The recent events in our country have exacerbated the bitter and exhausting challenges of race, gender, discrimination. This challenges all that is supposed to be the birthright of a human: freedom, equity, and safety. This is the experience of any survivor whose life has been silenced, ignored, or betrayed.
Rage is that primal experience, beyond anger, beyond reason, raw and embittered. It often masks terror as the loss of freedom with a false sense of power.
Echoing the pain of the past, rage often erupts in the present: Rage about war, oppression. Rage about the state of the earth and all that is alive and all that is dying. Rage about all the "isms" that seem to engulf us. Rage about the inequality and poverty. Rage from the disregard, the neglect, the silencing, the despair. And this rage may burn inside when there is fear of repercussion if we give voice to it.
Rage can destroy us and create collateral damage on those close by with its intensity. It can show up as a churning volatile anger directed outward--road rage, violence, toxic obsessions-- making a tight fisted world smaller and smaller. Sometimes that fear has hardened into volatility, as we explode on the outside, our aggression creating a false sense of security and power. Rage can also be a toxic freeze on the inside: when the brain and body systems simply shut down into an interior slow suck of depression and numbness. In either direction, it may be the one survival tool we know because of what we learned early on. It may seem like the only line of attack in the face of pain.
We feel this because we feel so vulnerable. We may wail and storm, cry or sit dumb and perhaps numb, collapsing into embryonic catatonia. Perhaps for some, this rage is a luxury. But either way, these aspects of rage do not serve to move the needle. For many it is a constant agonizing state. We can get stuck in the role of victim instead of courageous survivor.
Rage is a potent energy to be reckoned with, and like many of the shadows inside, it can be a force for good. But even in activism for change, rage will backfire into the toxicity of hatred mimicking those who do the harm, dehumanizing the other or ourselves. It will not accomplish what we seek. We cannot ignore the damage done by ones who colonialize or practice discrimination as a moral right, or those who legislate or institutionalize oppression in the name of safety or stability. But if we meet the hater's toxicity with revenge or violence, the hatred and the rage will only create a feedback loop inside, even a seething self contempt. Well meaning easy answers may fail to empower and even add fuel to the fire. Sometimes attempts by others to soothe can feel performative or even exploitive. This will not generate resolution, restitution or freedom.
It can take some time to find the safety to feel the immensity of this rage--and the churning grief that is its counterpart. Because in truth, grief is the unnamed and primary wound that rage camouflages. Grief is the important response to loss--the loss of unconditional love and the sense of safety that should have been there.
To deal with such rage is to reckon with the grief of what we have lost and what moves in the world around us. This is the deep work of recovery, the courageous movement from grief to a fierce love and a commitment to make ourselves and the world more whole. It is not an easy undertaking.
How do we begin to make this incredible energy into something that can be a true force for transformation?
How do we go beyond a simplistic response and recognize the reality of harmful distinctions and disparities (superior, inferior, color, gendered, able or disabled--other...) that cover the deep tension that is inherited from generations of trauma?
It is hard to swallow hatred, disregard or fear, especially when it is directed at you and so reminiscent of the original wound. It is a challenge to remember that the hater, the disrespecter, the one who wants to harm is also suffering. But the task of compassion for the aggressor does not mean compliance.
Our work is to safely and honestly dehypnotize ourselves from the kneejerk reaction of rage. It is a radical task of recovery: to free oneself from what was embedded in our nervous systems and our bodies. It is a concept survivors often fail to do first: the radical attention to kindness for oneself that in itself is an act of fierce and loving activism. We cannot erase our questions, our anger or resentments without first having the compassion for ourselves to feel the wound. We may need to find someone or others that will provide the safety to speak and share what we have lived through. We may need to walk away from the confrontation or breathe deeply before reacting when we must and should speak our truth. We may need to acknowledge the loss of love that created the primary response of rage.
Rage and the sacred and necessary work of grief are in response to this loss. Both are precious creative forces that have the potential to spur movement and the potential for healing inside ourselves and others. Imagine this energy that is in our bodies and hearts to create more aliveness, courage--and love. Imagine how to transform this potent energy into compost for change. There is power in this process, but it takes fierce compassion for ourselves and the situation we confront, especially when we feel the opposite. It may take a kinder approach to the task of healing and some time to build these particular muscles that combat fear and powerlessness. They require different sets of grit and courage, but they grow. This is the everyday practice of building up our courage and remembering all we have lived through.
We know this. But this time, maybe we don't have to do it alone.
—Mikele