too much to be with.
It can really feel like we are losing control. As if something larger than us was taking over.
We also fear what might overspill if we let it come too close. We might say words we will later regret, cause hurt, … leave a trail of disarray or disconnection behind.
When we see anger as destructive in itself, we unconsciously push it down and bury it beneath layers of shame.
But anger isn’t inherently ‘wrong’.
It shows us what needs tending to: an injustice, a boundary that hasn't been respected, a voice that hasn't had space to be expressed,...
It tells us a boundary has been crossed or an injustice is present.
When women learn to inhabit anger without fear or collapse, it becomes a source of clarity and agency rather than shame.
Rooting Into Our Centre & Meeting Anger With Compassion
So how can we support ourselves through waves of anger, and begin to create a new relationship with it?
How can we can hold ourselves compassionately through these moments, and expand our capacity to be with anger’s sensations without automatically shifting into collapse?
Here are a few somatic practices that can support us in embodying this shift:
Somatic tracking: notice how and where anger shows up in your body. What sensations are present (What are you noticing in your jaw, abdomen, chest, heart, breathing)? What lets you know, at the level of the body, that anger is arising?
Orienting and grounding: invite enough inner safety in your body to begin to stay with the charge of anger without exploding or collapsing into tears, shame and isolation.
Small, titrated expressions of anger: sounds, pushing, shaking, even small movements that let the fight energy move without flooding.
Resourcing in connection and community: having spaces where our voices can be heard, our feelings acknowledged, where anger can be witnessed with compassion and without judgement.
Working with a somatic practitioner: to gently and slowly compost the undigested life experiences that may be beneath the anger.
There is so much value in being in spaces (women circles, attuned relationships, coaching containers) , where we can express ourselves truthfully, where we can meet anger with compassion, where we can begin to tend to the unmet needs that sit underneath.
As we follow its thread, it can soften without turning into collapse, and can become a doorway into healing, agency, and self-reclamation.
How Can I Support You?
If you would like to be compassionately witnessed and gently guided in your personal healing and expansion journey, I offer bespoke 1:1 somatic coaching where I will meet you exactly where you are, and together we will forge a path towards more emotional freedom, and expansive ways of being.
If you would like to train with me, The Wisdom Within™ Practitioner Training is a professional training for women who desire to reclaim their own power and to ripple this tender but hugely potent work into the world.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like:
Beyond Learned Helplessness: A Somatic Path For Women to Reclaim Their Energy, Voice, and Agency
Understanding the Mind–Body Connection and How to Shift Old Patterns by Working Somatically
