finding my anger in an ancient myth

Apr 12, 2024

“Anger is often grief that has been silent for too long.” – Nayyirah Waheed

The audio recording of this Morton Train is available to paid subscribers here.

Many of us associate anger with violence - be it verbal or physical - because angry people frequently harm another person or are destructive in some way. Personally, I’ve been frozen with fear whenever someone’s intense anger was directed at me, even when they didn’t lift a finger. It was their rage-drenched words and vengeful glare that wounded me like a weapon.

Because of this association between anger and violence, it took me a long time to realize that it’s not anger that frightens me. It’s the violent execution of anger that frightens me. It’s the harm done by a bully in the name of anger that upsets me. It’s dysregulated rage that makes me very, very uncomfortable.

Anger, on its own, is a natural life force to be examined and respected. Anger, like every other emotion, has information in it. Anger aches to be expressed and acknowledged.

It was in a classroom in New York City back in 2009 where I first understood this on a visceral level.

I’d signed up for the Inanna Workshop having no clue what I was getting into. There were about twenty of us women who would spend a long weekend together exploring an ancient myth. Given that theatre artists Olympia Dukakis and Joan MacIntosh were at the helm, and given that most of the participants were actors, I assumed that there would be a performative element to the exercises, that we’d somehow work on inhabiting the characters from the myth.

But no. I quickly learned that this workshop had nothing to do with theatre or performance. This was a workshop for self-exploration, and the myth would be our guide.

To relay the myth as simply as possible: Inanna is in her glory as the Queen of Heaven and Earth. One day, she hears her sister’s call from the Underworld and decides to venture there, despite being warned not to go. Inanna leaves her powers and comforts behind and journeys into the Underworld “naked and bowed low.” Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld, is full of wrath, writhing in pain, having been banished from Heaven and Earth. She wants to punish the glorified Inanna and keep her imprisoned in the Underworld. That is, until magical creatures sent from Above sneak into the Underworld with the mission to witness the emotional and erratic Ereshkigal. Once Ereshkigal is witnessed, she releases her prisoner and Inanna is allowed to return to the Upper World. Both Inanna and Ereshkigal are transformed because of their encounter.

So during the workshop, each participant investigates: What in me is like Inanna? What behaviors do I use to prevail in this world? Who am I without those behaviors? What in me is like Ereshkigal? What parts of me are in exile, deemed to be unwelcome in this world? (Essentially, it’s shadow work done in a uniquely creative way.)

Being witnessed is a key element to both the myth and the workshop. It’s an active, non-judgmental witnessing. When Ereshkigal writhes in pain and exclaims, “Oh! Oh! My insides!”, the magical creatures writhe and repeat back to her, “Oh! Oh! Your insides!” Because they mirror her precisely with emotion, expression, and language, Ereshkigal truly feels seen and respected. Experiencing herself fully in a new way, she is released from the prison of her emotional isolation, from the shame of being hidden away.

During that workshop weekend back in 2009, it was long-suppressed anger that I found in my metaphoric underworld. During a specific exercise, this anger - for the first time in my life - was granted full permission to come to the surface. I’m talking scary anger. I’m talking a level of anger that could match the Incredible Hulk. I’m talking full on rage. I was unrecognizable to myself and yet I was speaking (bellowing) a truth in me. With no shame, no restraint, no apology. This truth, never articulated until that moment, was witnessed back to me by these new friends. Those women reverently mirrored me back to me, matching my bellows and shaking body and pained expressions, with no fear or judgment, and I was liberated because of it.

I’ve been in several Inanna Workshop weekends over the years, becoming one of the facilitators myself in 2013. A myriad of emotions is explored - and witnessed - in those rooms but it’s anger that most fascinates me. Stripped of its potential to harm others, being in its most raw expression, given permission to surface from its societal suppression, anger becomes a magnificent power to behold. One workshop participant even named hers “my beautiful anger.”

Recently, a friend and I plunked down some money to let loose in a rage room. The staff put us in protective gear and gave us a stack of plates and an old laptop computer to completely destroy with bats or smash against a wall. We were given free rein to destroy those items and scream our heads off. When our session was over, I stuck my gloved hand into the rubble, selecting a random souvenir of the experience. The random souvenir turned out to be the control key from that old (now demolished) laptop. Rather apt, I’d say, since the rage room provided me with an opportunity to temporarily lose control.

The extreme venting I did at the rage room was satisfying in its way, even kinda fun. But it wasn’t the profound healing experience that the Inanna Workshop has been. My anger was not honored or witnessed back to me in the rage room. There wasn’t space for sobs or epiphanies to be messily mixed in with it. And yet, it was a terrific opportunity to physically and vocally release anger in a way that harmed no one, including myself.

This topic of anger is a loaded one. I recognize that I am coming from a place of such incredible privilege, being someone who doesn’t feel burdened or driven by my anger, being someone who has no primary person in my life regularly directing anger at me. I recognize what an unusual gift it is to have had opportunities to safely - even lovingly - express my anger.

But here’s the thing, anger is still mysterious and intimidating to me: My own anger and the anger of others. I’m curious to learn how do we, in a constructive way, as Tara Brach says, “let ourselves feel the messenger of anger.” How do we bear witness to our own underworld and then integrate the information that is found there?

The topic of this Morton Train is a doozy and I cannot neatly bring it to a close. Instead, I’ll share three links here that may be of interest to you, dear reader.

Dr. Gabor Maté on How to Process Anger and Rage

When Healthy Anger Grows Toxic

Tara Brach on Anger and Transformation where she, near the end of the talk, leads the viewer through a mindfulness exercise.

I wish you well as you explore your own anger, whenever and however you do that.