Asthma Anger
Could it be that Asthma is anger that is socially acceptable? Too simple? No. In most cultures getting angry is frowned upon and the culture helps suppress us. Getting really angry is worse. Worst of all is getting really angry in public. Such shame, such humiliation. So wrong! Our clever and ever-pleasing unconscious mind may opt to have us show up with a physical problem that looks a lot like asthma so we don’t have to suffer the embarrassment of displaying our anger publicly. Sound crazy? Read on.
Anger is hot, inconvenient, shunned and powerful. Rather than us getting inflamed, our unconscious minds can inflame another body part. The easiest one is our airways. We are running so hot and seemingly out of control in our emotions that the larger part of our mind (the unconscious) makes a decision to expand, inflame and thicken the breathing passages. Why? It very effectively stops us from being angry–because we’re busy gasping for air! Instead we suffer a potentially life-threatening (but much more socially acceptable) event. We have an asthma attack. Wow. Let’s file this under: “messed up”!
Do you recognize anger when you see it? Movies make it plain. Faces get red. Veins on foreheads pulse. There is cursing, shouting and wild action, right? Yes. That’s one type of anger. That’s it in expression.
Can you spot anger in suppression? This may take you a while to recognize it in yourself and those you love. Anger in suppression makes for short, shallow breathers. It makes for stuffed feelings and bloated bellies. It comes in the form of “the nicest people you could possibly meet suddenly losing it” one day. It comes from tight faces and hard jaws. It shows up in seething comments, venomous slurs and sharp, harsh laughter.
When I tell clients that the nicest people they know are probably the angriest they ALWAYS disagree, at least initially. Nice people never get angry. They get discomforts and disorders of the body INSTEAD of dealing with the anger that fuels them. Everything you thought was black might be white when it comes to your “nice” friends.
Are ALL nice people angry? No, of course not. Only those that pride themselves on “never getting angry” or “never having a harsh word about anyone”. This is NOT what we were taught in school or society. If you watch angry folks (expressors) and “nice” folks (suppressors) it’s quite an education. There is a middle way, however, that reaps the best of both polar extremes. Neither extreme nets any real gains but just prolongs the problem and the inevitable suffering. In a nutshell, stuffing anger or shouting it both prolong and promote difficult breathing and asthma attacks.
We CAN learn to let go of our anger before it becomes discomfort, disorder and eventually disease. It is a learned skill. No one in our culture teaches this to us as children. The easiest and fastest way to learn to let go is to observe angry feelings without acting on them…until they let go of you. It sounds easy. It’s not at the beginning. It, like all good things, requires practice. It can be done and you can learn to do it on your own without any outside help.
Until that time you might want to use the powerful FREE TOOLS FOR ASTHMA on my website that are available to you without any strings at: http://www.huntershealingcalls.com/got-asthma.html. They are available to everyone.
Copyright 2011 by Rudy Hunter. All rights reserved.