Rage and Desire
Rage and Desire are the emotions that women most fear, and that men and the patriarchy most fear in women.
Women are actively trained to suppress, doubt, and avoid these emotions, so the rest of the world will feel comfortable and safe.
“I’m not angry!” or “I’m angry, and that means I am bad.” or “I need to manage my emotions and feel more compassion.”
That’s how women relate to Anger. That turns anger into Rage. Rage is unexpressed or acknowledged anger that is now ready to blow the top off.
Desire. Also feared. Also trained out of us.
If I had a dollar for every time a woman answers the question “What do you want?” with “I don’t know what I want”, I’d need a really big truck to haul them all to the bank.
I get it.
It feels so bad to answer that question “What do you want?” Even if the answers are crashing into themselves in our brains, it can feel dangerous to feel our desires take shape on our tongue.
What do Rage and Desire have to do with each other?
1. When desire is thwarted, deferred, or denied long enough, it turns into rage. That energy doesn’t go away. It festers.
Desires are not frivolous. Desires are actually needs. Desire is divine guidance. Desire is an intimate conversation with ourself about what we want and how we want it.
2. Desire and rage are both connected to our voice, our power of expression. Voice works for both creation and release.
We create when we are willing to say what we feel, to say out loud what we want and what we need. We release when we give words to our displeasure, our outrage, our sense of being violated, ignored, passed over, not seen not heard…
Releasing rage and related feelings gives space to allow our desires to take root and blossom.
3. Desire and rage are both carried in the womb. Desire suppressed and buried in the womb turns into bitterness, anger, self-loathing, depression, and rage.
Rage denied and stuffed into the womb turns into self-judgement, depression, blame, victimhood, or it explodes out sideways burning everything in its path.
(Not shocked that while I was planning this series on the Raging Womb I accidentally started a fire in my studio.)
What do we do with rage and desire? How do we break free of this cycle of self-suppression?
It starts with awareness.
* Allow the rage to bubble up.
* Express the feeling and release the energy in a way that feels good and does no harm.
(Walk, run, dance, sing, howl, take a noodle to a willing tree or stone. Movement and Sound are your friends. You may need support with this.)
* Identify one thing you are angry about. It may be a boundary violation, an unfulfilled desire, or something someone said or did to you. (It can be other things, as well, but you’ll hit pay dirt with one of these.)
* Reclaim the energy of the rage by taking some action to remedy the problem.
- Set a boundary.
- Name and receive something you’ve secretly wanted for a long time.
- Get help from a therapist, coach, or healer who can help you sort out what was done or said to you.
The main thing is to STOP:
Bottling up your wild emotions.
Numbing your feelings.
Trying to make everything OK for others while your own needs go unmet.
AND START:
Feeling your feelings
Expressing your feelings
Naming your desires
Allow receiving
This is Big Work.
Massive Healing.
We’ll go dig deeper in The Raging Womb Masterclass: Transmuting Rage to Divine Feminine Power. In the three masterclasses we’ll look rage, desire, and ambition in the eye, and learn some new skills for owning and unleashing these emotions and their power.
We start December 1. Join us live on Zoom or by recording at your convenience.
Click the banner below to register.
