Emotional Baggage - Is It Difficult to Acknowledge Anger Towards Your Parents?

What is it like when you are dealing with your baggage and realize that you have never fully felt or explored your anger towards your parent(s)? You learned growing up that anger was a "bad" emotion and when you feel it, a surge of guilt and anxiety kicks in.We often encounter this with clients who are working on their emotional baggage. The client hits a point of discomfort and has a hard time acknowledging his/her anger. We believe that all feelings are acceptable, despite the fact that many of us are taught to judge our feelings, right or wrong, good or bad. It is vital for us to find a safe way, with a friend, partner or therapist to express our anger, even if it makes us cringe.One of lessons I learned from working through my own baggage with my dad is that it is OK to love a parent and have intense feelings of anger at the parent, both at the very same time. It's all acceptable; it's all real. Sharing my feelings of anger with Bob or with my former therapist cannot harm him or our relationship. Just because I have feelings of strong anger about some of the choices he made, doesn't mean I don't love him deeply. As a matter of fact, the reason the anger is so intense is because I love him so very much.Once I learned this and worked towards accepting all of my feelings, I was able to let the feelings of anger be and fade to the background. My choice was to put my focus on the positive things with him, since he couldn't communicate as deeply as I'd wished. As a result of my personal work on this, my dad and I were able to create new and wonderful memories in the present for years before he passed away.I would love to hear others' experiences.Lori