I don’t often hear people use the word “outraged” let alone “rage.” I will hear words like anger, frustrated, mad, irritated – but not rage. I think we have an allergy to it because it makes the body and mind feel out of control, at least it does for me. Often being outraged assumes some violent action will follow the emotion. While this can certainly be true, I don’t believe it is inevitable and it doesn’t happen as often as we may think in proportion to how often we feel anger and rage.
When cheated of its due the body rebels… and the outraged cells react in a disorderly way on the mind. Charles Fillmore, Mysteries of Genesis
Our culture tends to teach us that rage is just wrong. If I feel rage, then it must mean I’m not doing my spiritual practices good enough, or often enough, as though we are defective if we are angry. Over the last several years more and more people have come to me looking for support because of the degree of rage they are holding in their bodies. My body is not a bad thing. It is not a broken machine, a battleground, or a prison. My body is also not your prayer. We are carrying heavy emotions from experiences happening within our bodies and minds, and largely from the degree of upheaval, uncertainty and injustices we see all around us.
We often get stuck at the tension part, we get hooked and react, usually not effectively. When I read Charles Fillmore’s quote about our outraged cells reacting in a disorderly way, this is what I am referring to. However, he says “on the mind,” I would go further and say we react on our bodies, thoughts, emotions, and people around us too. We unconsciously believe our rage is protecting us, and from that place we react because anger gives us a sense of power and control. We think if we can exert or direct that power we will be free of it.
Yet, do we know what rage is? Many of us are familiar with the notion that under the rage we feel hurt, yet it is more than that. If we are willing to stay in the discomfort, we find there is a tension deep down between feeling intense hurt AND our need to care for ourselves and to feel safe. If we are brave enough to go a little deeper, we discover our rage is protecting our broken hearts and sufferings, which encompass many feelings – and live in multiple places within our bodies. Is it any wonder then that our bodies become outraged?
The heart of our contemplative practices is about cultivating our awareness of something that we are avoiding, the things that are uncomfortable and we don’t understand. Our spiritual practices are designed to help us know ourselves, our minds, the world around us AND our bodies. If I don’t know my anger, how can I expect to know the decisions and actions to care for myself, and to liberate myself from the deep hurt?
If I don’t wrestle with my anger, I will not get to my broken heart, and if I don’t get to my broken heart I won’t get to the healing needed – for me and collectively. In the end I am not trying to get rid of anger, or erase or bypass my rage. Rather, my outraged cells are asking me to take care of me, to change my relationship with anger. My spiritual practice allows me to be in the experience of rage, recognize what hurt it is protecting, and ultimately realize I can only choose how to respond to anger if I’m taking care of my broken-heartedness. This is my path of moving from disorder and outrage to liberation and healing hearts.
A shorter, edited version of this originally appeared in the Sept/Oct 2023 issue of Unity Magazine.
