Allow Your Anger

Yesterday I wrote down everything making me angry. People, situations, my choices and decisions... everything.

It was energizing and freeing.

As women we're taught we're not supposed to get angry.

Society is full of stereotypes showing us that angry women are bad.

The Nagging Wife who harasses her family constantly about small, unimportant things.

The Hysterical Woman who can't control her emotions and overreacts to everything.

The Jealous Girlfriend who freaks out and makes baseless accusations.

The Angry Feminist who can't see reason or engage in back-and-forth conversation.

In other words, you have to like everything and never show any displeasure or upset without fear of receiving one of these cliched and harmful labels.

So you push it down and bury it .

Which doesn't make it go away. Instead it...

Drains your energy

Pulls at your attention

Increases your anxiety

Makes you sick

Start paying attention to your anger.

You don't have to do anything about it unless you want to. But acknowledge it and feel it.

And then decide if and how you want to address the things on the list.

You can choose to leave it alone- acknowledge it makes you angry and you don't want to spend any time or energy on it.

You can choose to remove it from your life - stop doing the activity or seeing the person.

You can choose to change your behavior - set boundaries, create new habits, quit what's not serving you.

You can choose to fight - take deliberate action to change a construct or situation. This is very different than reacting from anger. But sometimes anger is the best catalyst for individual and systemic change.

Whatever you decide to do with your list, there is power in acknowledging and owning your anger.