I don’t know if it’s my awareness that has evolved and expanded, or the fact that I’ve been living in a different country, or all of the above…

But something I have been witnessing for a while now is the number of people who are angry. So, this week I’m talking about anger. I wanted to share my thoughts and would love to hear what you think about this topic.

I believe it’s important to talk about it so we can heal, so we can live in a place where we act and live in harmony, but also set ourselves free.

I see the same actors in the news doing everything to keep people angry. The smiles are stuck, but the eyes are full of anger.

Online, I also notice there is always an angry person hanging out in the comments section, sharing anger and aggressive comments, as if they get a dopamine hit from it. And it’s always someone else’s fault for how they feel.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that people shouldn’t feel angry. People should feel their emotions, not repress them. I just don’t think we can live in anger all our lives.

The energy that anger carries makes people mentally and physically sick.

It seems as if anger is the only emotion that exists. The only “flavor” on their emotion menu. As if it became their only reference when they navigate the world. A part of them, their identity, their compass.

As if they don’t know how to react a different way, or have been taught only to communicate through anger.

And then there is the layer of trauma that isn’t helping them see the world in a positive way. When you are a child and people much older than you betray you. People you trusted to protect you were not there, or didn’t care, or didn’t believe you.

How can you not be angry? How can you trust anyone?

I have a lot of empathy for them.

I understand also that here in the US and other parts of the world, there is pain that is still felt through generational trauma.

Passed on because countries have been built on stolen land, on the killing of Native peoples, on slavery. Forcing people to adhere to a doctrine, to go to church, punishing people for speaking their native language, detaching them from their cultures and manipulating them.

All of that is carried not only through our ancestors, our grandparents and parents, but also through the land.

Everything is energy.

Anything we do not take the time to pause and sit with, to do the work to face our demons, to heal, comes back to haunt us. As long as we are not learning the lesson or doing the work on ourselves, we will act based on our traumas.

And we will project our pain onto others.

I remember once I talked to my superior about an issue my coworker and I had. That coworker heard a part of my conversation, made an assumption, and started to scream in front of our clients in the middle of a shift. I just melted. I had zero space to talk. We were in front of strangers…

I get triggered when people communicate by screaming. I have a boundary that makes me run in the opposite direction.

My energy drains the second people get on their favorite dopamine high. I can’t think or answer. My mind is in full alert.

I do feel anger too. Frustration, especially when situations are unfair.

I believe I learned to internalize it. I do not like confrontation. When I took the courage to say my truth in a calm way, it was often received with anger. So I don’t think my way is better. It has been my way to cope.

I just know that living in anger isn’t healthy, and neither is repressing it.

The people I’m talking about are not just angry for missing the bus. They are living and breathing anger. Their reaction’s ground floor, their level zero, their nervous system starts right at one hundred percent with anger.

You see them calm, and a minute later they are fully on fire.

There is no range or level of emotions. They are getting angry at a level where they are no longer present, they are out of their body and aren’t able to hear anything.

Some people keep their anger because they might believe it’s all they have and are scared to let it go.

While anger could be used for good.
To move mountains.
To stop a system that is not made for us.
To build communities on a different system and find peace through it.

So, if emotions have to be felt, what needs to be expressed?
How can we do it in a healthy way?
How can we express ourselves before the feeling takes the lead?

It took me a while to really understand what “feeling my emotion” meant. I found it hard to feel it without feeling negativity taking over all the space in me… But sitting with it doesn’t mean letting that feeling take over. It means sitting with it to look at it. To be curious about it.

And not about the small trigger, but what’s under it, and under that, and under all the layers of years of suppression. What caused anger in the first place.

The seed that was planted a while ago.

The one that created pain and still gets triggered each time we feel something. Like Poison Ivy.

It takes courage to do so. It takes courage to sit beside someone who feels anger. It takes courage to continue to live with it and not want to face it.

To remove the pain from its roots.

To finally look at yourself and give yourself what should have been given to you in the first place: love.

I make the wish that in the next couple of years a major healing shift will happen. That we will find our ground level is kindness. For ourselves and others.

And remember, you are doing the best you can with the knowledge, the skills, and the energy that you have today.

With gratitude,
Nina