You Need to Let Yourself be Angry

Hi, there. Welcome to the last quarter of 2020 (and at the time of publishing, the trying beginning of 2021). It’s been a doozy so far, hasn’t it? At this point, you’re probably exhausted, bored, and angry.

And there has been so much to be angry about.

Maybe your cancer treatment has been interrupted or postponed because of Covid-19. Maybe your reproductive rights are under fire. Maybe you had your baby ripped from your arms at the border and put in a cage. Maybe your brother was pulled over for a “routine traffic stop” and was gunned down in the street because he’s black. Maybe your favorite author used their platform to invalidate your gender identity. Maybe your loved ones voted— again — for a man that spent the last four years stripping away the rights and protections that keep you safe

Check your pulse. You’re alive, yes?

Even if none of this applies to you, how can you not be angry about it?

If you are a “spiritual” person, you may be feeling some sort of toxic combination of guilt, shame, and frustration over feeling such a “low vibration” emotion. But let me ease your guilt over falling off the Love and Light ™ wagon.

You’re supposed to be angry.

Anyone who is familiar with the concept of raising your vibration, or is familiar with the Map of Consciousness developed by David R. Hawkins knows that as far as anger goes, it’s on a far lower rung than love on the consciousness ladder.

However — anger is higher than shame, guilt, apathy, desire, fear, and grief. And unless you haven’t been paying much attention, you’re well aware that we’ve got a lot of shame, guilt, apathy, desire, fear, and grief to go around.

Moving from a state of shame, victimhood, or depression requires the act of moving through the energy of anger.

When energy won’t move or refuses to move, anger is what restores flow. Anger is what pops the stopper.

Anger is not “bad”. It is not “negative”, and does not benefit from the judgment of it being “low vibration.”

Anger is an expression of energy that is crying out for release. Anger is what created the Civil Rights movement. Anger is what gave women the right to vote, drive, and have their own bank accounts. Anger is what prompted the Stonewall uprising and brought around the gay rights movement. People had had enough.

Anger, the insistence on healthy boundaries, is what will bring about police reform. It’s what will liberate Tibet. (Don’t believe me? His Holiness the Dalai Lama dictated a whole damn book about anger.)

Anger is important. It is holy. It is divine. Even Jesus got angry, y’all.

Anger is doing us a solid, guys. It is telling us something isn’t right. It is demanding that we act upon the urge to correct wrongs. Anger is what happens when the scale has been tipped too far and boundaries have been trampled over. Anger is the motivation of the liberated.

So, you’re kind of not helping when you tell someone else not to express their anger. And you’re doing the same thing when you tell yourself not to express your own anger. Why are you doing this? Why would you rid yourself of the opportunity to drop some of your chains?

I have a guess. Let me tell you.

Anger freaks us out because it demands we do something. It’s asking us to change. It is asking us to act.

Let’s bring this back around to today’s social and political climate. Anger is paramount. Nazis are back in style, black people are brazenly killed in the streets, and brown children are being taken from their parents and held in literal cages.

If we are not angry about this. . . why not? Are we listening to the truths in our hearts? Are you holding to your personal, spiritual principles? As a spiritually-minded person, your lack of anger is something to seriously examine within yourself.

Because hiding from reality means hiding from yourself. Hiding from the emotional climate means hiding from your own emotions. You are not living life in a vacuum. Your energies, thoughts, and desires do not only affect you. This collective reality is your responsibility as well.

(A lot of you just got defensive and mad about that. Oh well.)

We are forever meeting ourselves. Even if you claim to love your black brothers and sisters, but see a black man dying on the news, guess what, white person? This is Outer Reality confronting you with your Inner Reality of racism.

How do I know this? More importantly, how do you know this? Because if you didn’t have a drop of racism within you, you would not be a vibrational match for this reality. You just wouldn’t see racism, in any form, being committed. (And not because you are trying to pretend that racism isn’t a thing by closing your eyes to it.)

That sounds like bad news, so let me give you some good news. When you act upon your anger to correct an injustice, it turns into compassionate action. I got that from the Dalai Lama, so don’t quote me on it.

So please, for the love of God, get angry. But even better? Act.