Go Ahead. Be Angry.
Hello Courageous Thrivers,
If you read my email from yesterday you could tell I was fired up.
(No worries if you didn’t – there have been a lot of them this week, and I believe in inbox sanctity!)
In fact, I was pissy/grumpy/angry/frustrated ALL DAY. And not just about the big stuff, but about much more petty things – like my dog waking me up at 4:45 am and people in a group I’m in not responding to my questions.
I didn’t like myself, honestly.
I wanted to be less bothered by other people’s actions, or non-actions. I kept thinking of ALOK and Hillary Clinton. Two people who are/were constantly criticized, threatened, and let down and keep showing up and doing their work in the world.
And Kamala Harris and all Black women in America.
Here’s the thing. All these people who have been targets of oppression, they have been angry too. They may have learned how not to show it – in service of their own safety or a greater cause. They have been strategic about how to use it. But I’m 100% sure they’ve been angry.
We all, white people especially, like Martin Luther King in part because he seemed like he wasn’t angry. Malcolm X and the Black Panthers are demonized because they expressed more anger.
And I am all for non-violent, love-centered practices. I’m all for refusing to play the game of violence as a way to end violence.
But sometimes what Love needs to do is set a boundary. Say no. Refuse to comply. Take action. And often anger is the catalyst that moves us to the place of making the hard decision and taking the courageous action.
We need our anger right now AND we need to be sure it’s not chronic.
Spinning around in anger is dangerous for our bodies and our communities. Anger is an emotion that is meant to spur insight – about what we value, about what’s not okay and what needs to change – and then it’s meant to spur action.
Where we get into trouble with anger is on the extremes. Either we suppress it and try to be at peace when it’s time for being pissed off.
Or we explode from the feelings into harmful actions because we failed to the message it had for us, so we can choose the action that’s most aligned with the goals and values that the anger was revealing to us. The action least likely to cause more harm than whatever we’re angry about and more likely to create something better.
Today is a full moon in Leo and I’m not an astrologist, but I started paying more attention to what’s happening with the moon when I realized that if it can move the oceans, and cause more women to go into labor, surely it’s impacting all of us. It just makes sense. We are all 60-70% water after all.
This particular full moon, according to people who study these things (I listened to this talk by Sabrina Lynn), is a big one for emotional expression. It’s a big one for letting go of patterns of denying your light.
This is a full moon that says it’s time for you to express your light in the way you want to express your light. And the energy of it is ready to support you to do just that. Maybe that’s part of what was spurring me on yesterday.
But you don’t have to follow astrology to get the benefit of reflecting on these questions:
How fully are you shining your light in the world?
How free do you feel to be fully yourself? (Are you as free as ALOK?)
If not, maybe you need to let some of your anger rise up, so you can say, “That’s it. No more hiding. Ya’ll don’t get to muzzle me anymore.”
If you’re a woman or were socialized as one, you were very likely taught that anger is to be avoided. I know I was.
But you know what? The email I sent from the place of my anger resonated with some folks, which resulted in Next Step Forward selling out.
First time I’ve ever had an offer sell out!
And it wasn’t just the angry email that did it, of course. I’ve been showing up day by day for weeks. Doing boring things I’m not good at like setting up a sales page, and internal work like calming my critical voices, and community work like asking for encouragement.
But the anger is definitely part of it.
What better time than during Black History Month for us to get angry, learn how to work with our anger, and use it to take action in service of a world where all people in all kinds of bodies are safe, respected, and living lives of deep satisfaction and joy.
I love you all. Thank you for reading. And thank you for whatever you’re doing to help yourself and others to thrive.
Here’s to thriving AND equity, which can’t be outlawed as long as we don’t cooperate with that plan.
P.S. Do you know about Ida B. Wells — she’s one of my favorite Black women leaders from the late 19th and early 20th century. If not, learn more here.