I don’t have a choice but to be angry. I have tried to quell, shove down, just flat-out deny feelings of rage and disappointment for as long as I can remember. I was raised by angry people who believe our strength and protection comes from the armour of anger that we wear. I build my terracotta warriors, to hide the pink fleshy bits that are so vulnerable and imperfect. Ashamed and unaccepting of my true self, I hide it away. I am afraid to see my true reflection, see others reactions to my true hideous nature. My anger is a reaction to powerlessness and the crippling reality of our flawed human nature and the limited experience of a short life.
I have spent years searching for tools to rid myself of all of the excess pain that I created not loving myself. At first I felt it would go away, if I put it on someone else. I blamed people for their roles in my pain. Even if they wanted to, they would have been unable to take the pain. It was mine, I had to own it, feel it, learn to love it, care for it, and most importantly honour it. No one controls the times and moods of the universe, my journey has taught me to be a good navigator of all types of storms. My pain has made me a better person.
So how do I learn to love and care for my anger? I do not know how to pity anger, the way I do pain. I keep asking the universe this question, this is what I have gotten back so far. I need to listen to my anger because it tells me when something is wrong. It is my alert system. It also gives me passion to fight. I was taught long ago that our actions are fueled by one of two energies, love or fear. We can be angry from a place of love, we just can not act from fear, and expect love in return.
When we are angry at the world, when we are looking for a place to put our blame, we are sitting here howling at the moon. Our actions are our experience, howling feels really good, spewing more negative into the universe does not, however, appear to be helping. It just divides us further.
How can we move away from being powered by fear, and move into love? That is the question of our time, and there is no one answer, and no right answer. I focus on activism. I have a dream of a place where anyone can come to find and build community. I live in a area that excels in community building, and they are teaching me how to build my dream. I am no longer waiting for someone to tell me it is okay to change my world. For me it is not about the end result, it is about the trying.
Painting may work better for you, or writing. Find something creative for that energy. We can use our anger to express ourselves creatively, to build, to solve, to try, to love. We may never be able to fix what as angered us, we can heal by moving forward with compassion and intent.