Am I a bad Person?

Am I a bad person?

Rage is not something that’s not easy to own. 

Anyone who’s been deeply hurt or victimized in their life knows what I’m talking about. 

It’s there, lurking under the surface. You do your best to contain it, control it, keep it at bay, but you know it’s in there.

Perhaps it’s squeaked out in moments, you’ve yelled, you’ve screamed, you’ve broken things. You’ve wrecked relationships, you’ve hurt people, you’ve hurt yourself. You’ve lost time, you’ve seen red, you’ve gone black. 

Rage feels like a liability, something you would surely be ostracized for if anyone ever saw. No matter how kind or loving you are or have been, the very fact of rage’s existence, lurking under everything feels like a scarlett letter and leads you to wonder: “am a bad person?” Perhaps you believe something like: “I am not judged on my ultimate goodness, but my ultimate badness”.  

The irony is that, as long as I stay split and in judgment of my shadow and rage, I keep it empowered. Feeding on shame, rage loves to hide in the darkness and unleash itself when your guard is down. The energetic cost in keeping it under lock and key is exhausting.

Rage is generally referred to as “uncontrolled, violent, intense anger” and usually seen as a defect of character. I would like to offer a radical reframe on how we look at and deal with anger that has turned to rage. Rage itself is not just the “uncontrolled and violent” expression of anger, but rather, rage is the energy itself, not the expression and is defined by just how badly you’ve been violated and hurt and by how you were never able to bring your hurt to conclusion by expressing the appropriate anger to the violating experience. 

Anger and rage are actually the correct responses to being annihilated and abused. As children we are subject to some of the greatest offences and injustices, without any way to stand up for ourselves. Overt abuse as well as subtle, chronic abuses over years perpetuated by those who have ultimate power over us. Our natural response of anger was certainly not welcomed in abusive situations, our self-protective anger turns to rage and buries itself, taking much of our vital energy with it. 

Because we’re stifling our natural expression and forced to live in “mask”, we can identify with our rage because it feels more “real”, even if shameful and hidden. We will often try and convince others that we are “nice” but we don’t believe it ourselves. We might walk around life feeling hollow, or like we’re living a lie, trying to uphold the mask.

However, rage wants to be expressed so it looks for ways to release it on the sly. We listen to angry music, scream at other drivers on the road, are passive aggressive, we wish failure on loved ones, we reject the love people come towards us with. Unexpressed rage will find a way to sabotage our lives behind our backs.

The cost of holding back all that rage is also significant for the body. Chronic pain, muscle tension and stiffness as well as chronic health conditions are all related to unexpressed and festering anger and negativity. 

This isn’t to say that we should be unleashing our rage upon the world. I understand that where we’ve lost control is also where we feel shame.

However, bringing ourselves back in contact with rage within a safe container, addressing the shame, brining compassion for how we’ve been hurt and couldn’t express our anger or stand up for ourselves reconnects us to our wholeness, truth and full energetic expression.

Some of the greatest progress I’ve made in my growth work has been around expressing rage. It has helped me dispel old belief that I’m bad person.

Dov