Anger as a invitation

Anger often serves to show us where our boundaries have been violated, especially when and where we violate our own boundaries. For those of us that have spent a lifetime going between dorsal vagal (shutdown) and fawn (people-pleasing) - moving into and through 'fight' is the pathway towards Ventral vagal (true safety/community). So often we set up camp here, or run back down to shutdown because we are taught the emotions that come up in "fight" are sinful. It is that very emotion, primarily anger, that is actually a result of your eyes beginning to open as you move towards love. It seems counterintuitive at first, but it's all part of God's amazing design. As we heal and move up the polyvagal ladder (see the diagram below), we simutaneously begin to have more energy AND we have more capacity to see deeper truths about ourselves and others (which does indeed, result in some anger). This is also why we desperately need the Spirit's guidance as we go here.

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If your perceived safety has revolved around you being small, pleasing others, and ultimately not having confidence in yourself (and I don't mean an egotistical confidence here, but one of deep trust and in my experience, a result of embodying the bride of Christ) - know that this is perceived safety. It is what was modeled for you as a way to gain security in relationships.

What I often see, and have experienced myself, is this: when you begin to heal, you develop a a newfound sense of safety inside yourself instead of outside of yourself. This leads to your capacity to see truth without the filter of your past, broken lens. At the same time, you begin to energetically flow into more space from an overflow of the Spirit inside you. This is not a linear growth, but usually a pattern of expansion and retraction. The more you trust God and surrender, the larger the expansion each time, and the smaller the retractions each time. But, as we are human, we often expand and are hurt, so we retract back to our smallness, our old ways - our perceived safety. Until we have the Spirit-led bravery to expand again. And this is where I believe anger can be an invitation.

Before I explain what I mean by "anger as an invitation", I want to note the nuance on 'taking up space.' If someone does this without holding love and deep truth, it is done by energetically shrinking those around them. I watch this and it breaks my heart - it is how most people, even Christians, try to overcome their people-pleasing tendencies because it's what has been modeled through generations. No middle ground - you either shrink or you have to make others shrink. You have probably witnessed this many times and maybe even hold the subconscious belief that taking up more space can only mean that others have less space - but this is not how God created it.

Anger has been demonized in Western culture and church, and there seems to be an unwritten rule that it is especially unacceptable for women to experience anger. As with any emotion, there is no such thing as "pushing it down" or ignoring it. Instead, it comes as liver congestion, skin issues, constipation, kidney problems, and feeling a lack of empathy, feeling like others are a burden or you "just can't", the list goes on...

Maybe you're so good at ignoring emotions that you've made yourself "do the right things" but you're unknowingly projecting hostile energy to those around you. Even that is a learned safety mechanism - you want to make sure no one can call you out on specifics because you've technically not said or done anything hostile. I invite you to shift your understanding of anger from being sinful by itself. Acting (or energetically projecting and gaslighting) towards others in anger can be sinful, yes. However, by suppressing the emotion of anger instead of bringing it to God, you are making the very emotion an idol. When you treat an emotion with fear, you are telling your body and mind that the emotion is too powerful, and really that you are scared of what will be revealed. Deep down, you don't believe God is big enough to hold it, or maybe that He will punish you for it. The thing is, He already knows it's there - so the only punishment is the way you are punishing yourself by trying to avoid and suppress, and the self-fulfilling prophesy of others' responding to the energy you think you've bypassed.

In the last year, I have experienced more anger, even rage, than I knew was possible. I was doing a lot of somatic exercises (which are so helpful in the moment and I still use them regularly) but the anger continued to be triggered due to continuing circumstances in my life. Things began to shift in a major way when I started to see anger invitation to heal. An invitation to see, eyes wide open, and choose to forgive yourself and others. An invitation to respond with something God placed in our hearts when we found Jesus. Remember that when Jesus forgave, He did not just push it down and "forgive and forget" - he bore the weight of sin. He looked at it for what it was, felt all of it, no matter how deep and heavy it was, then chose to forgive in spite of all that. In spite of whether or not there would be full reconciliation - Jesus knew that there would still be many that would not reconcile with God and remain unsaved (or saved but unchanged)... and He still chose forgiveness.

When we see anger as an invitation, we begin to see, within ourselves, where we have, or currently are, responding from lack and fear instead of our new hearts full of truth and abundance. It is an opportunity to bring it to God, not to spiritually bypass it, but to let Him hold it and show us where we can grow. And please understand there is a very righteous type of anger - we see this in the life of Jesus as well. Anger is mobilizing, it exists in the part of our nervous system that takes action. It can be a great catalyst for changing injustice. Don't run from it, take the invitation and ask the Holy Spirit to show you what you are resisting.