Confronting the depths of anger and sacred rage at the breaking point, the edge of the sea and sand.

She started screaming out of nowhere. One minute it was a normal Sunday afternoon, and the next, my Mother an erupting Volcano. It seems my younger brother Andy had said no to her when she asked him to put his dishes away, and that was all it took for her to unravel in ways I will never forget.

As I sat there on the beach in the bright sun, watching the warm sand drizzle off my toes over and over again, I looked out to the ocean and started to think about how it compared to my Mother and what happened that day.

Like where the ocean and the sand meet, my Mother was a woman who liked to keep things at the surface level. Back then, I always found this to be admirable, knowing how her life had been riddled with rejection and abandonment. Not only was my Father cheating on her with the next-door neighbor lady but every other man after him until Dan. Dan is who she ended up having to take off life support after only eight years together.

She just kept going and going like that damn Rabbit that went on forever from the ’80s - not that day though.

While Mom liked to keep things at the surf and sand level, she forgot that there is a whole deeper part to the ocean of who she is - the part that is dark and goes on forever. The part most people are afraid of, so they never go there, doing whatever they can to stay out of it, because you cannot see what is down there or what might be coming up to get you.

Mom forgot about the sneaker waves through that day.

The screaming stopped but only briefly. It then turned to something far worse. The plate Andy had said no to taking to the sink was flown across the room and shattered against the kitchen wall, looking like bad Art all over the floor. Next was the table she couldn’t lift because it was too heavy. She proceeded to pound on it with her hands scream crying until all that was left of her was a hallow apologizing mess on the floor sobbing into her quickly swelling hands.

The sneaker wave of repressed anger had risen up from the deep parts of the ocean of her past. A part of her that she refused to deal with that was done being ignored. Unfortunately, that wave had now taken out my brother and me right along with it.

How do we prevent this from happening? I think that answer is found easier in the “WHY” it’s happening first.

Women are taught that anger is something “good girls” don’t show, while it is, for the most part, accepted and even expected, among males. If you grew up with brothers then you probably know firsthand how frustrating this was right from the beginning. We are taught that if we react with anger when wronged, then we are a bitch, too sensitive, hysterical, crazy, out of control, and told we “need to calm down.”

Naturally, over time, we learned that we would not be taken seriously and separated from love unless we learned to shut up, shut down, smile more than frown and people please rather than set boundaries.

So we do. We stuff it down moment after moment, day after day, sometimes minute after minute, until one day that sneakier wave of repressed anger comes up from the from the depths of our ocean while we are living (so we think) safely in the shallow parts of ourselves. And it then demands to be felt no matter the cost to you and everyone around you.

The cost is high. Suppressing and keeping anger and other emotions and trauma under the surface impact our physical bodies. Our emotions are felt in our bodies, and unresolved emotions are stored and held there. Emotional imbalances from anger can cause a variety of diseases and disorders that truly cause dis-ease. Problems like:

Heart disease,
Digestive problems,
High blood pressure,
Headaches and migraines,
Skin disorders,
Increased risk of stroke,
Inflammation,
Brain cell death,
Lockjaw, teeth grinding, and other mouth and teeth issues.

Traditional Chinese medicine tells us that anger is stored in the liver which can affect menstrual pain, headache, redness of the face and eyes, dizziness, and dry mouth. That's just touching the surface.

You may be asking. How can you personally start healing this in yourself?  When your strong emotions come up; Resist the urge to stuff them down with people-pleasing. Resist stuffing them down out of fear of rejection and abandonment. Allow yourself to get uncomfortable and feel them. Work on advocating for yourself with your voice. Let it out of your body with the intention of feeling and releasing all of what is coming up with things like:

An even better way to change and heal this is by providing spaces where women can come together to share their life-changing healing stories or participate in these spaces. Spaces where women are safely held. Spaces where they are able to energetically express themselves in these ways. Where they are taught how to alchemize their anger and rage so it can go from operating at a place of fear, separation, and fake safety to now a place of courage, clear intuition (real safety), confidence, boundary setting, authenticity, goal setting, and creativity.

It is from these places as ourselves and in group healings that we become secure and confident. No longer afraid of what is lurking in the depths of our waters, we will swim out into the deep as needed, knowing we have the tools and strength to come back to the shore and, when needed, back out, trusting the process of the tides of our life.

Women need these spaces to learn that what they feel, think and express are not only okay and normal but beautiful and SACRED.