Self-Improvement | Women

When Women Channel Their Anger

Summoning courage, they unveil their worthiness, gifts and blessings to the world.

Dear Woman of Courage,

I wanted to deal with my anger but not at the expense of looking at myself. I’d like to share my ongoing journey in learning about anger and then illumine the subject with wisdom from women who have tread these tumultuous waters lest our dreams drown before sharing our most precious pearls on the shores of life.

A distant “itch” nagged that maybe, possibly, I had not done my best in several interactions with a dear friend. I was pretty successful in pushing away that inclination to look at my part. So easy it was to instead blame my dear friend, who I will call Arta. After all, her behavior set off firecrackers. It was so much worse than mine.

While Arta and I exchanged blame for blame, harsh, untactful words, I felt that the ceiling was caving, with pointed stalactites hanging from it coming towards me. Arta was so much better at blaming than I was.

The worst moment: the moment before facing myself

After that awful event, as the nagging feeling grew as if I had some dark energy in my center that wanted to spring open and release, I decided to watch a YouTube about “Women and Anger” in a podcast called “Women in Depth”.¹

The host Lourdes Viado, Ph.D., interviewed Michelle Farris, LMFT.² While listening, Michelle Farris sounded like a girlfriend giving some helpful advice. I was excited to learn more and quickly started typing this article to you (and to me).

Blaming — the arrow that turns back on us

Michelle Farris mentioned that women tend to blame when we are angry. (I recognized that one!) We can be hesitant to see the anger in ourselves — because women were raised, at least in my generation and culture, to think anger is not woman-like, or attractive. Who wants to be associated with that?³

Aren’t we supposed to be people-pleasers, nice — like sugar and spice? (Frankly, I had been more like cayenne. But Arta…had been more like mace).

When we blame we receive responses of being called bitches and worse (much worse). Who wants to be seen as a bitch? So we may do anything to avoid looking at our part in anger. Have you had this experience?

Very unfortunately, though aiming anger at someone is a temporary release that feels good to get off our chests, when blaming, Michelle (I don’t think she’d mind if I call her by her first name) said by blaming we give our power away.⁴ She sliced through that one. It was confronting!

Teachable moments, months, years… “She was angry” on my tombstone…

“What can I do differently next time?”⁵ Michelle Farris asks herself when angry.

This shift from blaming to learning reminds me of my favorite quote from Linda Kavelin-Popov, co-founder of The Virtues Project.⁶ It startled me when she once told me she doesn’t feel shame, and she explained that this is why. (Check out every word to increase self-compassion).

At any point in time, we have both strength virtues that are well developed and growth virtues that we need to develop. Recognizing the virtues in which we need to grow, especially in painful or challenging situations, helps us to live mindfully, to be lifelong learners, open to our soul work — that which gives us meaning and purpose. It is an attitude that keeps us from shaming ourselves or dwelling on guilt. We use guilt only as a signal for change. Linda Kavelin-Popov⁷

How can I learn, I wondered, from that awful teachable moment with Arta, that seemed like a vast land covered by shallow waters?

What virtue/emotional and spiritual quality might I need to develop?

How can I keep my power by somehow being quiet and, even leaving, so as not to start blaming?

Taking off my emotional shoes I inched towards what now seemed a fathomless ocean of responsibility, and even self-discipline. Courage, so much courage, too. My itch pulled me to step into the icy water.

My toes and shins got more accustomed to the cold. I walked into the shallow end of that ocean, the muddy end, and saw where my feet had kicked up some mud (which I’d prefer to call wet sand — so much more lady-like) with Arta.

Through hearing “Women in Anger”, and reflecting on the wisdom of Linda Kavelin-Popov, I saw the need to develop more self-discipline when I am stressed out, annoyed, upset, or otherwise heading to the refrigerator to not face that horrible behavior that couldn’t have been linked to me.

Expressing our truth when others are receptive

Michelle and Dr. Viado unraveled the tangles of seaweed to reveal that anger can build up from hurts and resentments over time. I was surprised to hear her say that by not saying our truth the other people involved don’t know us. Plus, by keeping it inside, we feel we don’t matter.⁸ (All of that and more! I didn’t think Arta would care to hear my truth that could have been said in calmer times. I had been afraid to risk that.)

My ideal is that people I’m angry at and I would find a mutually good time, and tactfully use “I messages” to share our truth. Our sharing would reveal competing agendas. Through really listening and being vulnerable, we would understand that each person had a different need, history on which that need was based, and intention based on that need.

Oh, to summon the courage to open the door for this understanding to happen more often. It is so easy to blurt out our blaming truth during a storm of anger. All people present feel a kind of ick feeling that only blame can produce.

Checking our stress levels

To be more conscious Michelle suggested asking ourselves on a scale of one to ten how stressed we are feeling during a challenging time. She noted that when we get to a five, we usually think we don’t need to do anything about it. Yet this is the time to release stress physically by walking or by journaling feelings.⁹

Whatever we plan to do to stop blaming and being blamed, whether it’s a breathing or mindfulness exercise, walk around the block, or calling a friend, when we’re at level five and above, we need to leave to soothe ourselves. According to a Harvard Medical School publication, when stressed the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus which activates the sympathetic nervous system.

It sends signals through nerves to the adrenal glands which release adrenaline and “a cascade of hormones.” When we invite in the calm parasympathetic system it puts a stop to this “fight or flight” response. If we are stressed consistently this can lead to health problems like high blood pressure, or even stroke or heart attack.¹⁰

I want to buy a watch-like dial to dial in my stress level when it is getting out of control. I think that would make me more aware. Until I find or create such a device, I have been imagining at wobbly times: What is my level of stress? Beyond five? Yep.

This has been helpful. Maybe setting the alarm on the phone to a half-hour for a cool down would help, in the mean-time. I believe there are times in our lives when we need to set that dial or alarm preventively, like at a transition time when the stress is perhaps at a five already and we are at risk.

For example, I lost my temper with Arta at a time when I was moving and she was getting a divorce. Other stress times could be as simple as when we’ve had a mask on for too long impeding our breath or as multi-layered as adjusting to the arrival of a new baby, getting married, negotiating divorce or navigating the death of a loved one.

More awareness available

Several other resources showed up as I wrote and researched this article. Two I found in my stack of bathroom reading. I discovered in them life-saving ideas — saving us emotionally, in our relationships, and our work in the world.

The classic The Dance of Anger,¹⁰ as well as the many interviews with the author Harriet Lerner, are so intuitive that it’s like she’s been sitting in your living room listening to you and your loved ones for years. How did she know that?

Succulent Wild Love: Six Powerful Habits for Feeling More Love More Often,¹¹ by SARK and Dr. John Waddell, explains that people project their inner critics onto others. It gives tips on how to channel the energy of these critics in chapters such as “Sources of Anger and How to Transform Them”. There is a page listing nurturing things we can say to ourselves when our buttons are pushed.

That gets to the heart of it, I believe. Recently, while teaching a group a process of writing to an unwanted part of ourselves and letting that part answer back, I did the exercise too. I wrote to my anger, and was surprised to find myself writing that my anger was because of not feeling loved.

In Women Who Run With the Wolves¹² Jungian therapist Clarissa Pinkola Estes Ph.D. describes rage, intense anger, as the “fall-out of trauma”. That is revealing! She writes,

“Our rage can for a time become our teacher . . . a thing not to be rid of so fast, but rather something to climb the mountain for, something to personify, learn from, deal with internally, then shape into something useful in the world as a result, or something we let go back down to dust.” She cautions not to make it “a constant mantra about how oppressed, hurt, and tortured we were” that repeats in our creative works. She assures, if we seek understanding, and solutions for rage it “takes only climbing through one step at a time.¹³

Notes from my kitchen to yours

Awareness forged into action prevents us (and others) from being haunted by our anger and energizes us to use our voices for service.

• We can be aware of our stress levels — at 5 out of 10 we are at risk of getting angry and blaming.
• Anger brews from either not saying enough of our truth — shrinking ourselves, or saying too much of it — blaming the other.
• Anger can brew from someone triggering an inner critic within us, causing a big ouch and a scream at that person.
• Journaling can get angry feelings out and reveal our sensitivities/buttons that got pushed.
• Guilt from blaming and getting loud and scary can cause us to reflect on qualities, (also called virtues), that we want to focus on, to develop ourselves and round out our strength.
• Anger and rage can be learned from and sculpted into a dedication to a cause that calls to us.

Anger calls us to bring out our voices for change

I recall Leymah Gbowee¹⁴ of Liberia admitting in a TV talk that she had anger over the abuse and sexual assault of women. She demonstrated this by showing her pitcher, which she said was full of anger, and pouring it into a pitcher of service.

Dressed in a colorful African turban and gown, she told how she and several other women would go to the homes of perpetrators of sexual assault and confront them. She and two other women won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for their “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”¹⁵

More recently, we have learned about activist Greta Thunberg,¹⁶ who is now 17. Starting solo, she has catalyzed marches for climate change all over the world. She confronted the U.N. General Assembly, met the Pope, President Obama, and Al Gore. “TIME” magazine named her person of the year in 2019.¹⁷ Using her voice for a sustainable climate she said,

We need to get angry and understand what is at stake. And then we need to transform that anger into action and to stand together united and just never give up.¹⁸

Though at first, Greta thought she was too small to make a difference, she is now sharing the video linked here, “Nature Now Video With Greta Thunberg”.¹⁹ [Click on the little superscript number 19].

Many are marching and/or raising their voices for issues like racial justice, environmental action, and the end of criminalizing asylum seekers and separating their families. We are among those whose voices can bring little and big changes that can lead to warm rays of peace and healing in our relationships, family, and the world.

If we do the work of untangling our anger — granted, it takes a lot of courage(!) — we can embody the values we stand for on personal and societal levels. We can bring resilience and hope rather than victimhood to our creative arts. Thankfully, we can do this with the help and support of our sisters, such as the women mentioned in this article, who have been in the throws of anger and rage before and are reaching out their hands to us as we climb the mountain.

Sincerely and rooting for us and our sharing goodness and wisdom with the world,

Claudia

P.S. What are the personal and global causes your inner voice is calling you to stand for? What doors do you want to open?

P.S.S. I’m planning to meet Arta today but first I will journal and go to a “Five Rhythms” dance class. And pray.

P.S.S.S. Read this poem which reminded me to make peace with Arta. Sent her an email with this poem: “To Find Peace in the Deluge”.²⁰ (Click on the little number 20).

• Please email Claudia at [email protected] if you’d an invite to a free zoom call about a powerful expressive arts journaling technique called “Emerge”.