Dearest Readers,
I’m sure I’ve blogged about this moment in the past. It is a moment in the movie Milk when Sean Penn, as Harvey Milk, says to a crowd of protesters fighting for equal rights for homosexuals, “I know you’re angry.” He is shouting into a megaphone. He pauses. In that pause, as the viewer, I fully expected him to say, “But it’s okay,” or “We need to be peaceful,” or “We need to be calm.” Instead, he shouts, “I’m angry!”
As someone who has often tried to bypass my own anger with a spiritual remedy, it was a learning moment. ‘Oh, right, it’s okay to be angry.’ I forget this a lot. I know repressing my anger isn’t good but that doesn’t stop me from trying to transform it into forgiveness or acceptance before I’ve actually felt any of the the angry feelings.
The other day as I was doing the dishes I realized I was holding in some of those angry feelings and probably had been for some time. Having recently read an out-of-print book called Cry Anger in which the author, Dr. Jack Birnbaum, encourages people to get angry, I let the feelings out.
As I scrubbed the cutlery I shouted my grievances to the Cosmic Engine. Some were personal (a romantic rejection; a foot injury), some were more universal (climate change; human suffering). As the complaints poured forth out of my body, all prefaced with, “I’m angry!”, I immediately started to feel better.
Dr. Birnbaum, in writing about one of his patients, said, “His anxiety was a shield against his own rage and hostility, which he controlled with his perfectionistic way of living.”
After releasing my own anger, I could see it more clearly: perfectionism in disguise.
Perfectionism says: I’m getting it wrong (whatever ‘it’ is), other people are getting it wrong and the Cosmic Engine is getting it wrong.
That’s a lot of control. Or, lack thereof.
My desire for control is a natural instinct. It is just trying to keep me safe. But controlling doesn’t keep me safe. It keeps me angry.
Letting the anger out brought a new sense of freedom. Self-compassion flooded in. I remembered that when I’m expecting perfection, anger will not be far behind.
So let it out. If you can. In a safe environment. In a quiet kitchen, maybe, with your hands in the suds.
From the fires of love,
Celia
