Love Your Anger
As a child, and most notably if female, we have anger pretty much entirely socialized out of us at a young age.
Rage, dissent, frustration (normal emotions!) are all expected to be kept in check. Tamed.
To a child, this basically means either stuffing it down, or completely annihilating/loathing the part of yourself that feels those emotions because of how wrong and terrible they are and how they make you a 'bad' girl or boy... the emotional equivalent of cutting off your own legs.
What have we done?!?
First off, anger is not hate. Let's clarify that those are separate.
Anger itself is beautiful. It makes us feel alive. It proves that we still have stock in the game of life.
It's a bridge emotion. It is fuel.
Anger's purpose is to move us out of one state and into the next. Remember those emotional legs? Turns out you need them. Who knew? 😉
If we get angry, and we allow it... anger moves us from sadness into action, into connection, and into purpose.
If we stuff it down, if we suppress it, we're cutting off the oxygen to our fire. We get stuck in sad... perpetually stuck in sadness, in depression, because the minute we start to feel anger we shove it down, annihilate it, extract it, surgically cut it off, get rid of it.
We "think" (via the cognitive conditioning from our childhood) that anger will make it worse. We "think" that it's just one more reason why we're 'bad'. But what does Atreyu say to Artax as he's sinking in the Swamps of Sadness?
"FIGHT against the sadness, Artax." "Artax! Stupid horse! You've gotta move or you'll die! MOVE, please!"
His fight was his fuel, his movement, his way out of the sadness.
Anger is our bridge. It stirs us. It calls us to movement and it gives us a will to get there.
Love your anger. Love this incredibly powerful part of yourself. Thank it, trust it.
Be your whole self.
Rebecca 💕💜