How to Live Well with your Anger

it's ADVICE DOM time, crybabies. to the dungeon we go! this listener's SUBMISSION is a juicy one because it's about a reoccurring theme in season 2 + a reoccurring theme in HUMANING and just being alive on the planet right now in our "apocalypse era"—

how do we live with all the anger!?
how do we understand and tend to what's beneath it?
is there a way to be with it and not be wholly consumed?
can it be a beacon for personal growth?
what does a healthy relationship with anger look like?

our caller shares his courageous exploration, guiding us to lift the cultural and personal veils and explore new ways to be in a relationship with anger.

ADVICE DOM's got some thoughts (and thots), as always.

c'mon down to the cave for some spanky, slappy, advice-giving. BECAUSE SOMETIMES PEOPLE JUST LIKE TO BE TOLD WHAT TO DO.™️

call in and SUBMIT (your own question) --> 760-820-9070

~show notes~ 

• lama rod owens, "Love & Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger"
• how does our anger serve us? sarah peyton (youtube) 
• list of needs nvc (also meenadchi's work, decolonizing non-violence + her group practice offerings 10/10 recommend)
• enter to win a free coaching session ~ when you leave a 5-star rating (only) and a written review, you'll be entered into a monthly drawing for a free 90-min coaching session with dana (value of $388). DM (@danablix instagram) or email a screenshot of your submission—take it right before you hit submit—along with the review name/title. winner announcements will be made across platforms!

/// sound-editing/design ~ rose blakelock, theme song ~ kat ottosen, cover art ~ natalee miller ///

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Crying in my jacuzzi, crying in my jacuzzi. Crying in my jacuzzi, crying in my jacuzzi. Welcome back to the Jacuzzi Verse. I know you know how much we love when the advice dom answering machine lights up to let us know that there have been submissions. The reception is not great down here in the advice dom dungeon, at the end of a a very dank but cozy liminal cave system, tucked away in a far off corner of the jacuzzi verse. That's how we know the answering machine is oracular, receiving only the most critical and necessary of inquiries. All right, just get a punch some buttons here, rewind.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Okay, here we go oh, dana, this is Stan. We met during occupy comraderade. I really loved the last episode and I've been thinking about anger and rage so much, so, so much. I've always felt a certain fear of being angry outside of my inner monologue, I guess due to historical trauma. I think that it festers internally and lessens and weakens my own light and and limits my own personal perceived agency. And literally I've struggled and I've and literally I've struggled and I've unsuccessfully attempted to figure this pain point out, either through therapy, magic mushrooms, all sorts of different deviations, of just trying to work things out. And I guess I'm just reaching out for maybe some guidance or some sort of direction on dealing with that. And maybe this is a rational thought when it comes to fear being, you know, looked at and criminalized and being criminalized for being angry and having rage. But I feel that so deep in my soul and it's just hard to shake. So, yeah, I'd love to hear more if you want to talk about it. Thanks, bye.

Speaker 1: 3:40

So this question very much stands. Listen in for where there might be something for you too. First up, we are in an apocalypse. You love that light start. You're welcome. Apocalypse means unveiling, a reveal. It means truth. The layers are being pulled back. And when the layers are being pulled back and truth is being revealed, and in that there is a high likelihood that in this reveal, what we have been taught about the world around us and ourselves will get flimsy. We will see things we were not previously allowing ourselves or allowed to see. We didn't have the capacity to see and to feel. And truth is, lots of folks are not interested in doing that, but those of us who are trying to develop a relationship to this reveal, to what lies on the other side of the veils, it's going to hurt.

Speaker 2: 5:00

Truth hurts. Don't tell me truth hurts. Look at the light, cause the hurt's like hell. I hope it's like hell, cause I hope it's like hell.

Speaker 1: 5:10

We'll see the boundaries that have been crossed and anger will be an accurate and appropriate response and we cannot bypass that experience, reject it, resist it, brush it under the rug. We're going to have to turn towards it. Stan, I hear you turning towards it in this intensified moment of change. We're in our apocalypse era, but the fact that you're turning towards it and you're curious about it matters. This is a process. You are a process. None of this is supposed to be easy. So the fact that you have tuned into the challenge of it means you're paying attention. The challenge of it means you're paying attention. And what if? By honoring and being curious, pulling back your own veils, cultures' veils, the veils of white supremacy has not been unsuccessful? That by showing up and being curious and I hear some compassion with yourself that that is the definition of success. Success isn't measured by whether you still feel angry or not. It's measured in your willingness, angry or not, it's measured in your willingness. It's measured in your courage to keep facing yourself. I bet there's so much more you know about yourself now than you did before the therapy and the mushrooms and all the other ways in which you've been exploring your anger, your rage, the lineage of it, the historical trauma of it, ancestral trauma of it, those who commit to keep pulling back the layers, to keep unveiling. Those are the guides. We need you In this time. We need people who have been willing, over and over and over again, to look to question. So, my dear, perhaps you've just been training, preparing to guide.

Speaker 1: 7:44

What I also hear is a very real assessment the world has not been designed to hold you in your anger. There's not been a safe place, space inside of you, outside of you Well, I'd say outside of you which is going to affect what's inside of you, as you already know. And yes, humans were always looking for some sense of security and safety and it is very real that some folks, some communities, especially people of the global majority, that safety has never even existed and the vulnerability necessary to really explore and express has perhaps not had all the space it has needed to grow, to be cultivated. Vulnerability is a practice, it is a risk. Also, know that when it comes to rage and anger, most of us, most people, do not have the resources to deal with this, to deal with these emotions. I think we can look around the world around us right now and see how hurt we all are. And there's that adage hurt people will hurt people, and there's no antidote. There's only tending to the woundedness. There's only finding some presence inside of the apocalypse, some groundedness.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Stan, the fact that you are still willing and still, and the depth and breadth of those emotions inside of you and around you is a very potent guidance system. You are being pointed in the right direction for you. Ultimately, you're in relationship with your anger. It has agency. Yes, you have agency.

Speaker 1: 10:09

Oh yes, and if you feel like other people, systems, are trying to control your anger, it's worth looking at whether you are trying to control your anger. You get to choose the relationship you have with it. Maybe you don't have a lot of models for what a healthy relationship with anger looks like Most of us don't but that doesn't mean that you can't build one. It will take time, it will take intention, but think of what it means to be in a relationship. It takes a willingness, commitment, compassion, understanding, curiosity, willingness to show up over and over forgiveness boundaries. Those are just some of the things that I invite you to look at in terms of your relationship. Make it your own, make it together. This is yours.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Behind anger is so often hurt and as you turn towards those hurts, to understand the anger right, this is being in relationship.

Speaker 1: 11:31

When you look at any of those hurts, it's worth looking at the needs being met or unmet. I mean usually unmet if we're hurting, if we're experiencing pain, usually unmet if we're hurting, if we're experiencing pain and so turn there, what are those unmet needs driving that hurt, thus giving rise to the probably appropriate emotional response of anger? His anger is genuine. Even just having the emotion and saying it, I am angry. That is an important little communication inside of your brain, some little prefrontal cortex activity to acknowledge the emotion and then giving yourself permission to peel the layers back on it. What is beneath it? And then, what's beneath that, what's the texture of it? Are you also feeling hurt or sad, or some despair or some woundedness, allowing that experience to be there, welcoming it? This is not something to push away, to reject or resist, something to push away, to reject or resist. I think you can imagine the ways in which your anger has been rejected and resisted by culture, by the world around you.

Speaker 2: 12:55

Oh, I know.

Speaker 1: 12:56

And so, when any of us unconsciously reject and resist the emotions that were never made room for, it just keeps this unconscious cycle going. So your consciousness and awareness and attention and compassion towards yourself matters as you continue to do your own individual work of digesting and metabolizing and being with your own anger. Then you, then we, as we all do this and we must do this we can join the collective, that collective work of being with our rage, learning how to actually be with it, where it came from, how it exists in our bodies now and how we might actually want to be with it as we move into our own collective magnificent evolution. We all have this. We all have anger. We all have anger. This is part of being human and, as you said, your anger has been shaped, repressed, oppressed, shaped by oppression.

Speaker 1: 14:22

What if anger is an orientation? It's like a direction on a compass, and you want to orient yourself towards your anger, the understanding it, the deeper wisdom of it, the complexity of possible expressions, because that world, the world of fully feeling, is the one you might want to live in, is the one you might want to live in To help build even and the supremacy grind culture which has no room or interest or capacity for your feelings is the world you might want to spend less and less time in, make less investment in divest from. So there's honoring that there's been no failure, that it has not felt particularly safe. Give yourself permission and space to experience your anger, and maybe that's just a continuation of what you've been doing. Maybe that's finding some community to hold you in this way, perhaps even a spiritual community. Perhaps that's going to a rage room and getting smashy smashy a personal favorite. You have agency. When the anger shows up inside of you, tend to it, accept it, allow it to be there. In other moments, when it ebbs, you have agency on how you want to be with it and how you will practice with it, and that is a claiming, a reclaiming of your humanity to do that work and look, not all of the work is yours to do you learning to be with your anger, the depths of it, the complexity of it, the spectrum of it, the lineage of it, the unique experience and expression of it in and through your own unique body. This will not make white supremacy more receptive or welcoming to it, to you, but it plays a role, an important role. Individual healing has a role in the collective evolution in the web, because many of us are attending to ourselves and our pain and our joys, and even doing this in communities of any size will make room for understanding, trust, self-trust, relational trust. Relationship building will make for better movement building will make us better movement builders will make us better visionaries together, better visionaries together.

Speaker 1: 17:32

I'm going to share some resources in the notes below For you, stan, for all of us. Thank you again for your submission, your courage guiding us with your inquiry, tapping us from the bottom. We appreciate you and feel free to send over your submission down in the dungeon answering machine. Just call 760-820-9070. That's 760-820-9070. We receive all submissions. If you enjoyed what we did here today, go over to wherever it is that you are listening to this podcast and give us a rating as many stars Five as your heart desires. Five stars though. Theme music and other musical bits by the very talented Kat Otteson. Sound design and editing by the effervescent Rose Blakelock. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I look forward to playing with you more in my jacuzzi. That sounded dirtier than I meant it, but you know what I mean.