The Story Behind “Anger Gym”
About 25 years ago, an anger expression exercise at a three-day women’s retreat led to one of the most transformational experiences of my life.
For the first time, I gave voice to feelings I had buried throughout my youth. I had never learned how to work with my anger, so I suppressed it, not knowing it would disconnect me from myself for years to come.
Allowing that anger to finally move through me was a reclamation of my power and my sense of mattering. I have not been the same since.
With my background as a therapist and coach, I soon became responsible for leading hundreds of women through those anger sessions. It was then that I used the name Anger Gym to describe that experience. We go to the gym to build physical strength through focused effort. We don’t leave the gym carrying dumbbells all day, but the training strengthens how we move through life.
Anger Gym works the same way.
It’s a judgment-free space to access your emotion. Through guided somatic and bioenergetic exercises, we give that energy of anger and rage a safe outlet—releasing old resentments and dismantling protective walls built from past hurt.
The result is greater clarity, stronger boundaries, and a deeper sense of freedom, aliveness, and connection to yourself.
Why Focus on Anger?
As children, we adapt to our environments by learning which emotions are welcome and which are not. Fear gets hidden, tears are muffled, joy is toned down—and anger is often suppressed.
Over time, we develop coping strategies to manage what we can’t express: withdrawing from others, numbing out with food or entertainment, rebelling, or pushing ourselves through a relentless inner critic.
These strategies may help us survive, but they can also become a shell that hides—and protects—our true selves.
While all repressed emotions deserve attention, anger is uniquely powerful. It carries the energy to break through that shell.
When anger is safely expressed, we have found that anger is the doorway emotion. When anger is moved, it opens access to the deeper feelings beneath it and gives way for authentic self-expression to return.
What is Bioenergetics and Somatic Expression?
The Anger Gym uses a handful of bioenergetic techniques to help us express and release pent up emotions of anger in the body. You will be able to use some of these on your own at home. Bioenergetics is a way of understanding personality in terms of the body and its energetic processes. Alexander Lowen, M.D. developed Bioenergetics over 75 years ago as a therapeutic technique to help people get back together with the body and enjoy the life of the body to the fullest degree possible. (See: What is Bioenergetics? | Lowen Foundation). Additionally, Peter Levine developed his Somatic Experiencing methods in the 1970’s based on what he observed about how animals deal with threat in their bodies.
More commonly known these days is the term somatic expression. Simply put, the term somatic means of the body, as apart from the mind. There has been an explosion of research, therapies and practices that have emerged out of the idea, or fact, that our body holds and expresses experiences and emotions, and that traumatic events or unresolved emotional issues can become 'trapped' within the cells of our bodies. It makes sense, then, that focusing on the body (somatic) through the use of mindfulness, breathing, touch, movement and emoting can help us release what has been trapped.
What I hope Anger Gym offers is a space where women can witness and experience the power that their anger holds. When expressed in healthy, safe ways, anger can transform bitterness, passive aggression, and the internal voices of self-blame and criticism. It helps us step fully into ourselves and reclaim the energy we need to create our lives intentionally.
On a broader scale, our smartphones and the internet bring us a constant flood of information and suffering in addition to what we feel in our own lives that is too much for any human to process. We end up shutting down or ignore our emotions just to keep going. Expressing our feelings, including anger, loudly and proudly is a way to reclaim our humanity, reconnect with our vitality, and affirm our full presence in the world.