on anger

I've even been writing less as I resent how AI can comb my words to turn it into computer based slop.

Yes, this is a bit rage-baity. And yes, I am aware that this writing could take that slant, quite easily, to reflect into the injustice of societal programming where in a very select few benefit.

But, this feels like a disservice to who I am. And more importantly, who I WANT to be.

It's a bit rose colored glasses to be able to move into 2026 with an energy that suggests things can change. That generosity of spirit, compassion, empathy, and love have overall greater power and weight than rugged individualism, selfishness, fear and hatred.

Paul Slovic describes "dry statistics" wherein the number of people suffering becomes too high for our mind to understand. It's a form of natural psychic numbing. The result in behavior? We can continue to live our lives, and at some points this is necessary. It lets us off the hook, abdicates responsibility for our circumstances. We can continue on this path despite knowing we are finite --- that this problems will be inherited by someone far down the road. By someone far away.

And isn't this just the ultimate recipe for despair? Yet, it is infinitely easier to roll into the latter. To sit on our phones and wail that humanity is doomed, that we aren't able to undo what has been done, that what's being written right now by means unfair and foul, will be all that remains.

Despair often leads people into my orbit, into a therapeutic alliance. One of the most striking things I see in session is how completely shut down we've become to the connection between our bodies and our minds (at least within the {qualified} population I move within)

In particular, we shut down anger. This happen lots of ways, unique to each person.

But, in trend, sensitive & responsive nervous systems are often overwhelmed by angry [or all] feelings:

Angry feeling > Physical response > Trauma history or alexithymia or chronic illness (etc) impact decoding > Avoidance or alternate expression of feeling > Repeat

Or

Avoidance > Difficulty decoding > Physical response > Feeling confusion > Repeat

I could list further. If I didn't list you, but it resonated, trust you're being seen here.

Why does THIS matter, in my sprawling writing? Why does understanding anger matter, in this moment?

Anger shows us where our disappointments are.

Where injustice persists.

Where we have been individually and collectively harmed.

Is it any wonder it is the first emotion bleached out of us, in this moment? Or even from the time we're born?

When we are able to relate to someone that is suffering, an identified victim, it can often activate where we've been numbed. It makes it easier for our minds, and in turn bodies, to understand act on our anger. Look what has evolved in these early weeks of 2026, when we were able to get angry. Movements, protests, gatherings, mutual aide. And as we see this shift, we also have to bear witness to reality that we are NOT unable to affect change. Rather, when operating from a lens of relational dependence, we are able to shape change. Hope and anger, together, can sustain movements.

When appropriately expressed....

ANGER ACTS AS A CATALYST FOR HOPE.

One more time: ANGER ACTS AS A CATALYST FOR HOPE

It's so tempting even as I write to pull back from this point. To picture the riots, the tension - and to once more avoid this as part of the expression. To see the product of displaced anger as anger itself. I'd suggest, rather, that this is anger at flash point after centuries of neglect.

When anger is appropriately expressed, it is easier to metabolize into action. When we learn to name the boiling rage, to take a beat to grieve the injustice, we can settle back into our bodies. This is where activism can merge into expressions of hope - in the pause. Does it always feel good, knowing that we are finite? Absolutely not.

I do think, however, that we all know even as we pick up the phone to doom scroll, that an honest expression of something painful, may be the better way to live. At least, we know it down deep.