RAGE.
 
I’ve been feeling a whole lot of this lately. A whole lot. It has been the undercurrent of my mood for the past few weeks. I will not explain the inner workings of my life situations or specific worries or things that piss me off. 
 
But here’s the thing: I’m telling you this because I am dedicated to being comfortable with rage. As I write this, I feel a coal in my chest. Maybe that coal is related to the fact that our country has school shootings happening every day, or the fact that I just finished Becoming by Michelle Obama and am deeply sad that the Obamas are not occupying the White House any longer, or the fact that I miss my Grandma every day and some days it feels unbearable/unthinkable that she isn’t here for me to call or feel acceptance and love from, or, or, or, or.
 
Yes, of course it is all these things. It is many more things. While I write this, I also realize my privilege in being able to write about rage. In having the time and energy to explore rage.
 
But in exploring this, in allowing my soul to go there, I’m realizing that I am experiencing more of what it is like to be human. Many of us, women in particular, are taught not to express rage. At least that has been my experience. I’m talking about the societal narrative that women (and many other genders) are raised with that idolizes happiness and every day must be the best day and if you don’t have anything nice to say, shut your mouth.
 
I’m realizing that the result of me not feeling my rage, not expressing it, is manifested it in ways related to anxiety and depression and fear and retreating and making myself smaller in every aspect of my life. My lack of embracing anger, not just joy, is prohibiting me from living a full, wholehearted life.
 
There’s the saying “No Mud, No Lotus.” I have that saying on my fridge on a postcard. There is no happiness, no joy, without pain. This is the human condition. This realization is very new for me. VERY new.
 
I started this newsletter as a way to find joy in every situation. My first few issues were all about being joyful. But as I’ve gone through this process, as I’ve gotten closer to what joy really is to me – which, I'm realizing, includes embracing the entire human experience – rage has surfaced. 
 
And, unlike the past where I’ve pushed it away and buried it and scheduled an extra therapy appointment to talk about how I need to suppress it and what’s wrong with me—instead of all that, I’m going full bore into rage. FULL BORE.
 
It feels interesting. And by interesting, I mean it often feels like shit. But on the edges of that feeling, there is freedom. I am, for the first time in my life, allowing myself the full range of emotions. Yes, of course, I’ve been mad before. About a lot of things. But never before have I felt the depth of this rage. And, most importantly, never before have I ALLOWED myself to feel it. To not make it wrong.
 
Never before have I embraced that, ya know, maybe this is part of life.
 
I am allowing my rage to pass through me. Just as I allow my joy to pass through me. Just as I allow sadness to pass through me. Just as I allow insert any other emotion. This is me getting healthier.
 
And yet it is scary as fuck—maybe I should just rename my newsletter that phrase. Because that is what I feel every time I sit down to write it. Scared as fuck. I am telling the truth. The truth that is growing in my soul, in my belly, that if I don’t say it, it is dangerous to me and the people around me.
 
So, here I am. Writing to you with rage. I will not subscribe to the notion that women can’t be angry, even though history has pushed women down for just that. I won’t do it. I’m also not going to blame other people for my rage. I own it. No one makes me feel the way I feel. This is something I’m also learning – and needed to re-learn on basically an hourly basis (hello marriage, relationships, politics, insert triggering concept here).
 
I own my rage.
 
Writing that sentence is giving me freedom.
 
I’m not the only person thinking about this concept. Rebecca Traister, one of my favorite writers from New York Magazine, recently released the book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger. It puts timely context to the concept that women’s anger is not only a good thing, but it is necessary for societal change. I’m not exactly talking about that here—I’m telling more of my very personal experience with anger and rage—but I love that she wrote about this, and I recently picked up the book. I plan to start reading this weekend.
 
Earlier this week I heard something that made me stop in my tracks. It was said by Jasmin Darznik, an incredible author (check out her stunning book Song of a Captive Bird) and overall lovely person who I’ve been lucky to meet in the past few weeks. She was interviewing another author on stage at an event, and the two were talking about memoir. Someone from the audience asked if it was OK that the memoir they wanted to write was going to be about sad or fraught topics.
 
Her response was to quote a poet who said, ‘happiness writes in white ink on a white page.’
 
The point, Jasmin told the audience, is that when you only write about happiness and rainbows, no one cares. Yes, people want to experience and read joy when they sit down to absorb another person’s writing, but every good book also has conflict. It also has a beginning, middle and end. “Texture is really important,” she said. “We read because we want to be understood.”
 
I’ll leave you with that. Her words, her quoting that poet, made me feel less guilty about writing about my rage. I hope it helps you, too. My plan is to continue to embrace my rage. And by embracing it, I am also embracing my joy, my pain, my vulnerability, my gladness, my laughter, my sadness, my happiness.
 
One doesn’t outweigh the other. They are all in the soup called the human experience. Without one ingredient truly tasted, it feels a little unbalanced.

One more thing, from the great Martha Beck: 

                                 

Very important disclaimer: I am *still* in the “delicate flower” phase of this newsletter, so I would like to request zero feedback - Z.E.R.O. - other than overtly positive comments (i.e. “love it, Katie!” “this is awesome!”). I may want constructive feedback on this project at some point, but today is not that point. Thanks for understanding and respecting the delicate flower inside me.