Hellooooooooo beefriends! I hope everyone is having a good day today. If you've been around my blog a while, you might have seen me talk about shadow work: unearthing, processing, accepting, and facing those parts of ourselves that we generally suppress. Today I'd like to touch on one thing in particular that is a part of many people's shadows: anger.
In many cultures, anger is seen as a "negative." We're encouraged to ignore it, to squash it, to not express it. We're told that it's immature, uncivilized, and unenlightened. But anger is a very natural human response to various circumstances. To deny an emotion whole cloth as if there was no reason for it is to deny a piece of ourselves. And so it gets buried away, all the words you didn't say because you didn't want to start an argument, all the times you didn't stick up for yourself, all the injustices that went unchallenged, all the times you said you were fine when you really, really weren't.
We tend to equate "anger" with "temper tantrum" or "violence," but that's not what it is. You can be angry at social injustice, you can be angry when you are abused or otherwise mistreated, you can be angry when you see a scammer get away with their lies, and that's not the same as throwing a temper tantrum. If we are quick to squelch any form of anger for any reason, it not only causes the proverbial (or literal) ulcer in ourselves, but it often allows injustice to go unchecked. How many people see a corrupt law or political situation, get angry, tell themselves, "no, no, deep breaths, allow, bend, this is not your fight, anger is not the answer" ...and then the awful policy that hurts people continues? Did that suppression of your righteous anger help anyone in that case? I would argue no.
I am of course not advocating for everyone to go full Karen and pitch a fit any time you don't get your way, but I am saying that anger is not evil or bad. It is no more or less a valid human emotion than sadness or happiness. It just is.
So often we suppress our anger, and those unsaid words are our truth. Again, there is nothing wrong with walking away from an argument until you calm down and coming back once you have had a moment to clear your mind and think rationally so that you don't say anything you don't mean in the heat of the moment. I'm not saying you need to let it all fly when your temper is flaring. But those who have been trained to deny all anger will generally not come back and speak their truth later; they will bottle it all up forever, because they think that is the "spiritual" thing to do. "Be the bigger person" is an admonishment we often are told, which while sometimes useful advice, in other times it just means "let the other person get what they want," as if you are a poor beleaguered retail worker who is told "the customer is always right." Sometimes the customer is not right, and sometimes you shouldn't give in to someone who is bullying you. But you are made to feel as if you are being petty if you stand up for yourself or others. You are made to feel "small" if you, ironically, do not let yourself be a doormat.
How much of our shadow is filled with all the times we bottled up our anger and locked it away inside, never to see the light of day again?
Have you ever had a dream where you were screaming in anger but your voice would not actually work? You were using your lungs and exhausting your body with the effort, but barely any sound escaped your lips at all, as if you were on mute? I have. That dream to me says, you have anger in your shadow that you have not expressed, truths you have not spoken, and you need to deal with it, pronto. It feels awful. It feels unhealthy. It feels dispiriting.
It feels like life.
When you have suppressed so much anger that your very subconscious is poking you with a stick about it, you're not taking the higher path, you are burdening your soul with unprocessed pain. In order to free yourself, you need to turn around and take a good, hard look at what's hiding in your shadows.
This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to go have a confrontation with an abusive family member or a childhood bully. Maybe in some cases it does, but that is not always what will heal you, especially if that person still won't acknowledge the pain they caused you, let alone apologize for it. If you had an abusive family member who to this day gaslights you about it, it is more likely to wound you further if you decide to try and get some admission of guilt or an apology from them like you're trying to get water from stone. In such cases, you are left to process your anger alone. Maybe you do that through therapy, or meditation, or journaling, or art, but you are going to need to process and express that feeling somehow, in order to heal from it. If your past abuser has come to you and genuinely sought to make amends, that's great, but it isn't necessary for you to deal with your feelings about what happened.
Facing anger is one of the scarier aspects of shadow for people to deal with, as many of us have never been taught healthy coping mechanisms for it and are easily overwhelmed by it. But once you start to acknowledge and honor it, you may find that anger isn't "bad;" it was just trying to protect you.
Let anger be your ally, and see what new understandings happen in your life. :)