I’ve got a bit of a temper. You could call me fiery, if you will. Certain things just boil my blood.
I take pleasure from expressing my displeasure.
Anger. The root of all protest movements and all processes of change.
I love my anger… when it’s properly channeled. It drives me to make things different. My anger tells me that THIS is something that I am not okay with. It is a boundary-setter. It tells me that “I can see/feel/know that someone or something has wronged me.” It tells me something needs to change.
It is one of the best drivers I know. If I didn’t think it was wrong, I would never be driven to refine anything.
If I hadn’t been pissed off at the corporate world, and the way business ‘should be’, and being told I ‘should’ accept it, this whole thing never would never be. My anger was a necessary driver. And it continues to spur me.
Express it honestly.
Many of us make the mistake of pushing away anger, fearful that it will be destructive if expressed. Often, we hypervalue silence as though it were it’s own virtue.
Others express aggression, blame, anxiety or rage – the destructive siblings of anger – instead. We alter and use the anger to blame others, or shame our Self.
There is no need to hide our anger.
We can learn from it and use it to our advantage if we speak honestly and kindly about it. In times of anger, we need to allow ourselves the space to feel our feelings with a gentle acceptance of them, so as to not dissociate from them, or distance our Self from another.
We can ask our Self:
- Why am I feeling this?
- What needs to change here?
- What do I need to do about it?
Asking these questions slows down our reactivity and allows us to think about the potential consequences of speaking or not speaking in any given moment. It also allows us to see that we are not a victim of circumstance and do have choices in how we handle injustice.
Our anger is our clue to changing our world.
photo by: kodama
