The Hidden Armor of Anger
By: Flose Lapierre
Tags: Forgiveness, Mindfulness, Anger, Self, Healing

The Hidden Armor of Anger

When to wear it, and how to take it off.

Photo courtesy of Flose LaPierre

Most people who meet me utter the same line: You’re such a happy person. I smile with them because the truth is, I am. While I’ve endured abuse and pain in my life, I tend to delight in moments, and I have the spirit of a young child encountering everything for the first time. As such, I exude joy.

While I don’t mind being typecast as happy, that label has caused me a great deal of stress this year, as I have become acquainted with my anger.

Understanding anger

Growing up, I was not really allowed to be upset. It’s not that my parents had a list of house rules, with one clearly outlining that children must not show anger. However, exhibiting dissatisfaction, whether it be about a meal I detested or how my mother treated us, often led to more punishment. I didn’t have a pleasurable relationship with pain in those days, so I avoided any emotion that could harm me.

Now, as an adult, not only do I sometimes consider anger a negative feeling, which it’s not — it’s a shift within ourselves that we should acknowledge and seek to understand, but I also associate it with violence.

While I have found myself lounging on anger’s couch, I continually judge myself for how I act in moments when I allow anger to overtake me. Because there’s shame in that process, I shy away from creating an opportunity for healing — for myself and those I hurt. As a healer, someone who teaches others how to alleviate trauma through a trauma-informed writing workshop, I know how flawed that reality is, so I am actively seeking to change my relationship with anger, and, ultimately, my relationship with myself and my community.

To truly understand anger, let’s talk about safety

When I think of a person experiencing anger, the images that come up are hands smashing things, veins popping out of the neck, fingers ready to blow things up — fire, destruction; never me.

Perhaps that’s because stereotypical ideas about anger have done us a disservice. The reality is, when I am experiencing anger, I am often anxious, and my cup is spilling over. Energetically, I am scattered, unsure of myself, and feeling misunderstood or under-appreciated, making me incapable of communicating effectively and healthily.

“And sometimes anger is a reminder to ourselves that safety hasn’t been achieved, yet, so anger is the protection.”

In this week’s episode of The On Being Project, Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet and theologian, reads six poems and meditates on each. The first is Dilruba Ahmed’s “Phase One,” which leads Ó Tuama into a discussion on anger where he states:

“There’s all kinds of reasons why we get caught in anger, and anger is a magnificent and important defense. And if forgiveness is ever to happen, there needs to be a level of safety. And sometimes anger is a reminder to ourselves that safety hasn’t been achieved, yet, so anger is the protection. And anger has a deep intelligence in that moment.”

In a moment of anger, I am not only experiencing heaviness and possibly transferring harmful energy onto someone else, but I am also communicating that I am not safe.

As I return to the moments where I have been most angry this year, my brain takes me to the murders of Black folks (Breonna Taylor, Toyin Salau, Ahmaud Arbery), feeling out of alignment with an organization I co-founded but not knowing how to act on that, financial insecurities, my conflict with my sleeping habits, and shaming myself rather than forgiving.

These instances communicate that this year, I have not felt safe in my skin, within a circle of close friends, and inside of myself. Everywhere I turned, danger sprang across my mind’s eye, and anger stepped in to protect me from the big bad everything.

Moving forward through forgiveness

Law enforcement agents wear bulletproof vests when they ready for danger. It would be sort of silly if they kept the vest on 24 hours a day; the same goes for anger. It’s acceptable to throw on the armor when my safety and community are under attack. However, I look ridiculous wearing my suit of anger every day.

There’s no shame in feeling angry, and experiencing anger does not make me a violent person; it makes me a human being. As such, I have released the embarrassment I once associated with being angry, and I forgive myself for the cycle of shame.

Absolution then allows me to heal, which makes way for healthy expressions of anger.

What my daily healing practice looks like

To experience anger healthily, I have drastically changed how I operate day-to-day.

For starters, I no longer use an alarm clock. The privilege of liberal work hours allows me to wake up when my body is ready, which typically happens between 7 and 9:40 am. Not only do I wake up calm, but I no longer reach for my cellphone first-thing.

Instead, I reach for my journal to complete my Morning Pages, with Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way nearby.

Once I’m out of my bed, I have a glass of room temperature water and head out into my garden to tend to the plants. Doing so gets vitamin D on my skin and my bare feet rooted in the earth.

Although I don’t go on a mountain hike every day, I meditate daily, and without technology.

These nature-centered activities are self-centered and allow me to pay attention to what makes me feel safe. When a trigger springs, I am more apt to seek resolution.

I still experience anger in dramatic ways

This week, I threw my running shoes at the fridge in response to my husband asking me a simple question about flight arrangments for my uncle’s funeral. The reality is I’m grieving his death, and I still harbor financial insecurities, especially when it comes to big expenses. Although I feel safe with my husband, I was angry at the situation because I felt unsafe in three ways: My uncle’s death is a source of pain; he dying at 60-years-old means maybe my dad or another uncle is next; I fear not having enough money will get in the way of how I want to be present with my family.

Knowing what I now understand about anger, I don’t hold any shame. I forgive myself, but I also recognize that throwing shoes is an inappropriate response to a question. Realizing all of that, I have given myself time to process the heavy and sudden information by spending a lot of alone time in nature. I also apologized to my husband that day for creating a volatile environment in our home, a place where he should feel safe.

Following the sneaker-fridge-gate, I kept up my healing practice as if I were starting at day zero again, with no expectations. Although I don’t want to be an angry person, I sometimes experience anger, and it’s best to always have my “healing in progress” armor on and visible.