Anger & Rage
Most people arrive having been taught that their anger is a problem, something to control, apologize for, or get rid of. Black and brown folks, and Black women especially, are taught this most forcefully, that their anger makes them “dangerous, unreasonable, too much”. Many people learned to swallow it so far down they lost track of it entirely.
Part of this work is understanding what kind of anger you are carrying, since the different kinds, which we describe below, each call for something different. For some, the work is helping the anger find the target that actually deserves it, the injustice, the harm, the conditions, rather than the people standing closest to you. For others it is something else entirely. None of it is about silencing you. It is about making sure your anger serves you rather than costing you.
Anger lives in the body
One thing shapes how we work with every kind of anger below: anger is not only a thought or a feeling, it lives in the body. And the real danger to your health is not anger itself but anger that gets stuck, swallowed, and held with nowhere to go. Chronic, trapped anger keeps the body in a state of strain, and that is hardest on the people already carrying the most, the same folks weathering racism day after day. So a great deal of this work is somatic. We are not trying to cool your anger down. We are helping it move, so it can be felt, expressed, and channeled, rather than sitting in your body and corroding you from the inside.
Anger is not one thing
Part of what makes anger confusing is that we use one word for several different experiences, and each one asks for something different from us. Naming which kind(s) you are carrying usually changes what helps.
Anger at injustice:
Rage at racism, exploitation, disrespect, and the political moment we are living through. Here, we do not look for a wound underneath, and we will not assume your anger is ‘really’ something else. It is a reasonable, accurate response to what is happening in our world. We treat anger as information, a precise signal that something is genuinely wrong, and we help you stay close to its clarity.
Here, we do not look for a wound underneath, and we will not assume your anger is “really” something else. It is a reasonable, accurate response to what is happening in our world. We treat anger as information, a precise signal that something is genuinely wrong, and we help you stay close to its clarity.
This kind of anger is actually one of the more hopeful feelings a person can have. Anger at someone, or at a system, still believes that something better is owed, that the harm is not acceptable, and that change is worth working toward. So the goal of this work is not to cool your anger down. Cooled, drained anger loses the very energy that change requires. The goal is to help your anger stay directed, to keep its focus on the thing that is actually wrong, so it becomes something you can put to use rather than something that turns on you or burns out. By directing it, we mean putting it to work in the ways that actually move things: your voice, your boundaries, your relationships, your advocacy, and your work toward change. Anger that seeks change and accountability is a different thing entirely from anger that seeks to destroy, and it is the first that this work supports.
The real danger with this anger is almost never that it is too strong. The danger is that it loses its focus, that it collapses into hatred and curdles, turns inward into guilt and paralysis, gets swallowed into silence, or misfires onto the people who do not deserve it. So much of this work is simply helping your anger keep its rightful focus, so it can do what it is meant to do.
In the body, the same principle holds. The harm to your health is not the anger itself but anger with nowhere to go, the stuck, swallowed fury that sits and strains your body night after night. The answer is not to feel less. It is to help that activation move, to let it out through expression and ways that serve you rather than letting it pool inside you. Anger you can name and put to use moves through you. Anger that has nowhere to go is the kind that wears the body down.
Anger that was buried or silenced.
The anger you were never allowed to have, that went underground so early you may barely be able to feel it now. With this kind, the work runs in the opposite direction from anger management. We are not helping you calm anger down; we are helping you find it at all. Often the first place to find it is in the body, the clench, the heat, the tightening you learned to override, since the anger frequently lives there before it reaches words. We move gently, because the anger was usually buried for good reason, and slowly making contact with it, and learning that it is allowed, is often the whole work.
Anger turned inward.
Anger that had nowhere to go and bent back against you, showing up as depression, shame, harsh self-criticism, or self-blame.
When anger has turned inward, we get curious about where it was originally meant to go. Often it is rage at something that was done to you that got redirected at yourself, because pointing it outward was not safe or not allowed. Part of the work is gently turning it back around, so it lands on what actually deserves it instead of on you, and the body is part of how we do that, helping the held, inward-pressed energy find a way to move outward rather than continuing to grind against you.
Anger that is misfiring.
Rage that lands on the people you love, or the people in the room, instead of the thing that actually caused it.
In this case, anger is usually a secondary emotion; the fast, familiar one that shows up so they do not have to feel something more tender underneath. Hurt, heartache, fear, and helplessness are harder to sit with than anger, so anger becomes the go-to, the feeling that covers all the others. When that is what is happening, the work is not about managing your temper. It is about slowly widening your range, learning to notice the other feelings underneath before anger rushes in to cover them, and building your capacity to stay with the hard ones, the heartache, the grief, the fear, long enough that you do not have to reach for anger to escape them. The body is part of this, since those tender feelings usually register there first, in the throat, the chest, the gut, before you have words for them. As you build the tolerance to feel what is actually there, anger stops having to be the only door, and it stops landing on the people you love.
Most people do not arrive with just one of these. Anger is layered, and the same person might carry rage at injustice that is a natural and human response, and also notice it sometimes landing on the people they love, or sitting on top of an old hurt. So a lot of this work is done together, paying attention to what kind of anger is showing up in a given moment, and figuring out, with you, what that particular anger needs. And we mean with you. We do not decide for you that your anger is misfiring, or that there is something underneath it we ought to dig into. You lead that. For Black and brown folks especially, who have so often had others define their anger for them, it matters that the direction of this work is set by you, at the pace and in the way that feels safe, not steered by us toward something that does not feel aligned for you.
Sometimes the work is keeping anger directed where it belongs. Sometimes it is finding it, or feeling what is underneath it, or letting it move through your body. Often it is some combination, shifting as you go. Learning to recognize your inner experience, and to respond to yourself with more range, is part of what we do here, on your terms.
