The Hidden Opportunity of Anger

I was in a tarot reading/ chart reading/ coaching session in preparation for the upcoming two eclipses and was asked ‘What are you angry about?’

The question took me by surprise, especially in the middle of a powerful reading focused on going beyond illusion and stepping into my gift.

To be honest, I’ve never seen myself as an angry person. I would readily admit to intensity and passion, but anger? That’s not me…..or is it?

Recently I’ve been acknowledging more and more of what comes out of me when I’m squeezed like I talked about in a previous blog. As the cards chose to point out, there’s a lot more anger in there than I’ve been owning.

Many of us are conditioned, especially as women, that anger is unbecoming and not something to be expressed. But anger that isn’t processed, acknowledged, honored, and released will inevitably harm the vessel in which it’s contained. It’s a poison that eats us away from the inside. I see anger in others so readily- my mother, my sister, my friends, my colleagues- and as the tenets of psychology reveal, ‘If you spot it, you got it.’

I’m way beyond the space of judging myself for feeling anything at this point, so I chose to get really curious and allow. Instead of positing ignorance for why I’m angry and offering my brain the hard stop of ‘I don’t know’, I genuinely asked myself, ‘If I did know why I’m angry, what would the answer be?’ The plethora of words that followed were cathartic and enlightening. They were heart wrenching and tragic. They were familiar and true.

And when I came to the end of what my pen could release and the purge of rage felt complete, I saw the anger for what it truly was.

“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief”

 -C.S. Lewis

Anger hides the deepest sadness. It’s a higher frequency than grief so is easier to feel. Anger holds fire and action and keeps you out of the heaviness of what lies beneath. I could see so many varied circumstances written in my journal, yet they all encompassed the common thread of my ‘reasons for being angry’.

What if the circumstances are just there to teach us a deeper lesson? What if the themes of our life exist outside of what happens to us or around us? What if we create the circumstances we need until we grasp the roots of the message? What if the anger has nothing to do with the circumstances but only our stories about them?

When I allowed the words on the page to fully envelop me and the feeling of anger to settle deep in my body, I had a profound softening and recognition that my anger wasn’t about all those things outside of me. Ultimately, it came down to anger for me not seeing me in all my light and potential, anger for not stepping into the woman I believe I’ve been called to be, anger for taking everything, especially myself, so damn seriously.

And then the grief – for the things that did happen inside of that anger, the mistakes that were made, the bridges burned, the opportunities missed. 

What do you do when you find yourself there?

Allow. Forgive. Trust. Repeat.

(and cry….there may have been a lot of crying)

I embraced that little person within and reminded her that nothing had gone wrong. We are all in a school of love and learning in this human experience. As my dear friend E says,

‘There’s no way to cheat, no way to fail, no way to succeed, no other trail.”

This game is a continual learning and letting go. It’s a union of the Self. Now I recognize that clearing my own anger is part of letting go of old ways of thinking and embracing a new perception.

The process may not be complete in a single session, or it may be. I’ve been doing enough work for a long enough time to know that many times it’s all about our choice of whether or not to suffer. We choose how to integrate the lessons and themes of our life.

In no way do I believe I am now bereft of anger, but what I do know is that now that I’ve acknowledged and allowed his presence, I can see beyond the illusion, not only of anger but of my hiding of the anger. I have a bigger container for myself and others. I’m even more prepared to show up with Trust.

Are you angry? What’s your anger trying to tell you? What message lies beneath? What could you let go of?

What freedom is on the other side?

Let me help you explore.

 All my love,

Coach g