Just heading to bed when I catch a reply to a comment I made telling me ‘not to be angry’ so let’s clear this up.
Anger is an awesome emotion to feel and express when something angers you. It is WAY more detrimental to you if you try to bottle it in or squash it down.
There are no “bad” emotions.
“Good” and “Bad” are labels that we stick on things to conform with what society tells us is appropriate.
Women (especially) are told that it’s ’bad’ to show anger because if we’re not allowed to show anger then the people or situations that cause us to feel angry get to carry on unchallenged.
Black women in particular are dissuaded from showing this emotion because in general we’ve got more to challenge than most other subsections of society, being furthest away from the white male ideal that has been running the world for centuries.
Women are told that we’re too emotional yet when a white male expresses anger they are rarely described as being emotional at all.
An angry Black man though … well that’s another story.
I digress, kind of…All emotions should flow through you.They should be recognised, felt, expressed, and released.
If you suppress feeling anger you will also subconsciously suppress feeling the opposite emotion of peacefulness or tranquility.
If you suppress feeling sadness you will also subconsciously suppress feeling happiness.And then you’re left with a life of beige ‘alrightness’ that fails to light you up because you refuse to allow yourself to enter into the extremes on either end of the emotion scale.
And beige alrightness really isn’t what you came here to experience.
So if something makes you feel angry don’t be afraid of expressing it. I absolutely advise that you learn to express it in a way that doesn’t hurt or harm another being.
Learning to be fully expressed sets you free from the constraints of the box that was placed upon you by others – whether that’s family or society.
The funniest thing about this reply was that I wasn’t even particularly angry!
