Your Rage is Sacred

Your rage is sacred.

Your rage is not something to fear or ashamed of.

It is not an emotion that needs to be hidden or purged after it comes over you.

Your rage is just as honorable as any other emotion; its messages to you are just as potent and true as any other emotion.

And most of all, your rage will not be denied.

It will keep showing up, sometimes in subtle, less perceptible ways, until you become willing to see it.

It may mask itself as an annoyance, righteous indignation, or even a theoretical concern.

But until, and only when, you finally see it for what it is, then will you feel the truth of it.

This is a lesson I learned many years ago.

I believe it takes regular tending to truly know and honor our rage.

To develop an intimate relationship with rage is a sacred practice.

Sadly, this is something that far too few people do; really get to know and honor their rage.

We fear our rage, afraid that it will be ‘too much’ for others, or perhaps even for ourselves to feel.

Or we try to tamp it down, believing that rage is a ‘bad’ emotion, something to be managed away or contained. Something we have to clean up after or cleanse away.

I recently had a client come to see me to work on ‘anger issues’. He was prone to rageful outbursts that he felt he couldn’t control and was distressed about the impact that was having on people he loved.

When I tuned into his energetic field, there was an overwhelming feeling of being bullied. Sure enough, he had been frequently bullied as a child, one time in particular that was especially traumatic.

At the time, he did not receive support in understanding and being with his emotions from these experiences. Do any kids really receive this kind of support? Far too few.

And so, he stuffed his feelings of hurt, confusion, anger, overwhelm, fear, & sadness deep down in his psyche. His body held onto these, as bodies do, holding it all for him until the time he could allow them to be expressed. Except that time never came.

When he met me, he had been holding onto the energy of these emotions for nearly seven decades.

And this stuck ball of confused energy had built up so much that he was prone to regular anxiety and fits of rage that both seemingly came out of nowhere.

Except that our emotions never just arise from nothing.

They are always there to tell us something if we care to listen; if we can slow down enough to hear what they want to say.

It is so common for people to be afraid of their rage and of expressing their rage. As if they might do something horrible in the actual expression of it. This is conditioning pure and simple and we do this to our own detriment.

I used to host monthly online Embodied Emotional Expression Experiences as a way for people to intentionally connect with their emotions and be witnessed in their full expression.

They were powerful circles and big energetic shifts and releases happened for participants. The healing power of doing this practice in community was palpable. The calm and nervous system shift that took place was felt by all.

This is SUCH powerful work.

To me, much of the blustery rhetoric of our culture today stems from unexpressed emotions that have blocked people for far too long. The hatred that spews from the throat represents years of unprocessed emotions.

I often imagine the global healing that would be possible if people everywhere had a reckoning with their emotions. If they allowed themselves to truly connect with what they were feeling and allow that energy to move through their bodies unabashedly.

I know from personal experience how incredibly cathartic and healing it is to do this, as well as how liberating it feels in the body and energy field when so much stuck energy is released.

My wish is that everyone can find the space and practice to tune into, witness, and allow full expression of the range of emotions that might be present at any given time. It is a practice I do regularly, and I know it helps me move through the world as a more grounded and present human.

Cheers to your rage, and all 87 other keys of your emotional piano.

(And yes, this is an AI adapted photo of me that I took and asked it to make it look angrier. I think I've still got more... )

#sacredrage #embodiedemotionalexpression #embodimentcoach #embodimentpractice #movementismedicine