The Sunday Soother: Navigating Anger in the Portal
How can you learn to feel, express, and direct it?
Welcome! This is the Sunday Soother, a weekly newsletter about practical spirituality, compassionate personal growth and intentional living, written by me, Catherine Andrews, a spiritual mentor, teacher, and writer. Did somebody forward this to you? You can subscribe to the Sunday Soother here.
Happy Sunday, Soothers. We’re winding down our adventures with Navigating the Portal, and today I’ll write my final installment: About anger.
Let's review where we are in the Portal series, first, shall we?
Here's where we are so far in the essay series:
Navigating The Portal by Looking to the Stars (using the North Node of astrology)
And let’s move on to anger, because the Portal will ask you to engage with both your healthy, righteous anger (against patriarchy, I find, primarily) and also anger related to old, unhealed traumas, that will rear their heads for healing and expression at this time, and often manifest as anger against partners, jobs, children, friends, yourself, but often is really the unexpressed anger of your inner child or inner teen for the things that happened to them that are now up for review.
I don't know about you, but my anger is probably my most complicated, feared, scary, shameful emotion. I am angry like, all the time. I have been angry most of my life. I have had every right to feel this anger. Yet, I hid it. Yet, I suppressed it. Yet, I was shamed by others for it. So I shoved it down.
Highly sensitive women can struggle to allow expression of anger. It can seem dangerous; it feels intense; we may have learned as a child it wasn't safe or "proper" to express it.
But as sovereign adults, we must learn that anger is a righteous and important emotion. Suppressing it hurts our hearts and our health. Energy, and emotions, are meant to move through us. Our bodies are the physical vessel meant to express these visitors: through screaming, crying, running, punching, shaking.
If you're ready to learn to allow anger to flow through you and be processed so you can return to groundedness and take right and clear action, here are my favorite tools for processing anger.
Scrawl journaling: If I'm super angry but I know it's not appropriate for me to express it to another person I'll turn to my journal. I will put on some loud music, tap into my angry toddler or teen self, and LET IT GO on the page. I'm talking saying the NASTIEST, meanest, most rage-filled stuff on the page. I have called loved ones "motherfuckers" in this kind of journaling, lol. I have called coworkers and friends assholes. I have just said all the darkest, rudest, meanest stuff and literally "scrawled" it on the page, that's why I call it scrawl journaling, you can barely read my words afterwards. I try to go for 20 minutes, then I rip up, burn or shred the pages afterwards.
Rage dancing: Pretty much what it sounds like. I'll put on some loud music and dance like a very intense person, stomping, punching, shaking, yelling. Yes, I look like a damn fool but nobody needs to see. Need some music help? There are lots of "dance your anger" out playlists on Spotify.
Screaming/beating: This is also... pretty much what it sounds like. I will scream into pillows and beat them. That's about it. I have a tennis racket that is great for this, too. One time during the week before Biden was confirmed as president, I went into the woods where I was reasonably sure nobody could hear me, screamed, picked up a stick off the ground and beat it into smithereens against a tree stump. That was awesome. You really need to try this one. I recommend just trying this even if you don't think you are angry. You'll probably tap into some anger under the surface.
Shaking: In the book Waking the Tiger, Peter Levine, a therapist, talks about how humans often struggle with PTSD after a traumatic event while animals in the wild just shake themselves off and move on. Humans don’t complete the cycle of trauma by failing to dislodge stuck energy from the freeze response. This stuck energy in the body has a negative impact on our health, mental health, emotional stability, and often keeps us perpetually in the trauma response. “Shaking” is an easy way for us to dislodge stuck energies from our bodies helping us complete the cycle of trauma in regards to whatever is coming up for us. It's easy, just turn on a song (or you can do it without music, too) and start by shaking your hands/arms. Then do your feet and legs. Then, your whole body. Shake for anywhere between 3-10 minutes using your intuition on how to move. Again, you can find YouTube or Spotify music playlists for this.
EFT tapping: Overall EFT tapping is one of my all-time favorite processing tools for all emotions. EFT standings for "emotional freedom technique" and this tool is also frequently referred to simply as "tapping." It's a process of tapping on meridian points on the body while saying thoughts and affirmations out loud to release stuck energy in the body that is attached to thoughts, emotions and beliefs. By tapping on these meridian points as you focus on an issue, you are restoring the energetic balance in these meridian channels AND also sending signals to your brain to lower the stress response to said issue. It's been scientifically proven to reduce cortisol levels and treat anxiety (43% reduction after an hour of tapping in one study) and has also been approved by the VA as a powerful tool for treating PTSD (after 6 sessions, 90% of study participants no longer fit the PTSD clinical criteria). Brad Yates on YouTube is great, as is an app called The Tapping Solution.
Inner teenager work: I’ve talked endlessly about the importance of inner child healing, but I find during this period of the Portal, it’s the inner teen who needs our love, attention, our validation. She may have felt ugly and unworthy during her teen years (god knows I did), or experienced humiliation, abuse, invalidation from her parents or caretakers or others. There might have been serious bullying, feeling unseen, unsure, lost at sea. Alone. Perhaps there was shame around her body or sexuality. Often during this time period is when huge conflicts with mothers come up that cause a lot of rage, pain and anger. This is often the time we wake up to the startling fact that a lot of adults in our life are at the best, out of integrity, at the worst, actively harmful to others, and yet, we as teens are powerless to do anything about it. She is often very, very, angry and rightly so. I find that during the Portal, the anger we’re feeling is often our inner teen’s unheard, disrespected, invalidated, shamed rage, that is so valid and so righteous and so natural. She may also be angry at US, the adults we are today, for ignoring, repressing or further shaming her feelings and anger.
How to we begin to engage with the inner teenager? I find for her, she needs scrawl journaling, and your compassionate, non-judgmental attention. Once a day for a few weeks, you could simply write the prompt at the top of your journaling page: “Dear teen [insert your name], tell me, what’s it like to be you? What’s on your mind?” And then just let her rail and wail. Don’t try to justify or minimize or really do anything. I find the inner teenager mostly wants to be HEARD and seen and understood. When she expresses what she needs to express, and realizes you’re not going to try to chastise or change or shame her, she tends to soften a bit and open up around other things. Of course, you may need to be more supported in this work depending on your past traumas, and it’s always a good idea to engage with a counselor or therapist when you go to these places.
Overall, I hope your experience in the Portal will teach you this:
Anger is natural. Allow yourself to feel it.
If it helps, imagine this: A mighty river, pent up behind a dam for decades, with no management, no expression of its flow, no release, ever.
When it does eventually burst, it can destroy villages of the people it loves, the communities it counts on.
But when it has a regular, natural process of release of its power, of its fury, that expression is directed elsewhere, in a way that doesn't harm people it wants to care for.
And you deserve to do that for yourself through this time.
Nothing is wrong with you if you are extremely angry. Being a woman going through the Portal is to open your heart and body to the fiery anger of patriarchy, of oppressive systems, of emotional labor, of childhood traumas, of each and every way you have been forced to give away your power and your light, of watching these same systems wreak their havoc on everybody around us.
We live in profoundly unjust and harmful times, and we cannot NOT be angry living through them.
But neither should we repress our anger, nor direct it in ways that can be harmful towards people or situations that aren’t necessarily the true cause.
I hope these tools will help give you some guidance in how to do that.
And know this concludes our exploration of the Portal.
If you are looking for guidance and support through the Portal, or a spiritual awakening, I have a new offering:
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You’ll also receive a custom flower essence or earth wisdom medicine from me to support your journey, a hand-picked crystal, a copy of one of my favorite spiritual books, a custom hypnosis audio, and tons of accountability and support from somebody who has walked this path and come out on the other side. I also do regular Tarot pulls and readings for you each week. I also create an altar for you in my office, where I light a spell candle I’ve created for and dedicated to you and pray for your intentions each morning.
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I’ll probably take the next couple of weeks off of the Soother (though paid supporters will keep getting updates), so I’ll see you in late February or March!
Happy Portal-ing, my friends. I promise, you’ll make it out on the other side.
241: How are you already the thing you're desiring to become?
I know a lot of you are motivated, you desire to work and live more into your purpose, and you also may struggle with impostor syndrome or an inner critic. You may feel far away from what you would like to become or be. So today I talk about the importance of consciously finding evidence every day about how you are ALREADY the thing or person you are desiring to be, right now, right in front of you, and I share a couple of stories to ground this concept. Listen to all of my Sunday Soother podcast archives wherever you listen to your podcasts. I have over 200 episodes to binge!
Reads & Recs
Where I share articles, books, recipes, podcasts, beauty products and more that I'm enjoying!
🐦 Thanks to Kelly for sending me this piece; pileated woodpeckers are an animal that shows up frequently for me, and reading more about them in this lyrical essay was a treat.
🌳 The List of Sacred Things: “We passed the three big tulip poplars that I often call the Three Sisters and I pointed them out to her— “Look Iona, See those big trees? Aren’t they special? They’re older than us both. They are our elders.” I say things like this a lot. Things I know might be beyond her ken at the moment, but that I hope carry the energy of reverence, curiosity and wonder I want for her in this world. She was quiet for a second and then I heard a small voice pip out from the stroller—“Trees are sacred!”" [Asia Suler]
💡 From Sarah in the Sunday Soother Slack: How Discovering I’m an HSP at 50 Changed My Life: “It is never too late to understand yourself, and your sensitivity, better. I’m proof.”
🧳 And from Tina: The Heroine’s Journey Home - The Aesthetics of Joy by Ingrid Fetell Lee: “The heroine's journey is a narrative that helps us understand how to become more whole in contemporary life. In this post, we look at the way the heroine's journey can help us heal our relationship with our homes and live fuller, more balanced lives.”
🌾 Somebody sent me this beautiful site, Sow the Magic, on Instagram. Magic + seeds = yes please.
🌿 I’m starting a 10-month long herbalism course at Wild Roots Apothecary in the Blue Ridge Mountains soon, and they have an amazing and wonderful online store to order from.
🥕 I really want to learn to garden this spring and was paralyzed at all the raised bed options out there. Which would be best?!?! Ultimately I chose this cheap option (galvanized metal) that was supremely easy to put together and is just waiting for soil and my seedlings.
💰 This offering from Toi Marie looks awesome, on uprooting capitalism.
💵 She also has this: The Responsibility of White Wealth: “A year long transformational learning and redistribution circle for white women who are ready to use their wealth as a catalyst for change. Six women. We begin in April.”
🪜 This is how I personally learned to actually stick to habits.
❤️🔥 Learning to Trust: “None of the answers have ever been out there someplace else. As far as I have traveled seeking answers to my life’s questions, they were never there. Not in Italy. Not in Peru. Not in my hometown. Not in any place in between. The common thread in all my seeking, in all of the dots that connect the story of my life is me. I am the thread. I have the answers. As terrifying as that is to admit and as deeply uncomfortable as that is to reckon with, it is what I feel in my heart as I write. It’s where I’ve landed after hours of writing, tending to each part that surfaced so that I could arrive here. I am the thread.” [The Deeper Call]
That’s it for now, sending all my love for the week ahead.
xo
Catherine
PS: Make sure to check out my new 1:1 spiritual mentorship offering.
