The Anger Series – 2: When the Past Walks Into the Room
Why does this feel bigger than what happened?
These are the talks in this series on Anger
- Anger Is Not the Enemy “Anger is useful.”
- When the Past Walks Into the Room “Blast from the past”
- When Anger Becomes Rage “The nervous system becomes overwhelmed”
- The Volcano and the Iceberg “People protect themselves differently”
- The Hidden Anger “When anger cannot be spoken”
- Finding Your Voice “What healthy anger actually sounds like”
In the last talk, we explored the idea that anger is not the enemy. Healthy anger has a purpose. It helps us recognise what matters. It allows us to set boundaries, speak our truth and protect what is important to us. But sometimes something happens in a relationship and our reaction feels much bigger than the situation itself.
A partner forgets to send a message, and we feel completely abandoned.
Someone disagrees with us, and suddenly we feel attacked.
Someone asks for some space, and it feels like rejection.
The question is not whether the feeling is real. It is.
The question is:
Why does this feel so much bigger than what happened?
Sometimes it is because the present moment has touched something from the past. I call that “A blast from the past” – a term I learned from my friend and fellow PBSP trainer, Sandy Cotter.
The reality is that we do not enter relationships as blank pages. We bring our history with us. We bring our experiences of being loved, ignored, understood, criticised, comforted or dismissed.
And sometimes a small event today connects with a much older emotional memory.
A partner arriving home late may not simply feel like lateness. It may touch the deeper feeling: “I am not important.”
A partner interrupting us may not simply feel irritating. It may connect with: “My voice does not matter.”
A partner becoming quiet during conflict may not simply feel like needing time. It may awaken: “I am being abandoned.”
The present event is real. But it may be carrying the emotional weight of earlier experiences.
I worked with a couple where the husband frequently arrived home late from work. His wife became increasingly upset each time it happened. He felt confused and frustrated because, from his perspective, he was working hard for the family.
But as they explored what was happening, they discovered that her reaction was connected to a much older experience of feeling that she came second. Growing up, she had often felt overlooked and unimportant. His lateness was not creating that wound, it was touching it.
Once they understood this, something shifted. He no longer only heard criticism. He began to hear the pain underneath it. And she began to see that his lateness was not necessarily a statement about her value.
This is one of the great challenges in relationships. Our partner sees the behaviour. They do not always see the history behind it.
They hear the anger. They do not always see the fear underneath.
They experience the withdrawal. They do not always see the overwhelm beneath it.
This is why therapy can be so powerful. The aim is not simply to change behaviour on the surface. It is to understand where our reactions come from and to create new possibilities.
This is one of the reasons I believe Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor (PBSP) can be such a valuable therapy for this kind of work. PBSP works with the way earlier experiences are held not only in our thoughts, but in our bodies and emotional patterns. It helps people explore unmet developmental needs and create new experiences that can soften the impact of the past on the present.
Because often we are not just reacting to what is happening now. We are reacting to what this moment reminds us of.
The goal is not to blame our past. Nor is it to blame our partner.
The goal is to become curious.
“What belongs to today?”
“What belongs to yesterday?”
“What old pain has been activated here?”
Because when we can separate the present from the past, we gain freedom.
We can choose how we respond rather than being pulled automatically into old patterns.
And this brings us to the next question: What happens when emotions become so overwhelming that we can no longer stay
connected to ourselves or to each other?
That is where we will explore the difference between anger and rage in the next talk, number 61.
Juliet Grayson
July 2026
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