Firebending Female Rage: some thoughts on how we heal and create something constructive from it

Inevitably, predictably even, after I write a blog like the last one, I find myself circling back into this loop of self doubt and preemptive fear of the backlash back. Mainly from feminism. I just spent almost 15 years doing work, running work, holding space to help Women find and heal their voices and heal trauma. But so often, the second that I write something being empathetic to male wounding, some female empowerment coach somewhere, will get all up in my Dm’s, seeing NONE of that, but explaining feminism to me and shaming me for being a people pleasing, fawning, Mothering, toxic masculinity enabler. So to be honest with you, each time I write on the subject of rage now, there’s a part of me that then doubles back down on checking if there IS still some aspect of people pleasing, fawning behaviour, or Mother smothering to “manage” the raging little boy in him that I’m running. But also double checking how water tight my methodology is on “did I sufficiently explain standing in your power in a heart centre way, and how you embody both, while strongly holding to a boundary and asking him to rise to both yours and HIS requirements of how you wanted to be treated, and the best version of him that he wants to be.  BEFORE, I got to this next bit about how we be with all this female rage in the world.


With Taylor Swift putting female rage into the collective consciousness in a BIG way recently with the release of The Tortured Poets Department, hot on the heels of me having just watched Beth and Summer beating the sh#$ out of each other in Yellow Stone, I felt like there needs to be a part 2 of the last blog, but on the flip side. As again, both Actor Artist Singer me considers the playing and writing and portrayal of female rage in a couple of pieces. AND Practitioner Healer me also kind of sat with the question of how do we do something productive WITH rage full stop, let alone with the experience OF female rage? Other than just burning down the world with it? Because once you open it up for a billion people at time, how DO you turn that into a teachable moment as well, from which people can grow and change? 


Rage is a funny emotion, in that it can be really easy to sit in it, and  burn in it once you get it flowing. But just like a fire, if you don’t learn to harness it, and don’t learn to understand what fuels it and how to “fire bend” it into doing something healing, creative or transformative with it (as do Blacksmiths, or Glass blowers, or Alchemists, believe you me from my worst wounded moments, it has a way of both burning you alive from the inside out. As well as burning down everyone and everything around you. Just putting out every fire the second one starts because we’re afraid that every single one will turn into a bushfire, isn’t the answer though. Learning how to harness it, to heal, create and transform with it though, I think is sorely needed.


Learning to just be with and IN all of our human emotions, and or to be able to be present with others, without having to MAKE them BE anything…just to witness and be present, is an inevitably needed part of both:


A) re-occupying ourselves after the experience of trauma, by building patience, tolerance and resilience in being able to stay with the experiences that we would otherwise run from. As well as: 


B) is also important to our ability (personally, romantically, professionally, therapeutically and creatively in my case) to be able to BE in the room and stay present with others when they are going through the worst of their emotional moments, without having to run away to avoid the parts of us that want to run from being with them. Or that are triggered in some way BY them. (Often in the direction of fear and mistrust in their ability to be able to control and self manage their strong feelings…and if they can’t, are we actually safe around them, or are we going to be badly burnt again, like we were with X person in the past?


This commonly then results in many telling the angry one that they’re being abusive and to shut it down NOW, to get control of themselves and stop being abusive.  I'm not dismissing the need (as we talk about last week, to act when there is genuine UNsafety,) BUT that desire to immediately shut ALL fire/them down, can also at times actually be telling us A LOT about what WE need to actually look at in ourselves too, around what it means for US, when someone else is angry? What does that make US feel? And what percentage of that is actually about THEM needing to modify THEIR behaviour, to help us feel safer when we feel unsafe because of them? And what percentage is US needing to work on our ability, to be present with the mere presence of anger in any given healthy other? An other who IS capable of self regulation and management, but is presently activated in either a state of healing something past, or a trigger in the present?  


Because in a healthy mature adult relationship, both parties ideally would be equally capable of controlling and managing their process around strong emotions like anger. So that, when it comes to witnessing the other being deliberately present with their anger (whether through the safe, well held therapeutic process of exploring a past hurt, the present experience of, for example, witnessing them on a phone call in a moment where they’ve just been treated in a way that made them feel strong emotions like anger in the present, OR whether it was to be, in my case lately, playing a character who’s having a heated argument, fuelled by deep trauma, with another) we have the capacity to STAY in with, instead of run away from the experience, while any given party present heals, transforms or creates something from it? 


Learning how to be with our rage, and feminine rage, is JUST as much an important thing as what I was talking about last week for our collective healing. It’s an important thing for women to get back in ourselves and learn to listen to what our rage is trying to tell us in the first place about what we really need. As well as to listen to what it’s trying to tell us about coping and things like our boundaries and limits. But it’s also worth remembering too, that sometimes anger and rage too, can also be the surface emotion, floating on the top of an ocean, masking an iceberg of deeper feelings about some big past hurts and maybe traumas. 


In the ladder of fight flight response, remember, anger and “fight” is at the top. And when it comes to wounds and coping mechanisms, anger is often the coping mechanism we use, that keeps us in the top layer of fight and fight back, for survival. It stops us from dropping into the depths of feelings like grief, disappointment, feeling deeply hurt and let down, which serve no immediate purpose when you’re fighting the tiger. But are what is waiting for us later, once we have the time and safety to sit up (or under) a safe tree, or with the tribe, and process what just happened. 


For example, a decade ago, I was in trauma healing workshops, punching pillows while I felt that rage. But why I acknowledge and attempt to transform, but don’t tend to stay feeling or writing about rage now, is because I know the real work for me is now deeper. In my own healing, sure there is people that things didn’t work out with that I feel angry AT them for times I didn’t feel I was treated how I wanted to be. There is anger I have about times when certain Men didn’t do things that made me feel safe. Or used me as a punching bag for their reactivity about something or someone else. Or weren’t there to have my back. Or was angry at times they literally nearly broke it. Or angry because they behaved in ways that were really deceptive or self serving, that some part of me, as result, feels robbed of having had the information I needed to make better decisions for myself earlier, that I felt robbed of years of my life too in places (thanks Taylor!) Before I inevitably come back to a place of self responsibility of going “AND you’re a grown adult, you did the best with what you knew, but you made the calls, you put yourself there. So YOU are responsible for what you created AND for what is within your power to change in future.” (That’s your transmuting your power back, NOT only into looping into blaming yourself as though it’s all your fault. BUT also, on the other side of self judgment, being brave enough to step up on what IS within our power NOW to do different and change NOW.)


But underneath those HARD, violent, angry leaping flames to witness or be near, is really also much deeper feelings of deep hurt and disappointment and grief. Deep sadness at feeling let down. Deep grief about being left to fend off predators on my own. Deep grief and disappointment, that this person or that one didn’t see anything in me that they thought I was worth any better. Or worth doing the work on themselves that was needed in order for us to be able to move forward in a better way. Deep grief and disappointment that they kept me at arms length, and chose not to see or feel me, or worse to judge and degrade me, so that some part of them could justify taking things they took. Deep grief and fear, of Men who, instead of dealing with their deeper issues of jealousy or loss of control or loss, chose to try and destroy me and take every FROM me that they ever gave, or that I ever had. And at other times, deep grief and disappointment, at times that some of them prioritised status and reputation over safety or the relationship, or showing up for any of the above, and that they seemingly loved that and valued that, much higher than they ever valued me. And then the host of self blaming and shaming responses about where my self esteem was ever at, that that was all I could receipt or accept, in place of what love is meant to look like for me. 


I’m sorry, because I know that is A LOT. But do you see where I’m going with this? The deeper healing work for me personally, was to listen to what those wounded parts had to say without judgement, and then to transform all that, to glean the lessons and turn it into behavioural change. But in terms of connecting in a better quality way in future, do you also see how much easier it becomes for you reading this, or any given other, to be present with, to get closer to the parts of us that REALLY need us AND their presence the most to heal? Then when you're communicating in fire signals or scribed verbal bullets?


I’ve never met a good hearted Man and talked to him about these kind of things a) without him often also being impacted empathetically, vicariously and distressed by witnessing that depth of pain In me. BUT he can also get closer to put his forehead to mine, or put his arms around me when I’m there. But it’s much harder for him to ever do it, while I’m swinging punches or slashing cuts in him with my verbal sword of self defence. At which point, he’s then got to both then armour himself and protect himself, doge and hold your swinging at a distance, until you get to the place of trust and seeing HIM, where he can actually help and hear you? And work with you on what you need?  


So what’s my point? We’ve got to own that rage and do something productive with that rage. But also remember that there’s also deeper work to be done and wisdom to be gained in the iceberg under that rage. I’m not trying to shame anyone out of going there. Going there in deliberate , intentional ways, is needed and a part of the healing. But it’s only a part of the work we have to do on the way back to connecting in more meaningful ways and ways that better serve both parties in future.  (While some of us also need to upskill in listening and being present with other people's "stuff" too.)




Rage, when it comes to female rage not just at a collective level towards aspects of patriarchy, and at the deeply personal level, as it relates to any given Women, processing her past experiences with any given Man, is an arrow on a sign pointing downwards, asking us to dig deeper. So much of the work is also in confronting THOSE deeper hurts underneath the rage too. And then working out what we need. What we need for ourselves to heal ourselves. And what we need from others going forward. And how DO we communicate that effectively, in a way that others can be clear about how to respond, and what action is required of them? Personally? And professionally? Therapeutically too, on both sides; client and Practitioner, how do we guide the process of the deeper work to a healthy place? And creatively, (granted sometimes the very point might be to make the audience  think it through for themselves too, but) how might we cleverly write in the lessons, or pair our work with support resources of some kind at times too, in order to best support the people who view and journey WITH our art or music about rage, to keep working it through to a healthy place of resolution for themselves too?  Maybe sometimes that does come in the work itself, but afterwards, in our work and subject matter we address as an Influencer too? We don’t have to, but we do have that power and opportunity at times I think, to help Women get to a place where we don’t just burn down the globe with fires of experiencing our rage and revenge. But to help Women everywhere work it through to a place where it counted for something? And we used it to change something?


Vengeance (dare I say it even justice) too can be like an highly additive illicit drug, that often promises much in it’s seductive sales pitch, but we realise in the comedown, actually delivered little in terms of healing or filling the void left within the wound.  Use our fire right and it cauterises the wound so that it stops bleeding and getting infected and the innate healing intelligence present within starts the healing. Before we then continue to use that fire to create and transform. And maybe teach.


Go there with the fire Queens, but then please go deeper. Because there’s so much gold in there when you do.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts. 


Until next time...
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Nat xoxo