This Pesky Emotion Can Clog Your Liver

If you’re like most health-conscious folks, you’ve probably heard about your liver.

It’s SO important in your health. It’s in charge of 500 biochemical processes each day. Quite a workload!

It touches so many aspects of your health. It helps digest food, regulate blood sugar, create energy, synthesize hormones, detoxify the body, the list goes on and on. You can see why it’s so important!

When I was struggling to regain my own health, I didn’t realize the power the mind has on the physical body. I felt they were two entirely separate systems. After all, docs never asked me what was going on in my mind.

Health class or doctors never really talked about how the mind affects the body or the body affects the mind.

There’s a particular mind connection that may be burdening your liver. I’m going to share a simple exercise you can do to support your liver’s physical health, starting right now. 

It’s springtime and this time of year the liver gets a little extra attention, a little extra focus to heal. To cleanse.

The natural emotion of the liver is anger. Anger! Ack! I feel a vampire moment here…but it doesn’t have to be that way! Anger is necessary in our body and mind. It’s a natural human emotion and needed for a healthy functioning body. Stick with me a sec….let me explain.

Many of us have been taught anger is bad, out of control, destructive. And that can surely be true, when it is out of control (pathological). But when we work with anger in a balanced way, as nature intended, it can motivate change. 

What does anger do for us? It helps us realize we need to choose a different path, move in a different direction, make a change. Without it, we would languish in situations that don’t serve us – perhaps a bullying boss, a belittling partner, a job we hate, a long commute that wears us down.

That unrest, irritation, frustration is anger in action. It is telling you to consider a new course of action.

But what happens when you’ve been told anger is bad, even punished for expressing it? Or you’re afraid of anger because of a volatile or abusive parent or partner in your past? Or you’re afraid of advocating for yourself because you’re afraid of making someone angry?

You compromise your liver. You are afraid to process anger and so you force the liver to shut down it’s capacity for movement. You decrease it’s ability to function in a healthy way. Think of it as cutting off circulation of energy because the fear clamps down and doesn’t allow anger to move.

Energy gets blocked. Physical processes begin to get harder and require more energy to sustain. This sets the stage for dis-ease.

How can we shift this?

By healing the fear of anger. By feeling safe enough to express anger when we feel it. To allow ourselves to feel it (many of us block this)…

So I want to share one simple practice you can start doing right now to help your body get more comfortable with anger.

When you get frustrated or irritated, lean into it. Let yourself feel it. Bring it to your awareness and allow it. 

If someone cuts you off in traffic and it makes you angry, feel it. If you get home and your food order was wrong, let yourself feel the frustration. If your kids won’t stop fighting, feel the irritation. 

Pick small moments of anger and allow yourself to become acclimated to these valuable emotions. *Please don’t try this on big situations to start!

In time, with a bit of practice, you’ll begin feeling more comfortable with the emotion of anger. And it’ll help create positive change in your life, including a much healthier functioning liver.