Anger is powerful. Accessing rage – suppressed rage – is healthy.
All we ever see or hear about anger are the damaging consequences of expressing it unhealthily.
But there’s another kind of rage. A holy rage.
This rage is different. It serves a sacred purpose. It’s a path to liberation.
Personally I love this rage.
It’s the rage of the woman who finally says ‘No more’ to the man who beats her.
It’s the rage of the man with a disability who’s tired, so tired of living in a world which rarely thinks of his physical needs or bothers to accommodate them.
It’s the rage of the woman who’s always been conditioned to be nice, to be polite, to be accommodating. It’s her saying ‘Enough! I’m tired of this charade.’
It’s the rage of the mother who’s been broken by her children and cannot, simply cannot accommodate the needs of one more person for one more second.
It’s the rage of the coloured woman against the system that pushes her down at every turn. A system that breaks her heart daily as it reveals itself even and especially in the faces of her white sisters and coloured brothers.
It’s the rage of the gay man and the lesbian woman who say, ‘How dare you make comment on my sexuality, on my intimate life, on the stirrings of my heart. It’s none of your goddamned business.’
It’s the rage of millions of people who’ve never had the chance to shift out of the economic ditch into which they were born and yet everyday notice other people rising up around them. It’s the rage of not knowing how to liberate themselves too.
It’s the rage of Indigenous communities who’ve been callously judged by non-Indigenous people for ‘creating their own problems or not helping themselves’. It’s the collective voice of Indigenous people everywhere saying, ‘You stole my land, my language, my culture, my spirituality. You stole my children. You stole every aspect of my identity. You are the monster from whom I cannot escape. You are the monster who haunts my dreams.’
It’s the refugee who rages at the inhumanity of others and the deep injustices caused by their lack of compassion. A lack which sees her held apart, separate from the crowd, unwelcome, unwanted.
It’s the rage of the transperson who says ‘Fuck you all. You’ve no idea what it is to live in this body.’
Rage needs to come up.
Rage needs to be expressed.
Rage needs a safe place to land.
And often, so often, that’s all that’s required of us; to bare witness to another’s rage.
We can hold space for them to scream and cry and feel. Really feel the burning heat of rage moving through them.
To offer that, my friends, is a gift.
It’s a gift that few are able to offer because so few have allowed it in themselves.
One of the most important things we can do in this world is to access our own rage.
Find it, allow it.
ALLOW IT.
Not by suppressing or deflecting it. Not by pushing it onto others. Not by diffusing it into anger or frustration and then letting it leak out in little bits on unsuspecting colleagues, neighbours, loved ones, friends. Not by collapsing into it and falling into a game of blame and shame.
By standing in it. Owning it. Embodying it.
Allowing it to purify you. Allowing it to clear away all the stuck and blocked pieces of your being.
Allowing it to reveal your voice to you. Your true voice.
The empowered voice. The sovereign voice who speaks with focus and clarity, with purpose and without apology.
This is rage’s gift and she’s waiting to offer it to you.
Check out our series ‘Women and Rage’ here.
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