Here's a Practice That Will Change Your Life

Rage. It's something that got me a viral video this year. And also got me a TON of hatred. Funny how that works, right? People literally got angry at me for expressing anger alone in my house. But here's the thing, rage is not a "bad" emotion. It's just an emotion. And all emotions are messengers. And the more you try to escape an essential emotion like anger, the more power it will have over you. So, here's a way to express your anger in a healthy way. And yes, healthy rage is a real thing.

So, what's unhealthy rage? Well, the rage itself is not the problem, it's your reaction to it at inopportune times that causes the problems. But guess what? The more you can hold rage in a healthy way, the easier it will be to hold it at those inopportune times. And the more you try to avoid rage, the harder it will be to face it because it will feel so unfamiliar.

Let's say I'm holding space in a leadership role for, let's just say, a big camp at Burning Man (and yes, I am actually the lead consent and safety person for my camp). And someone comes to me and reports domestic abuse and rape. Seeing the bruises in real life and hearing her harrowing story could definitely incite rage in me. And the person she's reporting about is also in our camp.

If I can't hold rage, then when it arose here, I wouldn't be able to think clearly and come up with a plan while also supporting her. The rage would bend me at an inopportune time. But when you learn to work with rage, not suppress it, you learn how to hold it as the messenger it is. It's rightfully telling me that something is wrong and we must do something about it. If I needed energy in that moment to fight him off or to run I would have access to it. That's what an emotion is. Energy in motion.

But since I've learned to deal with rage on a regular basis, I'm able to recognize and honor the rage coming up in my body, not suppress it and ignore it, then manage the situation. Now, the energy will still be in my body, so here's where the practice comes in. By doing healthy rage practices, I am giving myself the opportunity to move it through my system when I choose. So, I was able to release the energy from my system with one of these practices and that gives the rage an outlet, so it doesn't just live under the surface in my body.

When emotions get trapped in the body they can become destructive and easily triggered. So, I could just be in traffic and get cut off by someone, and suddenly there's an outlet for the rage and I just lose it in my car. Yes, I used to have road rage. And it actually makes a lot of sense because I was suppressing a lot of anger unknowingly at the time.

You may also be suppressing it unknowingly. If you weren't taught how to deal with it, and you don't give yourself permission to feel it, then it accumulates in you. It can be easily triggered and blow up at really inopportune moments. This is true for all people, and I've found it especially true for men.

Men tend to have more rage in their systems because of the magical hormone, testosterone. They are just predisposed to more anger. Although, I've had my fair share of anger as a woman, but this was from deep trauma. Men just tend to operate at a higher level due to hormones. And trans men should watch out for this if they start taking testosterone. Those raised as men were also not given many opportunities to express their anger in a healthy way.

However, for anyone, having a regular practice for healthy rage expression will help you transform your life. This actually goes deep. Because women especially can subconsciously feel something is off if men aren't expressing anger in their life in a healthy way. And women will have a harder time surrendering to pleasure if they have unaddressed rage in their system. The nervous system doesn't find it safe enough to let go.

So, for men, women, and non-binary people creating this healthy rage ritual will actually change how people perceive you, change how you experience pleasure, and make you a more stable person to be with. Most of us have no idea the amount of rage in our systems until you actually start expressing it. I am always surprised at how much comes up. Rage is a sneaky emotion because of how much we are taught to suppress it.

And one last thing I want to mention is something that often came up on that viral video I shared of me doing a rage ritual. Well-meaning psychologists or people who have studied rage would comment that expressing rage was actually unhealthy. That there was a study done and people who expressed rage were actually worse off than before they did. I have looked into this study and it's very far from what I'm teaching here. It was actually an unhealthy expression of rage they studied. There has never been a study done on this kind of rage practice.

The study went like this (and it's the Bushman study if you're interested). They made people write essays on something, then gave them intentionally inflammatory feedback about the essay from "peers" and kept going until they got angry. Then they had them punch a bag or yell while ruminating about the person. They found that immediately after this they were angrier than before and carried that into the next task.

This is the definition of inopportune anger exploding. And it's actually what the emotion of anger is designed to do. It's supposed to give you energy to deal with whatever injustice or unfairness or problem has arisen for you to deal with. So, there's no surprise that's what they found. But they found in the same study that when they were told to beat the bag or yell without focusing on the incident they were not more angry after. This is a great example of more healthy rage, although not perfect.

When you do the rage ritual I share next, you may come to it with a specific story in mind that made you angry. That's fine, but I encourage you to stay out of story as you express the anger. By just focusing on the sensations and movements of the rage, you'll be able to express it fully without getting trapped in the loop of the story. Looping over and over again will only make you angrier because you are continually feeding the emotion loop. By expressing the rage without the story you're giving your body an opportunity to release all the rage in your system. And you don't have to know the exact story it's coming from. Don't limit yourself by focusing on one story, and don't loop over and over. You may have to do the practice multiple times over multiple days to work it through you, but don't make it longer by looping.

I honestly feel bad for psychologists who are beholden to this flawed study of anger that tells them not to have their patients express their rage. This creates suppression in their clients and distrust of the psychology system. The study also didn't look at long term outcomes, only immediate outcomes. Yet, the Tantric traditions (and many other traditions) have known for centuries the power of expressing your anger. Anger is not something to fear, it is a powerful emotion that can help you.

I recommend practicing this 8-minute practice for at least 7 days in a row to begin. This is especially true if you haven't expressed your anger in a while. The first practice might feel a bit awkward, that's totally normal! Keep going and keep expressing. And I promise, you'll find a change in your life when you do this one.

Primal Rage Drop In: www.lonateachesbliss.com/rage

INSPIRED ACTION: Do this for 7 days and keep a journal after each practice. Notice how you change and how you perceive things different. And notice how others start to perceive you. A man who can wield his rage well is a man who women are naturally attracted to, even though they may not know exactly why. And a woman who can wield her rage is much more likely to surrender to deep pleasure. I dare you to give this one a try!