I used to rage with the best of them. I was full of so much anger and pain, and there were definitely days that I unleashed the beast within and everyone around me got to experience it, feel it and be affected by it. I was a rage-aholic. I could keep my anger in check until I just couldn’t anymore, and I’d explode in one way or another. Along with yelling and screaming, I also enjoyed throwing things, smashing stuff and sometimes I would be so out of control that I would hit somebody. Often that being a person I supposedly “loved.” I was a hot mess. I could not control my anger. It had a life of its own. My anger waited patiently, sometimes for weeks or months, until a day or circumstance would make it impossible to keep inside any longer. I didn’t understand my anger. I didn’t want my anger or my rage. I prayed so many times for God or the Universe to take it away. To free me from the dark hold it had over me. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen. The deep, dark anger that haunted me for so long seems to have been lifted. Or maybe I just shoved it down even deeper, who knows. What I do know is that I am enjoying my life on a whole new level and not blowing up in anger regularly has definitely played a part. Your insides tend to have an effect on what you experience outside, so watch those emotions. Like attracts like so if you are an angry, bitter person, the universe will deliver you lots of stuff to be bitter and angry about. Yeah, I’m a law of attraction junkie. I’ve experienced too much of it to deny it any longer. But let’s get back to the topic at hand, our anger.

The emotion of anger is full of energy. A person in the middle of a rage is an energetic powerhouse compared to a person who’s been in bed for weeks with clinical depression. I know this from experience. I suffered from debilitating depression for years and my bed and I became the best of friends. I slept and occasionally ate some food and went to the bathroom. I was drained of almost all my life force during those periods of my life. It seemed like I only had enough energy to go back to sleep each time I woke up. I could not face life. I had no energy for it. Those were sad days. Numb days. Days I felt like death, but with a heartbeat. I was not living, but barely existing. Now as my life progressed, along with my drinking, I found myself expressing my anger more often and more aggressively. I am not saying that being angry or feeling outrage is a completely negative thing. Not at all. Anger, many times, is a cover up for sadness and grief, but with anger, we get the energy we need to keep going. Anger, channeled in the right direction, can be extremely powerful. For me, writing about what had me all fired up was always an eye opening exercise. Like Joan Didion said, “I write to know what I’m thinking.” Me, too, Mrs. Didion. Me, too. If you decide to pick up pen and paper yourself, you may discover how deep your anger really runs and perhaps what you thought was pissing you off was just an easy target for some deeper wound that needs healing.

No one is exempt from emotional wounds. It’s part of being human. Maybe someday humans will evolve and stop damaging each other’s psyches and spirits, but at this point in history, we’ve all got issues and it’s time to face them, heal them and get on with freaking show. Perhaps talking to a counselor or therapist could help you with your anger. This is tricky, however, because for this to actually help, you have to be willing to be totally honest and lay all your cards on the table. I saw a psychiatrist for years and while I loved her and told her a lot, I didn’t tell her everything. And when a psychiatrist doesn’t get the full story, he or she can’t really help you. Like they say in AA, we are only as sick as our secrets, and I kept lots of secrets back then. Probably because I was young and enjoying my sadness and my chaos. Chaos brings a lot of swirling energy to a person, but I don’t think it can be maintained indefinitely. Anyway, while my wonderful doctor helped me a lot back then, I was destined to fall again, which I did a couple of years later.

I spent a decent sized chunk of my life being depressed and it sucked. I wasn’t outwardly angry to start with because all of my hatred and rage had been focused inward and onto myself. Some of us rage outwardly and hate others, while the rest of us retreat more quietly into the battlefield of the mind and hate ourselves instead. That was my story. I turned all of my anger onto myself, which depleted me of all energy and turned me into a sad shell of a human being. When I started drinking alcohol more heavily, I had this crazy notion that it was bringing me to life. I felt alive when I drank. I really believed that alcohol was just a way to make me feel. How funny is that? I felt so numb due to my depression and I honestly felt like I could finally feel when I drank. I felt alive. Finally. Kinda crazy, huh? They alway say alcohol numbs you, but my already numb self was drinking the stuff to feel. Now truth be told, it rarely ended up in a lot of good feelings, and 9 out of 10 times, my drinking would end up with tears or a yelling match. As the years went by, I found myself becoming one of those unpredictable, scary, angry drunks. Not every time, but when my anger would decide it was time to play, watch out. I was completely unpredictable. Would I laugh and be the life of the party? Would I cry and go be alone in the basement to drown my sorrows in more beer and radiohead? Or would I come to the insane conclusion once again that my boyfriend had his eye on some other girl and start a fight? I loved a good fight. It wasn’t until later in my drinking that I would get physical. For the longest time, yelling and screaming did the trick. Raging felt good while it was happening, even though I had no control, which was scary. It’s a crazy kind of energetic high to be in a rage, and definitely not one I’d recommend to anyone. After one of my episodes, I’d wake up feeling like I just wanted to die. It was a sad cycle I was in. I was depressed, so I drank, which made me laugh for a few minutes, but then I’d end up crying or throwing a fit, and then wake up the next day feeling like a complete and total loser. Lucky for me, I was freed from this super fun cycle when I was 27 and got sober. Alcohol, which I had believed for so long to be a life enhancer was being removed from the equation. I had to let it go so that I could have a chance in this life. A real chance to be alive. Fully and joyfully and gloriously alive.

Getting sober allowed me to get clear on a lot of what was going on inside me (Thank you 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous). I had a cyclone of emotions swirling around and I never knew which one would shoot out and rule the day. That’s an insane way to live. Working on my recovery was serious work and continues today, but I am happy to report that my emotional cyclone no longer exists. There are still some windy days, but my emotions don’t overcome me anymore, leaving destruction in their wake. My emotions no longer destroy me or those around me. I hated how my anger affected my family. I was still working through some anger when my boys were little. Those early years of motherhood were not blissful for me. They just weren’t. Being a mom of two wild little boys, not getting enough sleep, and not taking proper care of myself turned me into a bit of a maniac at times. I had meltdowns. I yelled. I threw a toy here and there. I cussed. I cried. I felt like the world’s worst mother on many a day. I’d explode and then feel like absolute shit. Again I prayed and prayed for this anger to be taken from me. In AA, they talk about anger being a luxury we cannot afford anymore (something like that), and I wanted it gone. I didn’t even know why I was so angry a lot of the time. It would just bubble up out of nowhere and demand expression. I was so grateful when I found the most amazing women’s group in Columbus, GA. Those women saved me during some very dark days. Days where I questioned myself, my mothering, and my mental state. Being honest with those women helped me so much. Releasing our emotions and having them witnessed and acknowledged by others is truly healing. It feels so good to finally lay it all out on the table for others to hear. It helps you let go of things that seem to have an eternal hold on you. Sharing is a positive life-changing act. Whether it’s in a group, therapy, or to a close friend or family member, opening up and sharing what is hurting our hearts lightens the burden. Lightens the darkness. Lightens our lives. So please share your pain with somebody. I prefer a group of strangers who then become friends for life. Support groups are awesome. People who want to heal and grow and live a happy life are my kind of people. Over the past few years, writing and meditating have been sources of healing and they have become my daily practice of choice. I am happy to report that my anger has once again died down, and joy and peace have taken its place. I like to think that getting sober helped it all come to the surface and that it’s now been released into the ether, no longer lodged deep in my heart. Maybe I got it all out? I don’t know. Yes, I still get angry and upset, but it is not that uncontrollable rage anymore. It’s different. It’s manageable. It doesn’t destroy me for days, leaving me strung out on guilt and self-loathing. I’m super grateful for that. I spent way too many years drowning in those life draining emotions and having made it to the shores of self-love and acceptance feels like a miracle. It is a miracle.

Now that I’ve released a great deal of my anger, I don’t want more to build up again, so I have to keep working on myself. My spirit. My soul. These days, people’s cars seem to get more maintenance than their souls, and that’s mighty troubling to me. I don’t know exactly when or why we gave up on our hearts and souls, but that neglect has surely had a negative effect on our society and how it processes anger and every other emotion. Now while a daily practice sounds great, it’s not always easy. I don’t always feel like it or want to, but I do it. I am committed to myself and my peace. I am committed to being a happy mom who raises happy children. I am committed to being a joyful wife whose husband looks forward to seeing every evening when he gets home from work. I am committed to running my household in a peaceful, joyful manner. My energy seeps into the beings around me. My energy is contagious and so is your’s. I am careful who I connect with these days. It isn’t many, and that is for my own protection, and I feel no guilt. I am raising young humans who will one day be this planet’s future and I take that seriously. I will not raise boys full of anger, hatred and frustration. I am doing my best to fill their hearts with love, compassion, wonder and joy. That is my full-time job. But it all starts with me first. I must take care of myself. Do my daily practices. Find my joy. Because my joy becomes their’s. When I’m happy and feeling good about life, so is my family and I love that. Being a parent is hard. Kids feed off your energy so make it powerful. Make it positive. How you feel matters. It matters immensely, so find a way to make yourself a priority today. Taking care of you is never a waste of time. Think of it as an investment in the mental health of those around you, too- the ones you love more than life itself. Take the time. Make the time.

Ok, so now that I have released a lot of my anger and I’m in a healthy state of mind, I want to keep it. Lots of folks out there don’t like it when you are loving the shit out of your life. It annoys them. They want you angry and pissed off, just like them. But I don’t want to participate in the anger games anymore. I don’t want to get all fired up over things I can’t control. Now I must admit that there are times when a person comes at me with their anger and aggression about an issue, and I take some time to think about whether or not I am going to take the bait. Sometimes, my blood starts to boil and I want to react immediately. Sometimes I do, but a lot of times I don’t. More and more, I try to figure out why I am so fired up about what they said. Well, it’s probably because they know me and know how to push my buttons. But what they don’t know is that my buttons are changing, and dare I say that some of them have even been removed (thank you, kundalini yoga). Like I said earlier, angry people want you to be angry, too. Anger and rage like to be fanned and fed, and their’s cannot be if you don’t engage and play along. I don’t want to go there anymore. I just don’t. I was there for a super long time and it wore me out. My anger tore me apart and brought me to my knees, and I will do anything to keep it from taking hold of me again. That shit is lethal and I want to live.

A friend of mine told me the other day that I was like the poster child for living your best life, and I loved that. Even though she was joking around, I took it as a huge compliment. I love life. I treasure the miraculous journey that is being alive. I refuse to spend my precious life on hours of anger and rage. Even my supposed “justified anger” has got to be let go as soon as possible or else resentments start forming, and those fuckers stick to my lungs and make it hard to breathe. No thanks. I work to find my way out of anger as soon as possible. I feel it and let it go. Not always easy, but it must be done.

Now back to the button pressers. Sometimes they can rile me up and sometimes they can’t. These days when a button gets pushed, I take some time before responding and go through what I know about anger:

1. It likes to be shared.
2. It wants to be pumped up by another person’s anger (energy).
3. It’s the dark armor of it’s sister emotions, sadness and pain.
4. Under that armor is someone who is hurting tremendously and who needs compassion, or at least someone who is not going to fan their flames and intensify their rage.

So that’s what I try to do these days. I go to compassion. While I may be hurt or feel attacked by someone at first, I eventually realize that they are being a certain way because they are in pain, and when we fight pain with pain, we all lose. Once I see the truth of the matter, my own self-righteous anger seems to dissipate and I can respond in a calm, coherent manner. An angry person needs my love and compassion more than my  anger. It helps to think of them as protectors of their long lost inner child. Their inner child is hurt and they are protecting it with a shield of anger. Thinking of things this way helps me to see what’s going on more clearly. An angry person is not just an angry person. There’s a lot more under the surface and it’s usually a lot of pain, sadness, grief and trauma. When I remember that, I can feel compassion instead of reacting in anger. When I react these days and get caught up in heated arguments that go in circles where no one is listening to anyone and everyone is just spouting opinionated rage (insert political fb post here), I end up feeling awful and icky for days. It literally makes my soul ache. I’m not into making my soul ache for days after social media warfare, so I am not going to partake in it anymore. No one is having an authentic conversation on FB. People are enraged for a million different reasons and social media is a convenient place to release that mental tension. So yeah, I’m doing my best to stay out of the anger arena these days. My rage never did anyone any good, but my happiness does. My joy does. My self-love and feelings of purpose sure as hell do. Anger, hatred and disgust will never change the world or ourselves, but love will.

When it comes down to it, we all need love and compassion. These are basic human needs, and when we don’t get them, things go haywire. We go haywire. Let’s try to be more gentle with each other. The world is turning upside down right now and we need love more than ever. I don’t know why awful things happen in this world and it’s not my job to figure it all out. It is my job to work on my soul, grow in love and generosity of spirit and be the best version of me that I can be. How about you? What are you here for? What are your heart and soul screaming for? I think a lot of our souls are silently screaming these days. As we work through our pain, let us be kind and accepting of others working on their own. We are all working through stuff. No one is complete and whole. We are works in progress and there is no end. The idea that we will finally have joy when we reach a particular destination or stage of life is an illusion, so try to enjoy your magnificent journey today. The other day I read a quote about anger and it couldn’t have been more perfect and I’d like to end with it here:

We can start by paying attention to our painful, angry, violent, hurtful, vengeful, recriminatory, rancorous thoughts as they arise and begin to bathe them in love and water just like we tenderly care for an enraged infant. -George Bertelstein

How good is that? Let’s take care of our thoughts, our minds, and our spirits like we would a colicky baby. Our thoughts become our lives and a life filled with happiness and love feels so freaking good. May we all let go of our anger and find the immense freedom that awaits. That is my wish for you. My wish for us.