Anger is not dark. Anger is not dangerous.
Anger is not unspiritual. Anger is not ‘bad’. Anger is not a sign of our lack of evolution.
Or our failure. Or our lack of insight, peace, enlightenment, maturity, health. Anything.
Anger is simply fire.
Fire can burn.
Fire can cleanse.
Fire can illuminate.
Fire can heal.
Anger is a real and valid emotion, billions of years old, intelligently rising in the body to protect us from a real or imaginary threat. Wanting to set boundaries. Ready to say no. Willing to stand up for our values. Yearning to be heard.
Anger is not the problem.
Anger is not inherently violent. It is in our REACTION to our anger - that is where the violence begins.
When we repress and reject our anger-power, when we stuff it down, refuse to feel it or even acknowledge it, hide it in order to be ‘nice’ and please and impress and protect others. When we attack and hurt others in order to find relief from our anger. When we judge and shame and rage and manipulate and try to control others - what they think, what they feel, what they desire or do not. Try to make them feel bad. Punish them. That is where the ‘darkness’ lies. In the reaction to our anger. In our search for discharge. In our running. In our disembodiment. Not in the anger itself.
Anger is only energy, fierce and powerful energy arising in the body, not a sin or an ‘unspiritual’ force to be eradicated, but a creative and fiery expression of life itself.
Anger is simply a raw part of us asking to be met. With understanding. With compassion. With love. With slowness. With breath.
Some of the most violent people I have ever met have been (on the surface) the most ‘spiritual’ ones - the enlightened ones, the gurus, the perfect ones, the ones who ‘never get angry’, the ones who are ‘always peaceful and calm and in a state of perfect love and equanimity’, the ones who ‘dwell in pure Awareness’.
Yeah, right.
For there is no true love without love for our anger, when it comes to visit. True light is willing and able to enlighten the shadow, and bless the mess.
Anger is not inherently dark.
Anger is not dangerous.
Anger is not unspiritual.
Anger is not ‘bad’. Or shameful. Or sinful.
All these outdated beliefs stem from a profound fear and misunderstanding and distrust of the body.
We can undo the conditioning:
Next time anger surges, as it will, can you slow down, connect, breathe, feel, breathe again, and get curious about the fire inside?
Underneath your anger, you may just discover, a tender, fragile, frightened heart, a beautiful vulnerability, and a self-protective power, billions of years in the making.
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