HOW TO BE BOTH ANGRY AND RADICALLY LOVING AT THE SAME TIME
HOW TO BE BOTH ANGRY & RADICALLY LOVING AT THE SAME TIME
I've been having more conversations than ever before about BEING ANGRY. It turns out that so many of us are experiencing a sweeping wildfire of volcanic frustrations, annoyances, and overall I-have-had-enough-of-this-crap-political-done-ness (raise your hand if you know what I am talking about. Oh, it's everyone!? Okay. Great!)
Feeling like you 'have-had-it-up-to-here' isn't the most enjoyable of human emotions, but all feelings need to be felt to be freed and there is nothing - I repeat, n o t h i n g wrong with anger.
As children, the majority of us (especially those who identify as female) were taught that being a good person meant we needed to be 'polite' and 'nice' and 'kind' and 'sweet'. It was just not acceptable to be an angry kid. A kid with an opinion. A trouble maker. Many of us have carried our childhood conditioning into our everyday actions without even realizing it and it's time to consider the fact that this squashed self expression and behavioral control has done our society ( and ourselves) a great disservice.
Did I lose you yet? Bear with me here!
I was that angry kid. I hated the reality around me and I felt as though it wasn't safe for me to share my opinions. I felt trapped by not having a platform to express myself so I stuffed my feelings down and turned on the TV while eating as many salty potato chips as I could. I know I am not alone here!
Keeping anger trapped like a lion in a cage eventually leads to someone getting their hand bitten off, but it simply does not need to be that way. Luckily, it's nearing the end of 2018 and most of us have hopped on the prism of human experience and emotional understanding bandwagon. Most of us know that it is safe, good and right to feel and express our emotions.
How To Use Your Anger for GOOD
If you are reading this, I am going to assume you are a grown human doing the best you can to make your life as good as it can be. I am also going to assume you sometimes get angry and sit on it. If you are a human being, you may have even bottled it up, packaged it neatly and put it away never to be seen again!
PLEASE USE YOUR POWER.
What most of us don't realize is that anger comes with a secret superpower.
ANGER is ENERGY and it gives us just enough p o w e r and p a s s i o n
to take action. It is necessary for change. It can be burned, shifted and re-purposed for GOOD.
We all have a choice whether or not to transmute our emotions into action by bettering our world or to let emotion take total control over our inner light and inevitably become part of society's descent into fear and negativity. I know just how transformational anger can be because I sat with it like a coat of armor for the majority of my life.
For me, there was a disconnect between what I felt and what I did with it.
It took so many years and so many fights and so much hurting myself and others to recognize and learn the skills of using ANGER as an energetic wand of change.
Anger can be channeled as a gateway to changing what we don't like about the world, instead of just brooding about it.
Last night, I spoke to a friend about the last time I was furiously angry (I am talking way over the line - black out angry).
I had waited too long to stand up for myself and had been continuously bottling and swallowing my angst like daggers to my heart.
It was in High school. I was 14 and it was the first month of my Freshman year in a new city and in a new school. There was a boy a few grades above me who had been teasing (harassing really), bullying and making fun of me for my weight and body. He was sexualizing me and using hurtful words to cut me down and slice up my sense of self-worth. Unfortunately, this was not a new experience for me. I had been receiving this kind of hateful and violating behavior since Elementary school. Why I was picked on so aggressively isn't as important as what came out of these experiences.
What came out of it, you ask?
ANGER with a spoonful of activism
The day of my grand angering was a normal one like any other. I was loathing my school uniform, taking Geometry and feeling slightly self-conscious about ummm...everything ( hello, High school), when I decided to walk down the back hallway to get to the bathroom.
Once I started down the hall, I realized I'd made a huge mistake. There he was, at the end of the hallway, taking up far too much space and leaking his misogynistic energy all over the damn place.
As I walked nearer, I knew this wouldn't be a simple passing by. He stopped me right at the exit to my next destination. He put his arm across the entryway like some kind of traffic director gone mad.
"You can't go through", he proclaimed.
In that moment I decided I'd had ENOUGH. I couldn't take it anymore!
I demanded, "LET ME THROUGH!."
His reaction?
"If we were in MY country right now, I would SLAP you!"
My reaction?
"This is MY country!"
*please know that I accept and embrace all countries*
I then proceeded to lose complete control of myself. My whole body boiled like a furnace and I began to shake vigorously. I kid you not, I was no longer the Shira you know (especially not the current Yogi one), I had transformed into some kind of frightening human activist demon of the deepest and darkest depths
I began hitting him across the face and kicking him repeatedly. I couldn't stop myself. I kept going until I was literally pulled off of him by a teacher.
It was not a pretty sight and I am not proud of what happened that day.
I got suspended and felt so much shame..and if you are wondering, so did he.
This point of this story is not:
a. to scare you or b. to make you think I am not to be messed with or c. to inspire you to start beating up your bullies.
The point is to express the imperative nature of human existence.
We Must Feel Our Emotions & Take Action To Free Them.
We must use our anger as a tool of change. Anger is a gift, showing us what we care about and how we wish to better the world we live in.
By making simple changes, we have the magic like ability to shift the energy from negative to positive.
WE HAVE THE POWER
We can speak our truth, we can vote, we can vote with our dollar, using our money to support businesses and causes we believe in. We can donate to an important organization. We can make less trash. We can volunteer, give back to our communities and go above and beyond as a considerate human being. We can be impeccable with our word. We can stand up for our rights and the rights of others. We can be courageous with our lives. We can pray and send loving messages to those who need to receive them. It doesn't have to be an enormous act, it just has to be big enough to shift how we feel.
Be a source of radiant love. Be RADICALLY LOVING.
This kind of change is what we need now.
I encourage all of us (myself first and foremost) to check our attitude. To consider the ways in which we are leaking energy out every moment we fall prey to the takeover of emotions, rather than channeling them for the creation of a better world.
I don't regret that I stood up for myself that day, but I do regret that I hadn't taken action sooner. I regret that I never learned how to create safe boundaries and stand up for myself without losing control. It was a hard lesson to learn and one that continued, eh hem, I mean continues to this day, silently whispering in my ear, asking me to speak my truth and release my resentments, asking me if I'm complaining and choosing to dive into the downward spiral of negativity, or if I am lifting myself up and choosing to better the energetic environment around me.
We can be in flow, surrender and forgive, while standing up for ourselves, each other and what we believe in.
Our anger is nothing to be afraid of, to fear, or to feel guilty about. Instead, it is a call for change. Anger fuels the fire of our passions. Let's keep our fire burning.
This Monday night (TONIGHT) yoga will be a central nervous system reset, so that we can shift our tension in the direction of peace and positive change. There will be lots of hip opening. Muscle and Spirit strengthening. HEART opening and detoxifying and I cannot wait to shift energy with you.