Let’s talk about rage….
Hello my gorgeous darling ones - oh how I love my community of Yogis! Thank you for being the antidote to some of my rage! I hope you will bare with me for this rambling. It was originally going to be about Hope. That was what I had planned and I will be definitely writing about that next time as it's so so fundamental to our wellbeing. However, today I am deeply called to write about rage and anger.
For a little bit of background, I have always been a very fiery, feisty type - I wish that I was mellow and just let things slide by me without getting het up but I don't, can't, never will. Why do you think I practise and teach Yoga?? It is definitely not because I am already a zen being, it is because I know that I need it to help keep me on an even (ish) keel and I know it's what others need too.
Over the last 5 years I have also trained in somatic movement, release and trauma informed coaching because I think sometimes we need more than Yoga, we need to know how to connect with our emotions and find supportive ways to release them through our body. Emotions don't just live in our mind and thoughts, they live in our body. In the clenching of the jaw, the tightness of the shoulders, the tension in your belly, in the way your nervous system responds to certain events, triggers and people.
Over the last year I have been feeling really unwell much of the time. My ME symptoms have been very unrelenting as has my anxiety and wonky brain and emotions. Don't get me wrong, I am an emotional, deeply sensitive being and I am on a healing journey from complex trauma HOWEVER, I have known that something is not right and been pushing for help and support with hormones for over 18 months. VERY long story short, because of having breast cancer 4 years ago (another newsletter on this one coming) I have had to battle very hard to be taken seriously and for my doctors to understand that the impact of my non-existent hormones is worse to me than the risk of reoccurrence (this is my unique story and choice so I am definitely not saying this is right for everyone).
My family history with menopause is not pretty. My maternal Grandma died by suicide in her 50's (both my Mum and I now believe she would have been slap bang in the menopause with no understanding, no help, no support and no-one to talk to about it - this is unimaginable to me). My Mum also suffered badly, she was put on HRT which helped her hugely but after 15 years they stopped it very suddenly and she had a psychotic break and was very very ill for a long time. SO - as you can imagine I have alot of ancestral trauma and alot of fear around this area and clearly the amazing women in my family and I have a VERY hard time with menopause.
I have had to push and push and use my very limited energy to get people to see this and I am now awaiting some hormonal support and keeping everything crossed that it will begin to make me feel a little more human again......
So anyway, that was a long preamble just to really frame where I am at on the Rage richter scale and I would say I am at def com 100! All of my health and hormone issues have taken their toll and caused a huge amount of distress and despair and my total lack of Oestrogen has awakened the rage beast for sure!
But it is not just me................... Women are raging at the moment. Many of my friends around my age are raging, rage rooms are fully booked until next year which I think is a good indicator of where we are at :) and NO WONDER - we are over stimulated, inundated by (bad) news, over burdened and stressed and we have had enough.
Alongside all of that is this terrible rise in the Manosphere and misogyny once again - blah blah blah, boring! Are we really here again? Are men really so scared of the power of the feminine that they have to rise back up and try and keep it down? Don't they realise it's pointless? Don't they see that women have the most magical power that won't be suppressed no matter what they do? Sadly, we all know - this is not new, it has been going on for millennia.
And this is where the rage seems to be coming from - centuries of suppression, it feels ancient and visceral to me.
I won't talk about all the ways in which women have been suppressed as it's too much and would take too long but let's just take the 'witch' trials/hunts as an example- for over 300 years women (mostly) were hunted down and killed for being a 'witch' (mainly single, outspoken, knowledgeable or rebellious women). This practise is still happening now in certain countries.
To me it's absolutely no wonder that as we begin to hear more about abuse, oppression and misogony that our rage will rise up! And yet, as women, many of us have been raised to feel shame around anger. To not show it, not cause a fuss, not be a drama queen etc etc. So much so that it feels unsafe and excruciatingly uncomfortable to express anger externally. So, we internalise it and our stress levels rise, our jaws clench even more, our chest and shoulders tighten - our nervous system has learned how to brace and hold it all in......
So, what do we do???? It's a good question. First - truly know and see that this response is not your fault and if you have issues around feeling rage, it's ok. It makes sense. You don't have to suddenly go screaming like a banshee (unless you want to of course!). Also, just know that it's ok if you feel rage and anger intensely - there is no shame in that.
It is a normal and healthy human emotion! It is part of what makes up the spectrum of us. It's also good!! Anger channelled in the right way creates positive action and change - look at the suffragettes! Anger is only destructive when it's harmful to others.or the planet. I think the mantra - Do no harm, take no shit is the perfect one for this.
If, like me, you are feeling like you might explode with it then I think it's good to have some tools in your tool kit to help you with both safely and healthily discharging some of the anger from your system and with taking some positive action if you can - we need both. Anger unchecked can become harmful and hateful to others and what we need less of is division! All of the people that do bad things are probably acting from a place of deep, internalised pain and anger. That is why it is so important to talk about it, normalise it and release it.
Here and below you will find a 'RAGE/ANGER RELEASE' somatic video that may help. Other gentle ways to begin to work with anger can include:
Firstly - giving yourself the permission and grace to feel anger, even if you don't want to express or show it to anyone else, just know it's ok to have it!
Stream of conscious journaling - just writing whatever comes out of you and then burning it or ripping it up.
Pushing against a wall - both hands - press hard and make sounds if you want to (scream, growl etc)
Lie down and gently stamp your feet on the ground - feeling the vibrations through your legs.
Wring a towel or tea towel using the strength in your arms.
Shake like a jelly fish for 3-5 mins.
Take action!Join me on March 6th at the march in London https://www.millionwomenrise.com/)
Support organisations that are actively tackling these issues such as Women's Aid, Women for women international or Savera UK.
Call it out if you feel safe enough to do that.
Educate your children around some of these issues - especially around the social media as that is where many of these cretinous ideas are being spawned and grown - https://www.internetmatters.org/
Get your men invloved - I am so lucky, I, like many of you I imagine, have amazing and beautiful men in my life, men that were loved and raised to be good humans and I am now asking them to stand up and be feminists too. We need their voices just as much as ours.
And so it is.