What to do with Rage?

Let's take it from 100 to 0 in one post

I’m feeling new emotions this week, but they’re familiar. I felt them once before, not during my 4 years of childhood sexual abuse, but several years after my escape from it.

I remember clearly, going for a walk in the rural area where I lived as the memories of what my step father had done to me from the time I turned 11 years old until I left home at 15, seemed to come thundering in all at once. Not that I had forgotten, I had never forgetten, I just kept it all walled off in a secret room inside my mind. The memories broke the wall down that day.

It was, psychologically speaking, probably because I had reached a level of maturity where my mind could handle and was ready to deal with what had happened to me. I was nineteen with two baby girls. All grown up. It was time.

So I walked out into the middle of a big patch of cow pasture and I screamed at the top of my lungs. I screamed and I screamed and I screamed. And then I cried for a while. And then I wiped off my face, probably smoked a cigarette, picked myself up and walked home, having “dealt with it.”

What I had really done, I think, was release just enough pressure to allow the easier re-sealing of the wall. Hush now, childhood trauma. Go back to sleep. Nobody needs you here.

What triggered me today

I read about trans women in male prisons being assaulted. The power dynamic of it was the same. Powerful vs powerless. Big vs small, you know? The feeling of captivity, of no escape, because where you gonna go in prison? Or at age 11? And the sense that no one in authority could help had a similar vibe to it, because back then they wouldn’t have. It was 1973. Kids were routinely in trouble for “telling lies about their dads” back then. Big trouble.

Things are better today— a lot better today. Kids are believed today. So that’s a vast improvement.

And as I’ve said, all that stuff is not a part of my daily awareness. I take it out once in a while, turn it over, make sure I’m still okay, process anything that needs processing, and then I put it behind the wall again.

But this current situation in America, where women are literally under attack by our own government, has smashed my safety wall again. And, well, I was looking for an emoji that best expresses my emotions, and the best I could come up with was a gif of Xena, Warrior Princess, screaming at her enemies. It really matches how I was feeling earlier today.

So here we are on a Saturday night, and I’m trying to think of how this experience has come to push me forward, to a better version of me, so I can write about that instead of how angry I am for my Sunday morning post.

But really, that’s not something I’m in a good position to see right now. I need to get rid of my rage first.

Upon reflection, I thought I’d tackle that in two ways.

1. Channel the full force of my anger and rage into positive action that might do good for someone else or to build up and support what I believe in. To aim it toward helping give birth to the solution for the current “problem.” In this way, I can shift my energy balance from negative (pushing against what I do not want) to positive (pushing for what I do want.)
   
   So I did some of that this morning, but wound up finding things in the process that made me even madder.

2. Only do the above for a small portion of each day, and then let it go entirely.
   I must become vigilant about segment-intending, every single day. The reason I need to do that, is to maintain my high vibration and not fall into a downward spiral.

3. Downward vibrational spirals bring more problems. Our vibration brings everything that matches it into our lives. So when we’re angry, we attract anger and things that inspire it. When we’re feeling good, we match up with other things we define as “good.”
   
   Keeping our vibe high, finding a way to let go of the enraging things, no matter how big they are and figuring out a way to feel good anyway, is what’s required to maintain our lives as havens from the world, rather than caught up in its chaos.
   
   When we turn inward, we should find peace, not turmoil.
   When we come home, we should enter a safe, calm harbor, not a storm.
   
   Yes, that’s better. Inside, it’s calm and safe. I do not need to become what I encounter “out there.” I can inform myself, do what I can to help, then release. I do not need to bring it into my sanctuary with me.

I’m kind of writing my way there as I compose this post. My heart rate has dropped, and I can feel my blood pressure reducing. My breaths have slowed and evened out.

So the fourth key is apparently distraction, and distraction of a pleasant sort. Doing something I love, while also reaching for a higher vibe by turning my attention away from the “problems” seems to have brought me right there.

So that worked.

As I have felt a little better, and a little better, I have stopped at various points during the writing of this post, to do other things as they popped into my mind.

I set my music to “soothing classical” which is really lovely. I fired up a patchouli incense. Patchouli is a substitute in magic for graveyard dirt. It invokes the ancestors, repels negativity, and has protective energy. It carries the strength and stability of the Earth energy. It’s solid. As I swirled the smoke over and around me, I envisioned the ancestors forming from the smoke, a circle of powerful women repelling the dark hordes of bad news bytes. Only light can get past their barrier.

My BP has dropped back into reasonable range.

The Discovery

I feel whatever I write, and what I feel beams out from me.

When I first started taking lessons in witchcraft, my chief complaint was that my spells would often come to pass while I was still writing them, rather than waiting until I had the chance to formally cast them. The first time I happened, I was writing a spell to land a new book contract, and the phone rang with the offer before I had finished writing it.

My high priestess told me to cast a circle and compose my spells from within it. She said I was releasing the energy of the spell during its composing, and so the spells were basically being cast BY my act of writing them.

I mulled on that, and it made sense. I channel emotion onto the page for a living. I’m a novelist. My super power is that if I cry when I write it, you will cry when you read it. Whatever I feel when I write a story will be mirrored by its readers. When I’m scared, you’ll be scared, and sometimes I scare the hell out of myself. Hubby walks in, I scream and hit the ceiling.

Back to spell casting. Eventually, I decided that I didn’t mind my spells launching forth as I was creating them.

Words are my own strongest form of magic, after all. Why shouldn’t I cast as I compose? I can see it, can’t you? While my fingers are on the keyboard, I have an astral hand, wielding a quill pen over a parchment page, and the letters instantly become glittering energy, rising off the page and flying out into the Universe to fetch back my desire.

Why shouldn’t every line I write be a spell? I’m a writer and a witch. It would be bizarre if every line I wrote wasn’t a spell.

In the very time it has taken me to write this post…
my rage has waned.

And so that’s the answer I sought when I decided on my topic today: What to do with Rage. The answer, for me, is to feel it first, channel it into something helpful, then leave it aside with distraction, and write my way through it.

I can write myself back to peace again.

For you, it will be the creative outlet that brings you the greatest joy. What is your gift? What do you create?

If you can fall into creating something, I believe you can shift your energy regardless of the circumstances.

I have read: “You’re never closer to God than when you’re creating.”

I believe that. (And “God” can mean whatever it means to you. That’s none of my business, frankly.)

So when you feel rage, remember that all emotions come for a reason and that we come to earth to experience the full range. So feel it.

Then, if you can, channel it into positive action toward the solution to the thing that’s enraging you.

And then let it go, distract yourself from it, and turn your attention to creating something.

Set the atmosphere: low lights, soft music, TV off, notifications silenced, incense burning or oil warmer warming, candles if you like, comfy clothes. Set up your tools or workspace. Make it somewhere different than your usual work area. Make it comfy. Pour coffee or tea.

Or take it outside. Spring is springing in the northern hemisphere. Hang some wind chimes you took in for the winter. Work on the sunny side of the lawn. Go for a walk. Listen to the birds as you rake or groom your yard, or plant flowers, or a garden.

Mmm. Yes, that’s better.

How are you all? Are you okay? You hanging in there? Let me know in comments.

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Got Witches?

The third of my 3-part series of paranormal romantic thrillers, THE PORTAL, releases this Tuesday! (And the 4th is coming in two weeks.)

Binge all 4!