Updated June 30th, 2025

Anger in the Garden – Pruning Back for Future Growth

“Not only does the repression of anger predispose to disease but the experience of anger has been shown to promote healing or, at least, to prolong survival.”

– Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No; The Cost of Hidden Stress

If you are holding on to anger, figure out a healthy way to release it.

Better out than in, as the old saying goes.

Generally speaking, I love puttering in the garden but I must confess to having mixed feelings when I was working in my yard in Sidney, British Columbia years ago.

Unfortunately, over the seven years I’d lived there, more often than not there had been a rather crazy amount of neighborhood noise to contend with while trying to achieve serenity: screaming children, parents screaming at said children, high-pitched band saws that were used for hours on end, power washers, as well as the boom-boom-boom pounding of bass from music and video games.

And then there was the traffic.

I lived on some sort of thoroughfare road that got busier and busier in our growing town, so maintenance and construction vehicles would rumble by loudly on weekdays. Gravel and cement trucks, city buses and Harley Davidson motorcycles are LOUD vehicles, especially when they are accelerating – which was, oddly enough, often the case in front of my house. I had given up years earlier trying to garden in my front yard without wearing ear protection.

But then, on one lovely long weekend in May, I was working – without earplugs – in my back garden…and it occurred to me how delightfully quiet it was. I could hear the birds chirping. It was lovely!

Part of the reason for this uncharacteristic quiet was the fact that my neighbor with the screaming children had moved out several months earlier and was around just enough to do what was needed to put the house on the market.

One of the tasks I happening to be tackling in my garden that May long weekend was the pruning of the wisteria and grapevine. Both vines had grown out of control and were strangling the neighboring trees…so I cut and cut and cut.

Interestingly, most of the time I was pruning, I was up on a ladder so I could see into my noisy neighbor’s backyard. And the more I pruned, the angrier I got at my neighbor for a) being so noisy and messy over the years and; b) only bothering to clean up his home and yard now that it was time to SELL it and make a whack of cash.

“Blaming others takes an enormous amount of mental energy…it makes you feel powerless over your own life because your happiness is contingent on the actions and behaviors of others, which you can’t control.”

– Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Nobody had forced me to stay and tolerate noisy neighbours. I was furious at my own damn self!

And then, a few days later, I had a reflexology treatment on my feet – and the next morning, I was really sick. I had this strange headache on the very top of my head, as if my body was trying to release something out the top but couldn’t. I was nauseous and had no appetite or energy. And I kept falling asleep. I drank enough water to sink a battleship. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me until it hit me: my body was ridding itself of all that anger that had come to surface.

Whatever I did worked. The next day, I woke up and felt pretty much back to my usual self – but far less angry.

As for the garden? Well, both the wisteria and grapevine continued growing like crazy…they, too, LOVED the pruning 🙂

“I am greatly empowered without harming anyone if I permit myself to experience the anger and to contemplate what may have triggered it. Depending on circumstances, I may choose to manifest the anger in some way or let go of it. The key is that I have not suppressed the experience of it.” 

– Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No

How about you?

Might there be something in your past that you are still really angry about? Is there a healthy way you could bring that anger to the surface…feel it, experience it…and then give it a good pruning and release it?

Holding on to anger requires a staggering amount of energy – that could be far better utilized.   

Maryanne Pope is the author of “A Widow’s Awakening.” She also writes screenplays, playscripts & blogs. Maryanne is the CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions and Co-Founder of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund. To receive her blog, “Weekly Words of Wisdom,” please subscribe here. And be sure to visit our PinkGazelleCards Etsy shop.