Hey #068: I'm angry. And I'm not ashamed of it

A heart-to-heart...

I'm angry.

There's no other way to describe what I've been feeling lately. I can't lowball it. Or you can say, this time I'm choosing to not lowball my anger via my words.

I'm angry. And that's that.

A part of me wants to stop typing right away. It’s feeling ashamed because its secret is getting exposed. The secret of – “My anger is capable of taking over me, leaving me at its mercy. It proves I’m weaker than my anger.”

I wonder, why such harsh wording? Why the usage of “mercy,” “proof” and “weakness”?

I don't get an answer in words. Instead, some memories get triggered in my head.

These are the memories in which I'm feeling angry and as I'm trying to make sense of my anger, control it, express it; I'm being called rude, mannerless, eccentric, insincere, disrespectful, impulsive, manipulative and what not, by the people around me.

My anger is making me helpless in these memories. It’s making me a bad person. It’s making me ashamed of myself.

But, what’s my fault in these memories? Only that I’m feeling anger and I’m not aware of the ways to deal with it?

Come on. I was just a kid. What could I know?

Okay, some of these memories are of teenage years and early twenties too. But by then, it was already solidified in my psyche that if I show even a tinge of my anger, I’d prove myself to be rude, mannerless, eccentric, insincere, disrespectful, impulsive, manipulative and what not, like how everyone had already called me so.

Ask me. I was none of these things. I was only one thing…

Helpless.

To protect myself from being the things which I never wanted to be, I started suppressing my anger to the depths of my inner world. I didn't know better. And this is sad!

Okay…I’m getting teary-eyed.

Let me compose myself and come back to the present.

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Right now, my anger has different reasons.

Some of these reasons don't even make sense to my logical mind. But then I remember, it doesn't have to make sense. Not every bit of what I feel needs to be justified. I'm feeling something and that's enough of a reason to feel it.

When I think about the reasons that do make sense and “justify” my anger, I become clueless. I've no idea what to do with those reasons. For these reasons keep presenting themselves to me, again and again.

This time, the major difference is that I’m, with all my might, speaking out loud to myself (and to you) that I’m angry. I don’t recall the last time when I deeply, truly, un-jokingly accepted that I’m angry.

Maybe that's why I never really noticed (until now) that there exists a prison within me in which my anger has been captured like a felon. 

Who captured my anger in this prison?

I did. Though, I didn’t do it deliberately. I was protecting myself, not knowing I’m causing more hurt for myself in the long term.

Then how come I forgot about this anger and the prison?

By nature, this anger is fierce and intense and capable of "ruining" things if not handled properly. So to keep me away from it, the wall of shame was built around it. And damn! Shame is the sneakiest of all. It’s soul-shattering. 

In order to avoid encountering shame at all cost, I kept tiptoeing around the wall of shame. I tiptoed for so long that gradually anger lost its significance. And all that remained was shame.

“I don’t want to appear rude and embarrass myself. So let me just make myself believe that I don’t get angry. What feels like anger is actually stress. Nothing else.”

That’s how I started fooling myself.

My mind began to knit beliefs, made anger my stress, so that I don’t end up feeling shameful due to anger. Brilliant, no?

Though, all this facade started coming down a few weeks back.

My anger started breaking its prison. It started destroying the wall of shame. It started freeing itself.

In my day-to-day life, this prison-break began to affect my behavior. I started sensing unexplainable frustration. I started snapping at people. I started getting angry, not realizing why I'm getting angry. People who care for me told me that I’m “stressed” due to my career  and I need to relax. LOL.

The anger kept hitting against the wall until it brought it down 2-3 days back. Now what I've been feeling is pure anger. The remains of shame are still there. But they're unable to retaliate against the anger that has recently freed itself.

This anger is stirring lots of uncomfortable memories and feelings.

These are the memories that are soooo damn old. I thought that I had forgotten about these memories. But nope. They're so clear as if they happened yesterday. Hence, the hurt they're causing feels fresh. Also, this hurt gets multiplied when I find the people involved in those memories around me in the present. 

This anger is making me play the blame game.

I want to (and to some extent I'm) blaming people, situations, myself, anything and everything that I can blame to ease my hurt. I feel I'm in no mood to take responsibility. I just wanna blame so that I can ease the hurt and injustice that I'm feeling.

This anger is fueling itself.

It’s using each and every bit of memory in which it wasn't allowed, acknowledged and accepted. It seems to be on a revenge spree. Maybe it’s itself in pain. (It's strange how the last sentence gave me a rush of compassion.)

This anger is brewing.

And the only way I'm dealing with it is letting it brew. This may sound insane. But caging this anger once again would only cause more insanity.

I'm letting this anger get into the conversations in my head which involves it standing up and saying what it has been wanting to say. Of course, I'm its vehicle while it does so. It's speaking through me in those conversations.

It's reminding me of the times when I could have chosen to express it in a healthy way. But I didn't. Because I was ashamed of even accepting to myself, "Well, this makes me angry."

So now the anger is doing its thing.

What's interesting is that as soon as I'm done with such conversations in my head, I automatically feel lighter. Writing, meditation and anger release practices are also helping.

I didn't stand up for my anger. So now my anger is standing up for itself.

I didn't respect my anger. So now my anger is claiming the due respect.

I didn't dare to reject the negative image of anger. So now my anger is challenging all my notions about it.

My anger has been my teacher for the last few days.

It’s showing me how smartly I suppress it (even after the intensive inner work I've been doing since the last 3.5+ years).

It’s teaching me to forgive myself (and others) for abandoning it in the times when I didn't know what anger was (during my childhood), and the times when I knew what anger was yet I suppressed it (due to lack of understanding).

It’s revealing its power to me – the power of transformation. But I’m able to access this power only when I truly acknowledge, accept and say:

"I'm angry. And I'm not ashamed of it."

🦋

Until next Thursday,

Ashi

(drop a hi on LinkedIn)