I must admit that I didn’t know how to start writing for today. Learning to give myself permission to be angry is part of my daily practice of giving myself permission to be a work in progress, so I cannot write as someone who has mastered such a skill. What I feel called to share is my journey so far, hoping that you would read it and gain courage to begin to write your own story of how you began to give yourself permission to be angry.
The Challenge Begins in Childhood
I don’t need or want to go into detail about the reasons why I had to learn to give myself permission to be angry in the moment, or why this particular learning process is so difficult. I will only say that, like so many others, I wasn’t given permission by those in authority over me to be angry in childhood and young adulthood. Instead, I was expected to be a good girl who could repress my anger at any cost.
Like you, I would encounter moments that would spark anger daily. Maybe someone cut me off in traffic. Maybe someone interrupted me. Often, people told me to hurry up and get to the point of my story or try to shame me for doing something the wrong way (instead of showing me how to do it the way they wanted it done). Instead of using my voice to express my anger in the moment, I withdrew and pushed the anger further down.
Repressed Anger Becomes Resentment and Bitterness
The repressed anger didn’t disappear. It festered inside of me, transforming itself into resentment and bitterness. I knew that the anger was a problem, but I had no idea how to solve it. The feeling was like a lake of hot sinful shame that I wasn’t strong enough to hold back. I did my best to hold it back when I was in public, but when I got home at the end of the day the dam would break and the pool of anger would wash over me.
If there was one prayer that I have repeated more than any other over the course of my lifetime it would be “God, get rid of this anger inside of me. I don’t like hurting people with my anger.” I did my best to contain the festering anger inside of my body, knowing that I wasn’t strong enough to fight it back for long. My body hurt. My soul was tired. I tried breathing deeply, I tried counting to ten, I tried to hold my breath, I tried to walk away. And then, exhausted from my best efforts, I gave permission to allow the dam to break. I gave myself permission to destroy the person who disturbed the lake of anger. Most of the time that person would be my husband and/or children for the offense of asking me too many questions, or lying about their room being clean, maybe asking me to purchase something that I couldn’t afford.
Shame Takes Over
Once the flood regressed and I regained my senses I was flooded with shame. “What is wrong with me?” I asked myself as I consoled my children or withdrew from my husband. “Only a monster would do this to her children.” “Why do I become this monster?” “Why can’t I stop it in time?” Life continued like that for years. I didn’t know how to escape the cycle of shame and anger. I continued to pray that God would rescue me from the flood of anger inside of me. “God!” I would cry out, “just make it stop.” “I don’t want to live like this anymore.”
I started looking for answers to my questions, and along the way I discovered The Angry Christian, written by author and respected scholar Andrew Lester. In his groundbreaking book, Lester explains that a human being’s selfhood and identity--the way that we create a sense of self in the world--is through story (Lester 95*). As we begin to interpret our lives, we process and attach meaning to our experiences with our world and others in it through the lens of our story. The experiences that we attach a lot of meaning to become our core narratives. According to Lester, we become vulnerable to the emotion known as anger when there is a threat to our core narrative (Lester, 96).
My core narrative for so long was being the good girl--the one who is good at all costs. In order to show up in my life as the good girl, I thought I had to stuff down my anger. I didn’t know that I could use my voice and speak up in the moments that I felt angry.
You Give Away Your Power When You Give Up Your Voice
I now realize that I gave away my power when I gave up my voice. I took full responsibility for maintaining my relationships with family, friends, co-workers, my boss, my children’s friends’ parents, my neighbors, etc. I believed that my self-worth was based on the myth of goodness at all costs--of being so overly concerned about the approval of others that I continued to suppress my own voice by not speaking up for my own needs.
I now understand that repressing the anger and remaining silent did not make my anger disappear. By holding onto anger and letting it fester into bitterness and resentment I had created a flood within me.
Darkness Does Not Have the Last Word
Thankfully, that is not the end of my story. The darkness doesn’t get to have the final word. I have stopped giving myself permission to hurt people, including myself. When I give myself permission to be angry in the moment, I am able to express my anger in ways that are safe for me and for the person with whom I am angry. When I give myself permission to be angry in the moment, I can be kind to myself and to the person with whom I am angry. When I give myself permission to be angry in the moment, I can be powerful.
I pray that you also find liberation in your pursuit to give yourself permission to be angry in the moment.
*Lester, Andrew D. The Angry Christian. First ed., Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.
For Reflection (either individually or with a group)
Read the blog. Read it a second time, maybe reading it aloud or asking someone else to read it aloud so you can hear it with different intonation and emphases. Then spend some time with the following questions with anything that helps you reflect more deeply. Take these questions for a walk in the woods or in your neighborhood, for a swim or a run or for a hot soak in the tub. Invite the questions to join you for tea or coffee.
Download a pdf including the Reflection Questions to share and discuss with friends, family, or members of your faith community small group.