Rage Against the Machine: Expressing Anger Without Self-Destruction

Rage is a powerful and potentially destructive emotion. They say depression can sometimes be rage directed inward. Eczema can be seen as repressed anger boiling up through the body, expressed in the skin. Essentially, it's intense and destructive if not respected and expressed in healthy ways.

When something traumatic happens, people will experience a range of emotions, but the two predominant one's are sadness and anger. Anger is the rage at being disappointed or transgressed. It's expressive. Sadness is expressive too, but some people turn their anger and sadness inward because at some point in their lives they subconsciously learned it wasn't safe for them to express their emotions; they wouldn't be supported if they do so. Perhaps no one was there for you to hold it, so you kept on "keeping on."

But with sadness there always comes its twin sister of anger—anger at the loss, anger at the grave disappointment, anger at the world or the person for causing you this grief. And the machine—well that can be defined any which way. The machine of your family, the company, the system, the nation, the world.

Our anger is wild and also tied to our power—it’s a powerful emotion and force. How can we safely express this and to whom? To our pillow, our therapist, our partner, a parent?

Soul-Prompt: What or who are you angry with? If you were to take your sadness and express it as anger, what would it look like? What would you be afraid of if you expressed it?