Feeling angry sucks.

Especially when you’re trying to live the ‘high vibe tribe’ life and you keep catching yourself on this hamster wheel of rage, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to hop off. Instead of it fuelling you to make positive change, anger consumes you, devours you from the inside and doesn’t leave a whole lot of energy to do anything after it.

Lemme tell ya, I’ve lost more days than I’m comfortable admitting to anger. Where after an outburst about some injustice, I am spent, emotionally hung over, and needing a nap, desperately.

But what if it didn’t have to be that way?

The books currently out seem to talk about how to manage your anger, how to release or transmute it, and that’s all fine and good. But to me, it feels like jumping to the answer page in the back of a puzzle book. Sure you get the immediate closure of it being done, but did you learn anything?

What I started to notice in my life were repeating patterns: I dated the same man, a dozen times, with a different name and face. I worked for the same bosses who mistreated me in the same ways throughout my teens, 20s and early 30s. I met people who underestimated me because of how I looked, which sometimes made me question if they were right.

And that’s just in my personal world.

Let’s face it, even before 2020, there was a lot to be pissed off about in the world.

I’m not talking about the guy who cut you off in traffic, or the office gossip who’s spreading shit about you. There is big life stuff going on, injustices all around us, that can feel overwhelming at times, especially if you identify as an Empath or HSP. What I learned was this: sure, you could manage your anger to relieve that immediate pressure. But if the lesson wasn’t integrated, you’d find it again in some other shape and form. And if you didn’t learn it that time, it would be waiting for you shortly after.

(This was a lot like as a kid where I hated eating broccoli, so my parents would leave my dinner plate with those little green trees for me for breakfast the next day… there was no avoiding it.)

I knew there had to be a better way, and after digging into my own anger, meditating, and chatting with my guides, I found one.

Enter: The Sacred Anger Strategy

The Sacred Anger Strategy does ask you to be brave and willing. It’s about boldly being with your anger instead of running from it, and allowing her to become your sacred teacher. Here’s how it breaks down:

Identify what you’re feeling

This may seem obvious, but so many of us have been conditioned out of being honest about what we feel (especially if it’s inconvenient for those around us) that we don’t even know what it’s like to be fully angry anymore. As women, we hear the stories about “crazy ex girlfriends” and “psycho chicks” that we become afraid of receiving those labels ourselves, so we bury things down, ignore the signs, until it starts to consume us. (And can we do away with these terms that are not only misogynistic, but play out the girl-on-girl hate that has kept the patriarchy in power for so long? Ok, I digress a bit here.) It’s time to get real about how you feel, even if it’s ugly or unflattering. I’m here for it, honestly – this is a no judgment zone.

Acknowledge it

Once you’ve worked out how you’re feeling, it’s time to give it some validation. Don’t try to talk yourself out of it, or justify anything that contributed to it.  You’re entitled to feel everything you’re feeling – and those feelings are valid. So give them voice… name them to claim them (which strips their power, and puts you back in the driver’s seat.)

Now: feel it.

This may seem like the most obvious one, but this is the part of the cycle that makes us so uncomfortable that we rush to ridding ourselves of the anger instead of just being with it. I caught myself doing this literally last week, and I’ve spent the last 2.5 years talking to people and writing about anger, so it’s not exactly foreign to me. 

There is beauty in this discomfort, and your willingness to be in it says so much about your character. This is the stuff that helps you to heal. It’s important to recognize that while you’re angry, you are not anger itself. It’s an energy moving through you, and you can create a safe space to dance with her before sending her on her way.

Move it

Now we get to the part that all those other books talk about! Once you’ve really honoured the process of anger (or any uncomfortable emotion, really) you’ve taken from it what you can (consciously and unconsciously) so after, it’s time to let it go.

You can do this by dancing, cycling, running.

You can paint, write poetry, or jagged-little-pill yourself until you’re blue in the face.

You can scream into a pillow, ugly cry in your car, or punch the couch.

You can use any of these energy management tools, hold a fire ceremony, or take a ritual bath.

Whatever works for you is exactly right. The only goal is to make sure that the energy of anger has somewhere to go that’s outside of you. And while you may think that’s the final part, there’s one more element to the sacred anger strategy…

Reflect

Going through that whole process and not knowing truly why is a waste of your time, energy, and heart. Just as it’s essential to create the space to FEEL everything, we close this particular loop by pausing to reflect on it. We’re looking at what we learned from the experience. What amends need to be made. Where this pattern has come up before. What we want to do if it happens again. And so on.

This time of reflection can be just as vulnerable as the feeling part of the cycle, because often our anger is rooted in old hurts and those parts are coming up to be healed. This reflection is paying reverence to anger as a sacred teacher, and it’s how we extract every lesson so we can stop ourselves from having to experience them again.

It’s time you managed your mojo!

Energy management is an essential piece of basic hygiene that’s often overlooked. It leads you to feeling lethargic from carrying other people’s ‘stuff’, it impacts your mind, your mood and your mojo. In this guide, I share not only why it’s important, but all the tools you need to get started today.