today’s card : anger
This is one of the strangest cards in the deck. It would appear to have a difficult emotion opposite another difficult emotion. Indeed that is the case, but despair is the darker shade of black.
“The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep.” – Henry Maudsley
Let’s start with the lighter shade of black, anger. It appears when you’re ready to move onward from despair. This is good news, as staying trapped in despair eventually leads to depression and any number of other mental and physical ailments.
Much like when blood warms frostbitten extremities, ascending out of despair brings about a burning that can feel intolerable. The ascent to wellness necessarily traverses the pain that had been submerged all this time. All of the hurt, sadness, and shame that you stuffed down, all of the trauma trapped in your body, all of the words not spoken boil up, threatening to overwhelm us and those around us.
Why does anger get stuck in our bodies?
Sometimes days pass when every breath seethes out of us like a silent hellfire searching for some innocent bystander to snatch off the sidewalk and pour all of our rage into. You may notice that your reaction greatly exceeds the reality of the situation. You might lose your shit at a customer service rep or want to smash your coffee cup. Your anger sometimes roves around, looking for the tallest tree for the lightning to strike. The charge has been building for a long time, it only needs to connect to something to send a million volts flying.
Our anger is trying to tell us something – something we really don’t want to hear. It tells us we can’t continue on as we have been. Once you learn how to listen to the message buried deep inside the anger, there’s much to be learning about how to go forward.
Anger has a surface layer that distracts from hearing the message at its kernel. You may think you know what your anger says, like “I hate my job!” or “Why is everybody ignoring me!?” There’s a deeper layer that will require excavating.
There’s some self-limiting belief that anger invites you to face and transcend. It hands you a machete so you can slice your way out of attachments and expectations. Even if you see yourself as wanting to avoid conflict, anger makes room for difficult conversations to come out into the light.
Anger asks for space. You need time to sift through and hear the deep wisdom within that’s asking to be freed. Give yourself that space, even if it’s just to excuse yourself to the bathroom or go take a walk.
A whole book needs to be written about anger, but this is enough for now. We have time to figure this out. We have time to do things differently, even if we don’t yet know how.
poem
“Come, come, whoever you are,
wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving,
it doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times.
Come, come again, come.”
― Rumi