You can be sad and still be regulated. You can be angry and still be regulated. These are not mutually exclusive.

There are situations in life that require healthy anger, Dr Peter Levine coined the term healthy aggression to explain this strong life force that we all have inside of us.

For instance, to establish healthy boundaries we need a certain amount of this energy behind it, this healthy aggression energy.

Saying NO, in some instances, requires a certain amount of determination and an inner feeling of:
“That’s enough! No more!”

The problems we see with anger, is that it often arises when we are reacting out of triggers. When we are dysregulated and have incomplete fight/flight/freeze/shutdown responses in our system; we are likely to act in anger in reaction to triggers instead of the natural anger that arises when firmer action is needed.

The same with sadness. There is no problem feeling sad, but too much sadness that carries on for days, weeks and months, is a sign of dysregulation.

And there will be points in your healing journey that old “sticky” emotions may come to visit you. The more regulated you are, the more you will be able to feel and hold space for these emotions.

We need not forget that we are human. Emotions are intrinsic to the human experience.

So before you start judging yourself for feeling the so called “negative” emotions, focus on regulating your nervous system, so that you can experience the other side of these emotions. The side that don’t only arise out of triggers.

Keep on showing up for yourself. The deeper you get into your healing the more you will experience emotions that emerge naturally as a response to certain circumstances, without the old stories attached to them. And even when the old stories show up again, your system will have the capacity to regulate the emotions that come with these old stories.