A Spell for Honoring Anger

Does being angry scare you? Does it feel like something you have to deny, or push down?

I’m here to tell you, that’s the patriarchy talking.

The World wants you to be scared of your anger, because anger is insightful.

Anger knows when something is unfair, unfit, or unjust.

Anger is here to tell you what’s wrong.

And it can give you the power to make it right.

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Mentioned:

The Language of Emotions, by Karla McLaren. I can’t recommend it enough.

Make Magic:

When you feel the flame of anger start to burn, don’t snuff it out.

Let it move, ask it some good questions, and then take all that power and channel it into change.

Transcript:

A Spell for Honoring Anger

Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here. 

Hi. Welcome. How are you? I’m so glad that you’re here with me today. My friend, today’s episode has been brewing for such a long time. I have known since the beginning, since before the beginning of Mind Witchery, that I would most definitely talk about anger. And, so, here we are, finally, doing it. I’m really excited.

So, today’s episode is a spell for honoring anger. And, you know, it took me a while to choose the verb here, to choose “honoring.” I considered “channeling.” I considered “digesting.” I considered “utilizing.” I was like, gosh, what is the—what do we want to do with anger? And in the end, I settled on “honoring.” And I settled on “honoring” because anger is an emotion that is asking us to make change.

Anger is saying something is not right. Something has got to change. Anger is powerful and it is empowering. And, you know, for that reason, it’s no accident that the more systemic disempowerment you face [laugh] in your intersectional identity, my friend, the more aspects of your identity that our culture is intent on disempowering, the more difficult our culture makes it for us to express and to honor our anger.

So, basically, what I mean by that is that if our culture prefers you to be controlled, prefers you to be submissive and dominated, prefers you to know your place and stay in your place [laugh], the more our culture wants to subjugate you, the more problematic and difficult it can be to experience and to channel and to utilize anger, because anger says that things need to change, and those who are empowered by and in control of those subjugating systems don’t want anything to change. They are fine with things just as they are.

So, that’s one reason, right, just like culturally, it can be difficult for people to express anger because when you express anger, especially if you’re a woman, especially if you are a Black woman, especially if you are a member of one of those systemically disempowered groups, then that anger is really automatically perceived as a threat. And the way that our culture neutralizes that threat is to say, “Oh, no, something’s not wrong with the way things are, with what happened, with what’s going on. Something is wrong with you. [laugh] You are out of control. You are insane. You are crazy. You are dangerous.”

So, this, of course, contributes to the sense of discomfort that we may feel when anger arises. Also, I think you will agree with me, anger is kind of frightening. It’s very, very strong. It’s a huge emotion, and it’s an emotion that summons power. It just pulls power in. 

I know you are familiar with the association of anger with fire. We use all sorts of pyro-associated language and metaphors for talking about anger, right? She has a short fuse, or she blew her top. We think of anger as being explosive and as having a fiery quality. And I don’t know about you. For me, it definitely feels that way. There is that kind of drawing in and up, just like a flame does, drawing in and up, and a heat and an intensity to anger that just—it’s—it feels really, really big. 

Of course, I cannot help but pause here and say, my goodness, when we get access to this much power, when we have an emotion that can summon that much energy, of course we want to learn how to work with it, don’t we? Of course, we do. We want to learn how to work with it. We want to learn how we can channel or process or redirect to use some of this energy, and especially because, again, anger is saying something needs to change. Something’s not right, and something needs to change.

So, this spell for honoring anger is not exactly about calming or soothing or dissipating the anger. That doesn’t seem to me like the right thing to do. This spell for honoring anger is intended to help you move with the anger, to step into that current of power, and to use it to fuel your courage, and to make the change that needs to happen. So, I want to talk a little bit about being with anger, I want to talk a little bit about what happens when we try to tamp anger down, and I want to share with you some excellent questions for honoring anger.

OK. So, let’s talk about being with anger, like when the anger is actually arising, when you are summoning all of that power, and you’re feeling impelled by it. So, perhaps, the first thing to do is to remember anger is here to tell me that something’s got to change, and then the second thing to do is to find a way to move the energy—to move the energy. And, so, that might be going for a walk. That might be crying. That might be sitting down at the piano, and playing music. That might be grabbing a journal, and furiously writing, but figuring out some kind of way to get your body and mind together in moving the anger. Figure out a way to get it to move. 

And something I’ve been noticing for myself lately is that this tends to go best for me when I do this on my own. While there’s something kind of comforting in the moment of picking up the phone, calling up a bestie, and railing about what I’m so mad about or, you know, marching into the living room, and finding someone to just, like, complain and rage to, there’s something maybe incomplete about that for me. There’s something a little unsatisfying. It’s like I’m not really moving the anger. I’m not moving the energy. I’m just churning out. I’m like—I’m stirring it up.

And I don’t at all want to imply that it’s not OK to share our anger. I think it’s 100% OK and good to share, and, at the same time, I, myself, have been noticing that it feels better to me to move, to get out. Go to the gym, and lift some heavy things while listening to women rapping. [laugh] Right? That might be a way. Or, you know, I don’t—do any of you ever rage clean? [laugh] I love a good rage clean. [laugh] I think I inherited this from my mother, actually. But just, like, furiously cleaning, like putting a room into order or, like, scrubbing the hell out of a floor [laugh] can feel really good.

So, there’s something I think in having not just the words, the sentiments, the feelings flowing, but incorporating an embodied component so that I get to move. Like, the energy really gets to express and move. So, for me, that has been a more satisfying way to be with the anger as it is first arising, you know, in that overwhelming, like, whoosh. It’s like, OK, let me take that wave, and ride it right out the door to go for a long stompy walk through the woods. Let me let this energy move my body. Let me remember my power to act. Let me remember my power to do something.

And that, to me, is honoring anger. Anger is like, something’s not right, and you have power. Change it. And, so, when I put on my shoes, and walk out the door, even if I’m just going to walk down to the mailbox and back [laugh], I’m remembering I have the power to move, I have the power to act, and I’m giving all that powerful energy somewhere to go that is of my choosing.

Now, I’ll speak for myself here. When I don’t do that, one of three things happens. One, I might try to contain the anger, and to press it down. And in those cases, what I’m usually doing is what culture wants me to do. I’m trying to blame myself, actually. I’m trying to say, OK, maybe there’s not something wrong with the situation. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. OK, this seems really messed up, but, actually, maybe it’s my fault. Maybe this is my problem. Maybe my standards are too high. Maybe I’m being unreasonable. Right? So, that might be one thing I do if I’m not going move anger.

Another thing I will do sometimes, which I mentioned before, is recruit other people to come stew in the anger with me. [laugh] And, like I said before, that tends to just make me feel sort of bitter. Because, you know, what happens when I do that is I’m using my power to kind of describe the situation I don’t want, rather than using my pow…the power of anger to do something different. 

And, so, I think for me, that’s why that never feels quite as cathartic. It doesn’t feel quite as cathartic to get other people to come into my anger hot tub with me [laugh], and get really hot. It’s like there’s not as much transformation. There’s definitely camaraderie, and I appreciate that, or maybe I’ll get support and understanding. But the power and the dynamism, it’s like wasted. 

And, you know, maybe this is the place to mention what happens when I stew and stew in the anger, rather than harnessing that dynamic, changing, transformative quality. And that is where anger shifts more towards resentment, right? When I don’t use anger to make change, when I’m just stewing in what’s wrong, rather than saying, OK, here’s what’s wrong, and here’s what I want, here’s what’s wrong, and here’s what can be different, when I’m stewing, stewing, stewing, stewing, that moves into that kind of hot, bitter, acidic, burning resentment quality. 

And it’s interesting. I think that resentment actually kicks in a lot sooner than maybe we even realize. And the distinction I see between anger and resentment is, you know, anger is saying something’s got to change. Something is wrong, and it’s got to change. And resentment is saying, oh, it’s been wrong, and it hasn’t changed. It’s been wrong, and it hasn’t changed.

So, with resentment, all of that energy gets directed back into the story, back into the shitty situation, and, you know, it sort of cycles the stew around. It just stirs it around and around. It’s that looking backward, looking at what’s wrong, rather than taking what’s wrong, and using that to look forward and into what could be different. You see?

I find that when I’m in a place where I pull other people in to stew in my anger, I am directing my attention and energy towards describing what’s wrong, and telling the story, you know, the whole sordid history [laugh] of the wrong. And I’m taking the energy of anger, which wants to move, and I’m sort of forcing it back into the shitty narrative. 

And, again, I don’t think it’s bad or wrong at all to share with other people what’s wrong. It’s just as a response to anger, it is perhaps unhelpful or unsatisfying to direct the energy back into the stew, rather than directing the energy into whatever could be next. All right. So, how do we move in that direction?

I will share with you three questions that I got from Karla McLaren’s amazing book, The Language of Emotion. She is, I think, brilliant in the way that she approaches emotion in this text. Karla McLaren asserts that all emotions are valuable, and really what we want to be able to do is to work with them. And, so, in this text, The Language of Emotion, she has different chapters for different emotions, and she both describes the emotion, and then also gives you a few questions to ask when you are encountering that emotion.

So, I have already several times shared her questions for anger, but they’re just so good, and they’re so helpful. And they’ve certainly given me and given my clients a way to honor and harness the power of anger to make the changes that need to happen in our lives in this world. 

All right. So, let’s say you have gone for your stompy walk or you have rage cleaned your kitchen. [laugh] You’ve moved the energy. You have remembered in your body that you can take action, that you can make change, that you can express that you can move energy. You’re moving energy in your body, remembering that capacity.

Once that’s happening, or maybe after that’s happened, then it’s a great time to move into these questions. And the first one is values oriented. What is most important to me? What is most important, right? If anger is telling us that something’s got to change, something’s wrong, and something’s got to change, then, well, what is important? Like, what do I want to orient toward? Right. That’s the first question.

The second question is, what must be protected? What must be protected? And then the third question is, what must be restored? So, what is important, what must be protected, and what must be restored? These questions honor anger. These questions give anger a channel, a direction in which to go. 

And I’d love for you to just imagine for a moment getting really, really mad, giving yourself a moment to let the energy move, to remember your power to take action, to make change, even in a small way, even if you’re changing, you know, a counter from crumb-dusted to clean [laugh], right, and then sitting with those questions. What’s important? What must be protected? What must be restored?

Imagine then coming to a friend, and talking about the situation; not in the way that you’re kind of pulling her into it with you, but in a way that you are recruiting her support and her help for what’s next, for what you want to do. Right? Because, of course, as we know, there is nothing that feeds resentment more than doing nothing. 

Oh, my gosh. My heart hurts to think about that. But haven’t you—don’t you know someone who dwells in resentment? Do you know that person? They’re so mad, and they deserve to be mad. They get to be mad. It makes total sense that they’re mad. But because all of that anger gets directed kind of down and in to the situation as is, rather than channeled into some kind of change, some kind of move forward, oh, it’s just the worst. 

All right, my friend. So, a spell for honoring anger. Number one, anger says that things need to change. So, number two, move it. Use it to move your body, to do something. When anger arises, go, express with your body. Let it flow. And then number three, remember, to honor anger, to use it for its best purpose, we need to channel it toward change, toward our values, toward what’s important, toward what must be protected and what must be restored.

All right, my love, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that you find this helpful and interesting. I hope that you will remember this spell when anger arises like a flame, and that you won’t be afraid, and that you’ll see it as a phenomenal opportunity to step into your power to create change. All right, thanks for listening. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world. 

Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time. 

End of recording