One of the challenges I’ve faced throughout my awakening journey is an absence of rage.
I know that sounds weird – that it’s been a challenge – so hear me out…
In the late-90s, my parents gifted me a guitar. I spent my free time teaching myself how to strum chords and fingerpick (neither of which I’ve ever mastered). And, I freaking loved my battered up copies of EarthFirst! and Rise Up Singing songbooks.
I also became a prolific-yet-closeted songwriter. Mind you, I struggled to carry a tune and my guitar playing was rudimentary, but I let neither stop me.
I filled a journal with my songs. Songs about living from the heart, songs about despair over humanity’s destruction of all that’s sacred, songs about a love-fueled revolution, songs of peace. So much poetry, so much beauty, so much connection to Spirit. I remember sharing my songs with my hippie friends around campfires in the woods, and they’d sing right along with me!
But then, in the summer of 2001, I stopped singing.
You see, my on-again, off-again partner regularly criticized my singing and would leave the room whenever I’d pick up my guitar. It didn’t matter how softly I’d play or how quietly I’d sing; he just couldn’t tolerate any of it. The rejection I felt was incredibly painful.
So after tolerating the ridicule, rejection, and lack of support for the umpteenth time, my spirit finally caved.
I felt too ashamed to play for anyone – even myself – anymore. And so I gave it all up; I put my cherished guitar in storage and “lost” my journal of songs.
And yet, there were a few brief moments during the past 22 years when something stirred within and I’d blow the dust off my beloved guitar…but only for a moment. You see, I could no l longer sing a single song without my throat completely choking up. I had literally lost the ability to sing.
And so, back into storage my guitar would go.
Despite everything, a part of me still knew that I was meant to sing. The passion was intense, and the most potent of my songs from many years past remained seared in my memory.
And so, I’d bravely try again. And again I’d choke up and have to return my guitar to storage.
Yesterday, the call to sing returned – this time stronger than ever.
Despite knowing what what was sure to happen, I began singing anyway.
And like clockwork, it happened.
But instead of using it as a cue to put away my guitar, I decided to stay present. I decided to hold space for myself.
And what happened next truly shocked me.
I felt an intense geyser of RAGE bubbling up deep within my being…
And I kept playing. I kept singing even as my voice choked up and the words came out in sporadic crackles…
“Fuck you! Fuck you, [name]! Fuck you!” I screamed, albeit softly.
And the profanities came again, but this time they were louder.
And they kept coming louder and louder until I swear they were audible from outside my home.
And then, furiously, at nearly the top of my lungs…
“HOW FUCKING DARE YOU?!?!”
All the while I wept…and sang louder…and louder still…snot mixing with tears and running down my face and onto my shirt…and I kept singing.
Until I’d sung enough.
Until the rage subsided into a profound peacefulness…and I felt nothing but love for this person.
The whole experience lasted maybe 15 minutes. Thankfully, my partner and his kiddos were out of the house when it happened, and the neighbors were gracious enough to not call the cops😂.
I want to take a moment to go back to the first line in this post:
One of the most challenging things I’ve experienced throughout my journey of awakening is an absence of rage.
In case it’s not obvious, calling it “the absence of rage” isn’t accurate. The rage was there through all of the loving and lighting and being the change I’d spent the past 22 years doing. I’d just been bypassing it.
And I had no freaking idea.
I now find myself curious is there are other things I’ve been bypassing. May they reveal themselves if there are, and may I be willing to hold space for them if they do.
That is all.
