Holding onto anger feels like control, but it’s actually stealing your peace of mind. This week I’m teaching you how to work through your anger and let go of it in a healthy way. So, Let’s Talk About Mental Health!

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About this episode:

Still carrying that anger? Here’s why it’s weighing you down.

There’s something strangely comforting about holding onto anger.

It makes you feel strong, protected, like you’re standing up for yourself… especially if someone hurt you and never made it right.

But here’s the hard truth: anger doesn’t punish the person who wronged you. It punishes you.

And it does it quietly — by exhausting your energy, distorting your perspective on things, and keeping you stuck in the past. Often, we think we’ve “moved on”… but really, we’ve just buried the emotion deeper under stories we keep replaying in our heads. Stories about who was right, who was wrong, and how things should have gone.

The longer you carry those stories, the heavier they get. And even though it might feel safer to stay angry — to cling to the certainty of being right — what you’re really doing is closing yourself off to the possibility of peace of mind.

This week’s episode of the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast is all about letting go of anger. Not in a “just get over it” kind of way (because you and I both know it’s definitely not that simple!) but in a grounded and emotionally honest way that helps you start loosening your grip on whatever’s been weighing you down.

We’ll explore what anger really is, why it often masks deeper emotions like hurt or shame, and how to begin shifting your perspective so you can stop letting anger rule your life. I’ll also share practical strategies that you can start using straight away… because letting go doesn’t have to be dramatic.; it just needs to be intentional.

Because the more you let go of what’s no longer serving you, the more space you create for clarity, calm, and real emotional freedom.

👉 Ready to learn how to let go of anger in a healthy way? Then let’s talk!

The full episode is available now — watch it, listen to it, or read the full transcript below, and have a great week!

Jeremy 😃

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Episode Transcript:

Can’t let go of your anger? This is why.

Anger doesn’t punish the person who hurt you.

It punishes you.

Now… if hearing that made you feel angry, then I get it. Anger can be comforting in a way, because it feels like you haven’t given in. I see it a lot in my work as a counselor, and it’s like staying angry almost proves that you were right.

But in reality? All it does is just keep you stuck, unable to fully move forward in life.

So if you’re finding it tough to let go of feeling angry, then today I’m talking about why your anger isn’t actually the thing that you need to deal with, and how one powerful shift in perspective can help to stop you from being ruled by your anger… so you can finally start feeling free again.

So let’s talk about letting go of anger.

Welcome to Let’s Talk About Mental Health, the show that teaches you how to improve your mental health.

Today I’m focusing on anger.

And look… we all get angry sometimes, and while that emotion is completely natural, and sometimes it’s even helpful, it can also become incredibly damaging if you let it sit and simmer for too long.

Because anger might make you feel more in control, or even powerful in the moment, but holding onto it actually takes your power away.

And what’s worse, it tends to mask what’s really going on underneath it; things like pain, betrayal, sadness, or helplessness.

Because the truth is holding onto your anger does way more harm to you than good… but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to let go of it, especially if you’ve been carrying it around for a long time.

So I want to talk with you about how to let go of your anger in a way that’s healthy and grounded; not by pretending it never happened or just letting it go, but by really making peace with your experience, by processing it properly, and by then freeing up the mental and emotional head space that anger has been eating away at.

When you choose to let go of your anger in a healthy way, what you’re really doing is choosing peace of mind… which is absolutely priceless when it comes to better mental health.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I talk about every week here on Let’s Talk About Mental Health. I’m Jeremy Godwin and I make better mental health simple, with practical advice that actually works.

Let me just say that I… I think, in general, this episode mainly applies to anger that you have in relation to relationships, situations with other people… I’m not talking about the bigger picture stuff; clearly there is a lot of anger in the world at the moment around circumstances and the way that people are being treated, and I actually see that as a positive in the sense that that anger around injustice and the impact of hatred and nastiness, that that anger can actually serve an incredibly important purpose. That anger can, and should, and will be channeled for good. But when it’s your own anger for your own life, your own situations, your own relationships… it basically comes down to: are you going to process stuff and work through it and find a way forward, in other words, to be solution focused, or are you going to get stuck in the anger, in the emotions that are trapped around that? Are you going to allow that anger to keep you in whatever happened, because that keeps you in problem mode and it’s the exact opposite to what you need to do if you want to grow and move forward in life. If you’re basically going to be pissed off about something that happened months or years ago, and you’re going to carry that energy with you, it will weigh you down. There’s no question about it. So that’s why we’re talking about letting go of anger. It’s… if you want peace of mind, if you want freedom, you need to let go of the stuff that is weighing you down unnecessarily because it’s not hurting anybody but you.

So by the end of this episode, you’ll have a clear understanding of what anger really is, why it can be so hard to let go of, and how to start releasing your anger in a way that feels real and sustainable… so that you can feel lighter, more in control, and truly free to move forward.

Now… to do all that we need to first get ourselves on the same page with some definitions, so let’s talk about…

Understanding anger and how anger manifests

Alright, so according to the Oxford Dictionary, anger is “a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.” And look, I’m sure that we’re all very familiar with what it feels like to be angry!

Anger is actually considered a secondary emotion, however, because it often covers something that’s far more vulnerable and runs a lot deeper; things like hurt, grief, shame, fear, or powerlessness.

So where does anger actually come from?

Well, it’s a protective mechanism. Your brain uses anger to create distance between you and perceived pain or injustice. It’s closely related to the ‘fight, flight, freeze’ response that’s part of your sympathetic nervous system, which is mainly there to keep you safe.

But it can also be activated by any number of things that your brain perceives to be stressful, or upsetting, or a threat.

Now of course, we’re all familiar with anger being loud and aggressive; someone yelling, and jumping up and down, and flapping their arms around. And yes, that’s absolutely true, but it can also show up, and often does, as things like irritation, sarcasm, resentment, passive aggression, or even emotional withdrawal.

It’s not always loud or explosive; it can be quiet and subtle as well.

Anger can be triggered by lots of different things, like feeling unheard, or making a mistake, or feeling disrespected or powerless or betrayed.

And often it’s in ways that connect back to past wounds or unmet needs.

And now, sometimes anger gets internalised and it gets turned into harsh self-talk or guilt or shame, especially when you’ve been taught that expressing anger isn’t safe or that it’s just not an acceptable thing to do, that you need to remain calm… ” keep calm, and carry on.”

Anger, however, isn’t inherently bad, even though we do tend to look down on it quite a lot. We expect one another, and ourselves, to remain cool, calm, and collected… and so anger can get a lot of negativity. But it can also actually help you to express negative emotions or it can be the push that you need to find solutions to challenges and problems.

Anger only really becomes an issue when we cling to it or bury it, or we let it fester without actually addressing the root cause of it and looking for ways to resolve it.

And often it’s the story that we’re telling ourselves that winds up keeping us stuck in anger far more than the actual event or situation itself. And I’ll come back to that in a moment.

First, let’s talk about…

Why is letting go of resentment and anger hard?

Well, it’s because anger can feel a lot safer than being vulnerable and allowing yourself to actually process your feelings.

Anger can feel like strength, when really what it actually is is a shield.

Staying angry can feel like you have control in an otherwise powerless situation.

The thing is that we sometimes confuse ‘letting go’ and ‘acceptance’ with condoning whatever happened, or letting someone off the hook… but that’s not what it’s about.

Acceptance simply means that you recognise the reality of the situation: it is what it is, and no amount of getting angry will ever change what did or didn’t happen.

So choosing to accept things as they are doesn’t mean that you endorse them, or that you agree with it, or that somebody gets away with something.

It simply means that you are deciding not to fight against something that has already happened.

You are choosing instead to turn your attention to how to move forward, instead of focusing on what could be if only this had happened or if you had have said that instead.

Ultimately, it’s really about accepting what is, instead of focusing your emotional energy on ‘what if’.

In many cultures, and in a lot of families, expressing sadness or pain might be discouraged, but anger can often be seen as being more acceptable, or it can just be accepted as part of how we communicate with each other, especially in families, rather than focusing on finding healthier ways to deal with problems and conflicts.

In my own family, on my mum’s side, it’s very much “yell first, ask questions later.” Actually, my dad was like that as well. And having that role modeled from a very early age means it can become second nature.

And so, as an adult, there’s so much more conscious effort that has to go into not just defaulting into that mode, and I know that I certainly don’t get it right all the time… just ask my partner how short my temper can be if I feel like I’m not being listened to!

The idea of letting go of anger can be terrifying, especially if it’s deep-seated anger that goes back months, or years, or even decades. I had a situation with a friend who was close with both myself and my partner. It was my partner’s birthday, we were having a group dinner at a restaurant, and this friend turned up and brought somebody with her who none of us knew, and I was really pissed off because it was my partner’s birthday; it’s not about her, it’s about my partner and… could I have handled the situation better? Absolutely! I, uh, was not particularly patient or, uh, able to look beyond my anger back then, and we’re talking about a good, what, 16, 17 years ago when this happened.

But I completely blew up about it and we had a massive falling out. And that was it. That was the end for our friendship. Even though she tried to make amends, I could not see past the thing that I was angry about, and I held onto it for years and years and years.

But it just resulted in reliving those emotions and the lack of closure that I felt because the ‘make amends’ thing wasn’t actually recognising or accepting why I was upset and annoyed in the first place. It felt like a whole bunch of excuses, I got really mad about it, yada, yada, yada.

The thing is that… I mentioned earlier that the story we tell ourselves about whatever triggered the anger and the… the issue is that your brain wants to go ahead and reinforce the story that you repeat to yourself.

Even telling that story now I’m really hyperconscious of the fact that I thought I had let it go, but I think that I just went and justified my own emotions yet again by giving an explanation that positioned my anger as righteous.

Even though I didn’t even realise that I was doing it all these years later, so that was going to be an example of where I had let go of anger, apparently not as much as I thought it was going to be!

So, uh… I think I’ve gone bright red now!

Having said that, I’m not as angry about it or upset about it anymore as I was. I’m disappointed that the friendship ended, but I’m no longer replaying what happened, and here’s the thing, here’s why I’m sharing this: when you keep on replaying whatever happened, or what should have happened, your brain treats it like it’s still happening. Even telling that story a moment ago, I still felt the emotion from that particular evening and the follow-up conversation that I had with my friend.

That repeated narrative keeps the anger alive and it intensifies your emotional response long after the actual event has passed into the realms of ancient history; I was in my thirties when that happened. I am now almost 49.

So, here’s the thing: the story can become part of your identity, and holding onto your anger often becomes tied to a sense of justice or identity or self-protection.

But the longer you hold the story, the more it defines how you see yourself… as someone who was wronged, or betrayed, or mistreated.

And the problem with that is that it can make it feel unsafe to let go of that anger, even if it’s actually hurting you.

Because in the situation with my friend, I focused so much on the anger I felt from that one event for years and years, instead of being able to step back and see that we’d actually been growing apart for a long time before that; if it hadn’t have been for that specific incident, I’m quite sure something else would’ve happened to push us in totally different directions. But regardless, what happened happened… and the reality is that staying angry about it is an absolute waste of time and energy.

Because there are far too many costs that come with choosing to hold onto your anger.

Mentally, it fuels resentment, anxiety, depression, and just general negativity; it affects your outlook on life.

Physically, it creates chronic stress, tension, exhaustion, and even ongoing health issues.

In your relationships, it can lead to disconnection, passive aggression, or even outright hostility.

And internally it can morph into self-directed anger, guilt, shame, low self-worth.

Letting go of anger helps you to heal, and that’s because letting go doesn’t mean forgetting about whatever happened… it means that you refuse to carry the emotional weight of it any longer.

You don’t have to approve of whatever happened in order to accept that it did, and to choose to prioritise peace of mind for yourself. Because when you do, you get back clarity, emotional bandwidth, and just, in general, headspace to focus on what really matters in life and what really matters to you.

Letting go of anger is an act of self-respect. It’s an act of self-love, and it’s an act of self liberation.

So how do you do all of that? Well, I’m about to share practical and effective ways to let go of anger, right after this quick break.

[AD BREAK]

And welcome back!

So far, we’ve talked about what anger is and how it manifests, as well as why it’s so tough to let go of. So now let’s talk about…

How to deal with anger

Okay. I’m going to take you through a number of things you need to do in order to process anger and let go of it, starting with…

Acknowledge your anger without judgment. Start by being brutally honest with yourself. Don’t justify it, or push your anger down. Just say to yourself: “I’m angry, and here’s why.” It probably sounds really simple, but naming it is incredibly powerful and helpful, mainly because it starts to break any emotional tension that might be associated with your feelings, and it allows you to be really clear with yourself about what you are actually feeling. Which then leads to my next point…

Identify why you feel angry. All right. Anger is rarely ever the real issue; usually, anger is actually a cover for deeper emotions like hurt, rejection, grief, or fear. But facing those things makes us feel vulnerable, and it takes courage. And honestly, anger often feels safer. Instead of just going with the surface level emotion of anger, challenge yourself to identify the root of what you are feeling and why, so that you can really understand where your anger is coming from. Ask yourself, what’s underneath this? Is it hurt? Rejection? A sense of injustice? Getting clear on where it comes from gives you something meaningful and tangible to work with, by then addressing the root cause of your anger. Next…

Feel it, but do so safely. Emotions are energy and they need to move. If you keep anger trapped in your body, it doesn’t dissolve; it festers, and it grows. Finding safe outlets for your anger helps that energy to shift and release. You don’t have to bottle it up, but you also don’t have to explode. Just let it move through you. Scream into a pillow, hit a cushion, journal, cry, go for a brisk walk… whatever you choose to do, let your body help you to release that energy so you can begin to think more clearly. Next…

Separate the emotion from the story. The event may be well and truly over, but your mind often likes to keep on pressing replay… so you can either BYO popcorn, or you can do something about it! Because it’s the story you tell yourself about what happened and what it means about you that not only keeps your anger alive, but also very often turns it into something much bigger. It’s easy to get caught up in replaying whatever happened or didn’t happen over and over, but every time you do, you’re reinforcing the pain. Instead, notice when you’re hitting replay and fuelling the fire… and instead, choose to shift your focus gently towards something more positive and constructive. Our minds are great at rehashing things and catastrophising, so at the very least, try focusing on the facts, not the narrative. Okay, next…

Shift your perspective. Holding onto anger often feels like you’re holding onto power, but in reality, you’re just tying yourself to the very thing that hurt you in the first place… and you deserve so much better than that. You don’t need an apology to move forward, and you don’t have to excuse anyone’s behaviour to be able to say to yourself, “This happened, and it hurt me deeply… but I’m not going to let it define me.” Owning your healing gives you your power back, because it isn’t about them; it’s about you, and your wellbeing, and your quality of life. Alright, next…

Use your anger as a guide. Anger isn’t random; it often flares up when something that’s deeply important to you has been disrespected. Understanding what that is can help you to set clearer values and boundaries in the future. So take some time to think about what happened. What value of yours was crossed? What boundary was broken? Anger shows you where something needs your attention, so use that knowledge to make choices that are more aligned with your needs moving forward. And speaking of boundaries, my next tip is…

Set clear boundaries, inside and out. Without boundaries, anger can often get constantly reignited. Stepping away helps you reclaim control over what you give your energy to, and it can mean that you distance yourself mentally, or emotionally, or even physically, depending on the situation and your needs. Maybe you need distance from certain people. Maybe you need to stop checking their socials. Maybe you just need to stop giving the situation any of your head space. Whatever you choose to do, remember that boundaries are an act of self-respect and they’re how we show people the way that we want to be treated. I talked about emotional boundaries in Episode 286, so check that out for more on the topic. It’s linked in the episode description. Next…

Make peace with what you cannot change. You cannot rewrite the past, but you can write the next chapter. So focus your energy where it actually makes a difference. Acceptance isn’t approval. It simply means acknowledging that fighting the past is both exhausting and futile… because what is, is what is. It also means recognising that true peace begins when you stop trying to win a battle that already ended long ago. Focus on what’s in your hands now: your choices, your energy, and your future. Next…

Talk to someone you trust. When anger sits in silence, it can twist into shame, bitterness, or even rage. Speaking out loud about it with someone who won’t judge you for it is a really powerful step towards being able to let it go. So whether it’s a friend, a counselor, or a support group, sharing your anger in a safe space helps you to process it and release it rather than carrying it alone. Next…

Don’t give it never ending airtime. Look, talking through your pain can be incredibly healthy and healing… and I’m a firm believer that the more we talk about things, the easier it gets. But at a certain point, it becomes a loop. It can be easy to become bogged down by the negative emotions rather than challenging yourself to look for the way forward. So ask yourself, is this helping me process things, or is it actually keeping me stuck? Catch yourself when you’re venting or spiraling about the same thing repeatedly. You don’t have to keep retelling the story to justify your pain; you already lived it, and that’s enough. Next…

Forgive when you’re ready, on your terms. Forgiveness is a release, not a reward, and it’s something you do for yourself, not for anyone else. It’s about saying, “I won’t carry this anymore” rather than, “What you did was fine.” And you’re allowed to take your time getting there. Forgiveness is not an obligation. It is a choice. And forgiveness isn’t about letting someone off the hook… it’s unhooking yourself from the situation. If you’re not ready, that’s totally okay. Start with the intention to release it one day, for your own sake, so that it won’t weigh you down forever emotionally. Next…

Create a letting go ritual. Rituals help your subconscious catch up with your conscious intentions, and they give form to the invisible… and that can be incredibly powerful when you’re working through your emotional pain and trying to process things. Try writing a letter to the person, which you really don’t have to send… I would highly recommend not sending it!… and then when you’re done, burn it. Please do so safely! Or you could toss a rock into a river while you’re imagining your anger channeling into that rock, leaving your body going into the rock, and then throwing it away. Symbolic actions like these help to make the internal shift feel much more real and tangible. Next…

Choose to release it… again, and again, and again. Some wounds have a habit of reopening without warning, even though you might have thought that you dealt with it already and moved forward… sometimes it just pops up again. And that doesn’t mean that you failed. It just means that you’re human. Letting go is something we practice, not something we master. And letting go is rarely ever a one-time event. It’s a process. Feelings can pop up at any time, and so you might need to revisit the whole process of letting go, especially when your memories and emotions resurface. It’s all part of the healing process, so be kind to yourself if and when it happens. Which leads to my next point…

Practice self-compassion. We’re often hardest on ourselves when we’re angry, but healing starts with treating yourself as someone who’s worthy of care, which you are… even in your messiest moments! Anger often comes with shame or regret… but rather than judging yourself or even punishing yourself, choose to be kind to yourself instead. Talk to yourself the way that you would to someone you love who’s hurting, and focus on what the lesson is that you can take from whatever happened. Why? Well, that’s what my next point is all about…

Channel the energy into something constructive. Anger is incredibly powerful, and you get to decide what you do with that energy: destruction, or growth. When you choose to redirect it in a positive way, it gives you a sense of agency and purpose. So, use it as fuel for change and channel it into something positive by learning from it or by using it to make something better. Speak out, create, advocate, write, take action… whatever you do, you can choose to either be stuck in your anger or you can choose to transform its intense energy into some sort of positive movement that helps you to heal and grow. Next…

Choose peace of mind over punishment. Holding onto anger can feel like justice, but often it just prolongs your suffering. Peace isn’t something you have to earn… it’s something you allow yourself to embrace. So remind yourself, you don’t need to keep on punishing yourself by holding on to whatever you feel angry about. You’ve already suffered enough. It’s okay to put the burden down.

Final tips and wrap-up

Here’s the thing: you don’t have to carry your anger forever.

You don’t have to wait for someone else to fix it or to apologise. You don’t even have to be completely over it to start letting go of it. Your anger may have served a purpose once. It may have even helped you to survive. But now? Now it’s just a heavy weight you’re carrying around that serves no useful purpose other than to remind you of your past pain… and you deserve to be free of that pain.

Because when it comes to letting go of anger, what it all boils down to is this: holding onto anger only steals your peace of mind. Letting go is how you get it back.

Now, what are you going to do with everything you’ve learned in this episode? Because letting go of anger doesn’t just happen because you decide to let it go or because you listen to an… a podcast and it doesn’t happen all at once. It happens one decision at a time.

So, ask yourself: what’s one small thing you can do today to start loosening your grip on any anger that you’ve been carrying? Maybe it’s journaling about what’s really underneath your anger. Maybe it’s setting a boundary you’ve been avoiding. Or maybe it’s just acknowledging out loud, “I don’t want to carry this anger anymore.”

Pick one thing and do it today. Then tomorrow do something else. This isn’t about fixing everything all at once; it’s about choosing to start, and taking things one step at a time.

The choice is yours, as it is with all things related to your wellbeing. So, what choice will you make today?

Each week, I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the week’s topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you.

This week’s quote is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it is:

For every minute you remain angry, you give up 60 seconds of peace of mind.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let me repeat that.

For every minute you remain angry, you give up 60 seconds of peace of mind.

Alright, that’s nearly it for this week!

Sign up for my weekly newsletter at ltamh.com and support me on Patreon for early access to ad-free episodes. They’re both linked in the description. Thank you very much for joining me today. Look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness out into the world, because you get back what you put out.

Take care and talk to you next time!

You’ll also find my episode about expressing yourself helpful; it’s linked in the description.

Next week I’ll be talking about navigating relationship difficulties. Follow or subscribe to never miss an episode, and have a great week!

Let’s Talk About Mental Health is an independent program. Discover more at ltamh.com.

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Find more content at www.ltamh.com

Let’s Talk About Mental Health.
Making Mental Health Simple.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health. © 2025 Jeremy Godwin.

The information provided in this episode is for general awareness on the topic and does not constitute advice. You should consult a doctor and/or mental health professional if you’re struggling with your mental health and wellbeing. You’ll find additional information on the Resources page of this website.