02/04/22
I got angry this week. Like, plotting revenge mad.
Anger is one of the core emotions. There are slightly different flavors of it, but anger is core. I was mad, I was furious, ready to scorch the earth fucking pissed. I don’t get angry often. It takes awhile to boil over, like a volcano finally spewing fire.
Recently, I realized I wasn’t allowed to express anger as a young girl. My brother could punch walls, mom could scream, dad could spank us, sister could check a dude twice her size in hockey, but I learned/was taught to bury it.
Hi I’m Traci, I’m a recovering people pleaser.
Until recently, I kept the peace even at my own personal expense. I would suffer so long as you all didn’t. My threshold was high because expressing my anger as a child never yielded the results I wanted. Anger is a sign for action, in a primordial sense. Someone is trying to take something that you need to survive – feel anger – take action – secure your necessities. Modern anger also serves as an impetus for action. Upstairs neighbor is disrupting my sleep night after night – feel anger – take action – initiate conversation to find solutions – met with derision and more discourtesy – more rage – plot revenge.
In the event of the neighbor, I know that blasting Britney at 7am or tap dancing at midnight isn’t going to make him suddenly care about waking me up in the middle of the night. In fact, it may have the opposite effect of fueling his selfishness and make him louder on purpose as well as angering my nice neighbor I share a wall with. Passive aggression doesn’t seem to be the answer. I tried a sensible conversation offering solutions to no avail. So here I am with my anger.
In the past, I would have spiraled into the Story. This is new for me, being able to observe the narrative that comes up with emotions without getting sucked into it, remaining the observer. The anger Story might sound like:
Why does this always happen to me? Can’t I live anywhere peacefully? Doesn’t he know how important sleep is to your mental and physical well being? We used to be cordial, why is he so mean now? What did I do to deserve this? No one respects me.
In the past, I would keep piling logs on the anger fire, growing it more and more, until it was burning rage. At that point, after a couple days of fueling the rage, I’d probably get blackout drunk, maybe start a fight with someone at the bar or take some dude home – fuck or fight, I called this. I was so mad, the only solution was alcohol fueled fucking or fighting the energy out. It’s not that it didn’t work either, I rarely woke up still mad, instead focused on the hangover, shame, and guilt, but not mad. As my therapist pointed out this week, my anger doesn’t benefit anyone, it doesn’t change him/the cause of my anger, it only impacts me negatively. Do I want to keep that feeling in my body? Is that the state I want to exist in?
No, I don’t.
The energy created by strong emotions has to go somewhere. It builds up in our body and must be released – repress it now, it will surface later. Now, in 2022, I’m the type of person who lets myself feel my anger and express it. This time, I put a hand on my chest and said, “You’re safe to feel these emotions.” The rage boiled and I screamed into a pillow until my throat was sore, kicked my feet and had a nice little tantrum. As Dr. Lauri Santos said in a recent podcast, there’s nothing wrong with feeling anger, it’s what we do with it that could be the problem. At this point in my experience of anger, my nervous system was so hyped up, if I had seen this neighbor, I would have screamed at him – at least. The tantrum let me feel that rage without inflicting it on someone else. Another favorite trick is a good ol’ car scream. If you’re a puncher, beat up your pillow, find a batting cage or golf range or punching bag and Let It Out.
Anger is an interesting emotion within the Western gender construct. Most women are taught to repress anger – keep smiling and take it out on some undeserving soul later.
I can hear her now sayin’ she ain’t gonna have it
Don’t matter how you feel, it only matters how you look.
Go and fix your makeup girl, it’s just a breakup
Run and hide your crazy and start acting like a lady.
‘Cause I raised you better, gotta keep it together
Even when you fall apart
Amanda Lambert – Not Your Mama’s Broken Heart
Odd actually that I was conditioned to repress my anger because our mom is quite the screamer. You know when she’s pissed, she will scream and throw things and curse enough to make a sailor blush. I remember one instance in high school, she was losing her shit, adult tantrum; “If that phone rings one more goddamn time…” Should I call everyone I know and tell them not to call? How the fuck am I supposed to make people stop calling? You’re the adult, how about you turn off the ringer. Her rage made me feel helpless, shamed, confused, worthless. Maybe it was being the recipient of her rage that made me swallow my own – I didn’t want to make anyone feel that way.
Conversely, anger may be the one emotion (white) men are allowed to express, it even shows power and status to get pissed. You know he “means business” when he’s mad. Men get mad on purpose to fuel action and it signals to take them seriously.
Back to 2022. After my tantrum, which felt great, I moved my body – calmed my nervous system with breath and shook my physical being. With strong emotions like anger, our fight or flight response is activated. Our nervous system tenses up, ready to run from mastodons and saber tooth tigers. This is a normal bodily function that is automatic – we can’t control it even if we try.
Take a minute to feel it – what does anger feel like in your body? Where is it activated? What feels tense in your body?
For me, I feel hot, my throat and shoulders get tight, my stomach clenches, and I can feel the blood pumping in my ears.
Our body automatically gets ready to fight or run. Since there are no saber tooth tigers or mastodons left, let’s assume that most of the time we get angry in the present day, we don’t need to fight or run. Again, this is an automatic response meant to protect us. And it only lasts 90 seconds. According to neuroscience, most emotions pass after only 90 seconds – unless we attach a Story to them and add logs to the fire. Listen to Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor explain the 90 second rule.
So I’m mad at the neighbor, fair. I feel angry, fair. I let myself feel it, fair! I see the Story that comes up and choose not to feed it. Now what?
Transmute the energy.
Next I address the physical response, I want to get back to calm. One quick, easy way to move from fight or flight back to stasis or calm is our breath. I rolled my eyes at the first Doctor who told me to simply breathe to manage chronic pain. Eastern practices like yoga have emphasized breathing for over 5000 years. The moving asanas that are popular in the West are actually just one limb of yoga, another being pranayama, breath practice.
After calming down, returning to stasis, it’s important to fully move the stress response from our body. Have you ever seen a nature documentary where a predator chases the prey and the prey gets away? Watch what the prey does after it realizes it’s safe. It shakes. It literally shakes the automatic response of flight out of its body to get back to stasis and not live in that heart-pumping feeling forever. Emotions are energy in motion, but too often, we let them get trapped.
Processing anger
- Experience the anger
- feel it in your body
- let it move through you (tantrum – scream, punch, kick, etc)
- witness the anger, witness the Stories that add fuel to the fire
- Take reasonable action if it will effect change
- Release the anger
- triangle breathing
- shaking, dancing
- fire ritual
Action
I’m finishing this article the day after another fucking school shooting, just a week after a racially motivated killing spree at a grocery store. And I am furious. How many dead kids does it take for gun laws to change, as a start? Why are some people adamant about protecting unborn cells when there’s a formula shortage for babies who have been born and 21 humans got killed at school? Why can’t Black people grocery shop in peace? How does any of this make sense?
This is Sacred Rage, when our anger is fuel to make changes that benefit all humans and our very core of existence. It’s our privilege and duty not to ignore this rage, not to just move past it. We cannot be taking bubble baths while our neighbors die.
What can I possibly do about it?
- Get informed. You don’t have to know everything about every law – follow reliable sources. For example, Forum for Equality regularly sends newsletters with steps to email lawmakers about policies up for a vote. On Instagram, LouisianaBrah also details the steps to find the elected official to email about important bills up for a vote. Find an organization that gives you all the steps and information necessary to take action, and make it easy on you. They exist. Send them money. (I’ll work on a resources page, feel free to email me your favorite activist organizations: traci@balancedroar.com .)
- Email your elected representatives. These officials work for us. They need to hear from us. Whether it’s an attack on human rights or loosening gun laws, 5 minutes to write an email does make a difference. Find your representatives here.
- Share the information! Forward on social media, email friends directly, make it easy for them, too.
Practice – Breathwork
Take a deep breath in, try to expand your belly then rib cage then raise your shoulders, breathing as full as you can. Hold it for a couple seconds, let your lungs soak up all the fresh oxygen, then slowly exhale, taking twice as long to exhale as you did to inhale. One way to visualize this is called box breathing – but a triangle image works better for me personally. Inhale – 2, 3, 4. Hold – 2, 3, 4. Exhale – 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Repeat.
Ritual
I love a fire spell. The most important ingredients for any ritual (okay, spell) are: the strong belief or desire that it will work aka faith, willing that it be so or focused attention, and Words of Power. Sounds like a prayer, right? Same, same. Words of Power are whatever feels strong to you. I like to rhyme and that comes easily to me. I don’t usually write things out beforehand but you absolutely can, 100 drafts until the words feel powerful to you. Marion Weinstein, who literally wrote the book on Words of Power, recommends ending with “according to free will.” Here are some others I use in conjunction with that: in perfect joy and timing, with ease, this or something greater, in perfect alignment with goddess and god. And as final punctuation, you can close with: as above so below, so mote it be, aho, amen, inshallah (whatever resonates with you that translates roughly to – so be it).
Fire Ritual
Collect the following
- Fire proof vessel (you can put foil in a cooking pot to protect it if nothing else)
- Stick lighter
- Dried herbs/spices – any combination that you have, about 1 tbsp each mixed together.
- Peace: lavender, lemon balm, chamomile (sure, empty a tea packet!), marjoram, mint
- Protection: rosemary, cinnamon, basil, clove, allspice, ginger
- Charcoal disk if available, like the kind for hookah, no worries if not
- Paper & pen/pencil – write your words of power
*Recommended to be outside for all fire rituals and have something to douse the flame with if needed. I use an old metal pot with lid and handle as my cauldron and have a large cup of water nearby.
Set your space. Turn off your phone and other electronics. Connect with the 4 elements: light a candle (and your charcoal in your cauldron), take a sip of water, feel the air around you, mentally connect to the earth below you. Breathe.
Open sacred space. “I call in my guides, guardian angels, ancestors, archangels, and higher self to guide me tonight. Only those that are here for my best and highest good are allowed in. Please release me from this anger.”
Focus not on the anger or the person or the frustrating event. Instead, bring to your mind’s eye how you want to feel, how you would feel if the annoyance were out of your life. Imagine that reality as vividly as possible.
An entire day going to work without the annoying co-worker, being productive, being noticed, getting a raise.
A full peaceful night’s sleep without the neighbor, waking up happy, refreshed, energized, what your day looks like when that happens.
Go there. Imagine it until it brings a smile on your face, this new reality. Believe it’s possible – don’t worry about how, focus on the result you want.
When you reach a happy place, a high vibe feeling, read your Words of Power as many times as necessary to feel it.
When we call something in, we fold the paper towards us. When we are releasing, we fold the paper away from our body. Do whichever fits your Words.
Place the paper in your vessel (on the charcoal disk), sprinkle it with dried herbs, visualizing the herbs offering peace and protection. Light it all on fire (it may take a few tries, it may not stay lit, that’s all okay.
Watch the smoke drift away, taking your worries and concerns with it. Smell the burning herbs cleansing your space, your body, and leaving a lingering peace and protective layer.
When everything is ashes, sit and feel the new energy you created.
Offer gratitude to your guides, guardian angels, ancestors, archangels, and higher self for their guidance tonight. Thank yourself for taking time and showing up. Douse all fire, take a sip of water, and let the magic work.
Here’s the important part: sit back and let it be. Do not doubt it, do not question your methods (they were perfect), don’t investigate the timeline. Let it be and have faith. Know that it will all come to be in perfect timing.
For instance, I had this neighbor with a booming loud truck and he’d crank it up every morning at 6am, thundering the engine until nearby car alarms went off. Every time I heard it, instead of cursing him (I did that for a couple weeks tbh), I started blessing him – I hope “Bob” wins the lottery and moves far, far away. I stopped hearing the sound as much in the immediate future, and within a couple months, he got a new job and moved away!
Summary
As for the neighbor who instigated this bout of rage… he’s still there, I think. Ever since moving through this process though – feeling anger (screaming, journaling, witnessing the Stories), taking action (trying to talk to him and moving my bed to another room), releasing anger (breathing, shaking, and a burn ritual and protection spell) – I haven’t seen him, we’re like ships in the night. I don’t hear him in the same way – his noise is less offensive and less personal than it was. He’s still walking like a horse in boots and dragging a steamer trunk across the floor at odd hours, but it doesn’t infiltrate my bubble, and it doesn’t light the fire of rage anymore.
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