When my parents got angry, they typically suspended truth and reason until they blew off their steam. I quickly learned to maintain a certain amount of distance, since being in close range meant feeling like a sitting duck for whatever emotional destruction would occur whenever their anger surfaced. As I got older, I tried intervening. I even remember feeling so traumatized by hearing my parents scream at each other that I would interrupt their fight, often defending whichever one was being hurt. As I came to the rescue of one parent, the parent I was rescuing would then admonish me for talking back to an adult. The contradictions and unfairness infuriated me. I would have screaming matches with them, doing anything to show them the limitations of their patterning and behavior. In each and every instance, I would retreat to my room, sobbing in anger and misery, exhausted by the twelve-round emotional battle I was never equipped to win.
It took many years, but I gradually began to see how acting out any degree of anger was exhausting to my body and harmful to my heart. Once I was no longer hypnotized by the righteous viewpoint I needed someone else to see, I could finally see how my anger only hurt me. It also placed all my power in someone else’s hands, requiring them to see my point of view so I could be released from the commitment to my anger. At a certain point, anger became optional and surfaced more infrequently the less and less I needed others to change to my liking in order to feel okay.
At this point it was okay to dislike, but it didn’t have to instigate anger, since the change required was always within my will and not something I needed from someone else. If someone upset me, I could either say something or walk away. If it continued, I could question whether this person should be in such close proximity to my innocence. Maybe it’s a sign that our journey is complete and it’s time to go our separate ways. In any event, the more options I had, the less angry I became as a result of dislike. This also allowed me to hold loving space for my parents and their journey of growth. I would be able to see how their perceived anger was their frustration with themselves, not knowing how to access the options and choices that were already living within their hearts.
My parents never gave themselves any other option but to explode their anger onto others around them. As a result, they navigated the last chapter of their lives in states of medical debilitation. They never saw how much energy their anger drained out of their bodies, and in the end, their declining health became a physical manifestation of their bodies’ exhaustion. It also set the stage for a surrendering of control, as a sharp-witted mind unraveled within the confines of a dissolving physical body.
Watching my parents decline in health and hold space for their surrendering of control was like a telepathic form of forgiveness from both their hearts. No matter how unfairly they treated me, I knew the purpose of these patterns was for me to help their souls evolve by daring to be unlike them.
I didn’t want to live a life of anger, righteousness, resentment, victimhood, or exhaustion. I also didn’t want all the hurt I experienced with my parents to go in vain, so I knew I had to use it as inspiration to better myself. Once both of my parents crossed over into the afterlife, all the anger I had felt and carried just vanished. I didn’t have to remember to not be angry. It just stopped happening.
In the last Golden Rule, we spoke of how dislike can help us be more discerning, revealing the parts of ourselves that beg for our acceptance and love, and perhaps even inspire heroic roles that bring greater resolve and consciousness to the planet. To further that, we go to the ninth Golden Rule, which acts as a counter-balance. It reminds you that projecting anger drains you of energy. It’s okay to dislike, but when it becomes a projection of anger, it means you are allowing dislike to control you. If you project anger, no matter what the effect it has on others, it always drains you of energy.
As empaths or those who are sensitive to the energies and experiences of others, we tend to be exhausted, even when witnessing the anger of others. The reason why other people’s anger can drain you of energy is because you’re actually sensing how drained they are by their anger, even if and when they’re not aware of it. Naturally, the next question is: How do you deal with the emotional density that manifests as anger in the most conscious way, so as not to be drained of energy or do harm unto others? The answer always comes in one of the soul’s highest attributes and one of the most critical and undervalued tools on the spiritual journey: your creativity.
When spiritual aspirations are not balanced and grounded with constant creative expression, you become imbalanced in form. A soul needs to have the wisdom of spirituality and the expression of creativity in order to be whole, grounded, integrated, and complete. In every heart is an artist waiting to be born. Perhaps a spiritual journey is how the victim transforms into a hero, making sense of their own individual journey by giving rise to the expansion of their own inner artist.
The inner artist is the narrator of one’s transition from victimhood to hero or from ego to soul. The inner artist says, “Here are the things I saw, felt, and survived, and here’s how it made me better.” Art is the inner narrator of your soul’s evolution. The more aligned with creative expression you tend to be, the less angry you’ll be or even drained by the anger of others. This is because the energy of anger is an eruption of unexpressed passion.
An artist is one who channels the light of their spirit into inspired creative form. In doing so, the passion of creative energy is always flowing. If someone’s inner artist has yet to be discovered, there is no outlet for the energy of their emotional body to be channeled. This ferments inside someone’s heart as repressed unexpressed passion. The more passion has been repressed, the angrier one is likely to be. When the arising of anger can be seen as an artistic crisis, you are likely to have more patience and empathy for those who feel it but have no creative place to channel it.
The question becomes—how do you use your creativity to deal with the anger inside of you that, as long as it festers, drains energy, and when projected, can do harm to others? Creativity, whether it’s in a contemplation, a writing exercise, or another medium, can give you the freedom to express anger in a healthy, mindful way.
If you’re angry with someone, you could try writing them a letter and not sending it. Hide your stamps. Put your phone on airplane mode. Write a letter that is so outrageous, it almost embarrasses you to put it on paper. When you have given yourself permission to just spare no expense in expressing your anger in the written word, whether on a computer or a piece of paper, get rid of it. This is how you release the energy.
If you’re into ecstatic dance, you could dance out your anger. If you’re an artist, you can paint out your anger. If you’re a singer, you could sing out your anger. If there’s anger within you, any form of creative expression will transfer it from your emotional body and return it back to Source.
Spiritual evolution is the act of bringing awareness to the energies and emotions within you, but it is creativity that teaches us how to express and release it.
By spending more time aligned with your inner artist, you are liberated from anger by letting creativity set you free—simply by giving a voice to the parts that have been silenced and disempowered some time before.
I am only as angry as I’m in need of creatively expressing myself.
EXERCISE: Breaking the Silence
What needs to be expressed by your inner artist? No matter how painful of a memory exists, is there something inside you that has to be heard?
Instead of focusing on who did what, simply focus on how it made you feel. When you do so, you can actually unravel the repressed passion (called anger) to discover the deeper wounds that need the outlet of creative expression. Will you write out your feelings? Voice them through expressing primal sounds? Chant it out? Can it inspire a collage, a drawing, or even abstract finger painting? Do you need to write someone an uncensored letter that is only meant for your eyes to read? Is there a book waiting to be birthed within you where the arc of the main character’s journey matches your history of pain?
It doesn’t actually matter the medium of your art. It just has to be a way for your inner artist to bridge the gap between victimhood and the redemptive hero you are becoming.
In the latter years of my mother’s life, she said to me one day, in a rather debilitated state, “I’m sorry for anything I did that hurt you.” I looked at my mother’s face with profound empathy, seeing how she could barely face a percentage of some of the things she did. This is because I wasn’t the only one manipulated by my mother’s ego. My mother was too. I said to my mother, “Thank you for saying that, but I’ve already forgiven you, for everything you’ve done. Thank you for the journey you’ve put me on.”
I stood so proudly in my mother’s presence, using everything that was done to me that I never could understand, that caused me to question myself and feel so unworthy. For the first time in my life, I embodied my true power with no one to rescue or be rescued from. It was at this moment where my mother met her adult soon who was a helpless child no more. She said, “Sorry”; I said, “Thank you.”
Even in her dying moments, it was my opportunity to take all the compassion, thoughtfulness, and patience that sometimes she didn’t give to me, and make sure they were gifts I gave her as she transitioned. This is what I want for you. To no longer be drained of the repressed passion within you that just wants to birth an inner artist. An artist that wants the right to talk about, to write about, to express all of the pain it can no longer afford to carry. Whenever you employ the soul’s attribute of creativity, you are dissolving cycles of abuse by no longer being silenced in the most conscious and heart-centered way.
It is often a very knee-jerk and co-dependent impulse to assume the truths you uncover in yourself are applicable to others. Often times, we, as energetically sensitive beings, are so insecure, we need other people to agree with our viewpoints in order to know we are okay to think and feel the way we do. While you may have a truth to be shared, perhaps the one in need of sharing it is the most important person needing to hear it. Other people may have triggered such feelings, but ultimately, the question of personal empowerment asks you: “Now that you feel this way, how will you allow it to make you better?”
When a personal truth needs to be accepted by others, you are likely to act in a way that is no better than the actions triggering you. Even though the ego firmly believes the other person will change to your liking if they can just see your point of view, the true healing that comes from any personal sharing has to do with the fact that you expressed your truth, whether or not the one listening agreed or even heard you. Knowing that you are the one who must express your truths, no matter how it’s perceived or received, you are able to convey such truths through a wide range of artistic mediums that require you to express what no one else may need to hear.
While there are moments of cathartic relief where you just need to get something off your chest and give feelings a voice, others can be invited to hold space for your process without having to be a focal point. As you learn to share your feelings without blaming others, while reserving the right to dislike without draining yourself of energy through the withholding of unexpressed passion, you allow your inner artist out to play in celebration of your soul’s expansion. If you are so desperately in need of speaking your truth, then you are equally the most important person who needs to hear it.