When Anger Speaks: Unraveling the Heat Beneath the Hurt
Learning to listen to anger, holding ourselves with grace, and reclaiming relationship with the parts of us we were told to silence
Anger Isn’t the Enemy
Anger gets a bad rap. It’s explosive, loud, and often misunderstood. But the truth is, anger is a protector. It steps in when other emotions feel too risky to express. When fear, sadness, or vulnerability are unwelcome or unsafe, anger throws on its armor and marches out first.
Growing up, anger was the only emotion I consistently saw expressed, and the only one that felt allowed. If I cried, I was told to get over it. If I shared a feeling that sounded too tender or too needy, it was met with rolled eyes or shaming words.
Let me give you a visual.
A couple years ago I flew home for a funeral, I arrived as a crying mess, Brian is truly my closest family member. Yet, the first words said to me when I walked through the door were: “Stop crying, you’re a big girl.” The majority of my family was angry-not just about Brian’s death, but about his addiction, his behavior in the years leading up to his death, and maybe even the ways he reminded us all of our own unspoken pain. No one speaks his name now. At the funeral, only one person shared a story about him. Just one memory spoken aloud. We are not a family that reminisces. We do not share stories, or soft moments. Vulnerability is treated as an embarrassment. Grief is swallowed. Sadness is shut down. And in that silence, anger became the only emotion that felt familiar-even when it hurt.
The Doshas and the Fire Within
Ayurveda gives us a beautiful map to understand the emotional body, and anger is no exception. Each dosha:Vata, Pitta, and Kapha carries its own relationship to anger:
Vata Anger
Like wind meeting fire, Vata anger can be unpredictable, fast, and volatile. It flares up suddenly, often fueled by fear or overwhelm. When Vata is imbalanced, anger can show up as anxiety masked in blame or as tears that turn sharp without warning.
Pitta Anger
Pitta is the dosha most associated with fire, so when it is out of balance, anger burns hot, intense, and directed. Pitta anger is the cutting kind-the one that lashes out with precision, sometimes too quickly and too strongly. But Pitta anger is also rooted in injustice, a deep desire for truth, clarity, and action.
I am sure it won’t be a surprise to learn that my dosha is Pitta (PVK to be exact).
Kapha Anger
Kapha anger simmers. It is heavy and often suppressed until it erupts. Think slow boil, then explosion. When unspoken needs go unmet for too long, Kapha’s usual steadiness gives way to resentment, shutdown, or emotional withdrawal.
Understanding how anger shows up through the doshas helps us get curious instead of judgmental. It teaches us to ask: What am I protecting? What haven’t I allowed myself to feel?
Anger and the Liver: Where Fire Meets Emotion
In Ayurveda, anger lives in the liver; the seat of heat, transformation, and intensity. The liver governs the blood and bile, and when overheated or stagnant, it often mirrors emotional turbulence: irritability, frustration, rage that simmers just beneath the surface.
This is why liver detox protocols (especially during seasonal transitions) can stir emotional waters. When we support the liver in releasing what it has held physically, we may also release what it has been holding emotionally. Anger can rise quickly and it may not seem logical.
The good news? A healthy liver does more than detox the body. It cools the blood and stabilizes our emotions. Herbs like Bhumyamalaki, along with foods like bitter greens and beginning our day with warm salty lemon water, can gently support liver function.
But this is only one piece of a larger puzzle.
No amount of herbal tea will do the deep work of re-patterning emotional responses or healing childhood imprints. Liver care is a doorway, a starting point. We still have to walk through it with curiosity, compassion, and a willingness to face what has been stored beneath the surface.
Who Gets to Define Us?
Lately, I have been reflecting on how much power we give others to define who we are, especially when that definition comes from a moment of conflict or through the eyes of someone who does not see the full picture.
A troll online
A passive-aggressive comment
A parent who hears only one side of the story
A close friend who suddenly no longer speaks to you
How many of us are carrying wounds from people who never really knew us? And what about when the person did know us? A close friend. A family member. How many mess-ups do we allow before we say: “I can’t do this anymore”?
One?
Two?
Three?
Is there a magic number before a relationship becomes unsalvageable?
I don’t have the answer.
I do know this: we’re living in a culture where ghosting and canceling often feel easier than sitting in the discomfort of repair. And I say that as someone who’s skilled in disconnecting-it’s been a survival tool, one I’ve leaned on more than I care to admit. But I’m working on staying. On choosing presence. On learning how to hold tension without walking away. I have a quote tattooed on my right arm from Virginia Woolf: “I am rooted, but I flow.” What does it mean? It means I’m here to build roots, but also to move fluidly through life. And that means there will be errors, fuck ups, and regrets. I am human.
Women and the Weight of Expression
As women, we are often praised for being nurturing and calm but labeled dramatic or hysterical when we express anger. We are taught to be nice, to stay quiet, to not rock the boat. And so, we bottle it up. Or worse-we internalize it (hello, autoimmune disorders), even though we are living in a world that demands our fire.
We are watching wars rage overseas. Immigrants brutalized and dehumanized. Stripped of the right to choose what happens in our bodies. A woman in Georgia was forced to stay on life support-not for herself, but because she was pregnant. A premature infant was surgically removed via C-section only a few days prior to me writing this blog.
So now what? Do they simply “unplug” her?
Think about the trauma her family has endured. The trauma her providers carry. And the trauma the child will live with from growing inside a womb where no life was present. This is not compassion. This is control. And we should be angry.
Anger, when rooted in truth, is sacred. It is what rises when our dignity has been denied. It is fuel. It is clarity. It is a refusal to go numb.
When I express anger (especially when I know it was too much) I agonize over it for days. I replay the conversation, the look on someone’s face, the tone of my voice. The shame rushes in fast. I know it is not acceptable to let lose my fire, yet sometimes I do. That is the truth. That is my edge. I am in a season of unlearning. Trying to shift these conditioned responses while also learning new tools to ground myself. It is a clunky, ongoing practice, and one that requires tenderness, not just discipline. Because being in relationship with humans, is hard. We are messy. We are raw. We are doing our best. And we need so much grace.
Final Thoughts: Unwinding the Pattern, Creating the Path
This is not a how-to guide. It is not a tidy bow. It is a rumble with reality-a reflection on what it means to feel deeply, to be human, and to try again after messy moments.
Anger has taught me to survive. But now I want anger to teach me how to feel more honestly. To not push sadness away. To not armor up before my body even registers the wound.
I’m a healer, a nurse, and a yoga teacher, but before any of that, I am a woman. And I won’t pretend to have it all figured out. If you’ve ever been to one of my yoga classes, you already know: I bring the real. I share what I’m working through, because I believe that if I’m navigating it, someone else is too. This is how I show up-in the practice, in the mess, in the learning.
In Yoga, we speak of samskaras; the grooves or impressions left behind by repeated thought patterns, emotional reactions, and lived experiences. They shape how we see the world, how we respond, and who we believe we are. Some samskaras are beautiful and life-giving. Others are painful, born from trauma, silence, or survival.
Yoga helps me come back to myself (again and again). It’s how I try to rewire my nervous system.
Every time I step on the mat, I am not fixing myself. I am trying to remember who I was before the world told me what emotions were acceptable. I am creating new grooves, ones that make space for grief and rage, for stillness and expression. Because life is already hard. It is relentless. And now, more than ever, perfection isn’t just expected, it’s demanded. Be flawless. Be exceptional. Be impressive. We are praised for performance, not presence. Rewarded for hustle, not healing.
With Yoga, I am learning not to “fix myself,” but to believe in myself. To see myself as strong. As capable. As someone worth loving. I am learning to witness, not judge. To grow, to shed, to soften. Do I wish this had been offered to me as a child? Oh, fuck yes. But it wasn’t. So here I am, it might take me a little longer. It might take a little more work. But I’m here for it. And I don’t intend to stop.
My goal is to keep returning to the simple things, with the hope that one day (sooner rather than later) they become my norm. What are the simple things?
Breath. Movement. A pause before speaking. A moment of stillness before reacting. A reorientation. It is a path of unlearning, of remembering, of not just seeing the failures, but a willingness to keep choosing to begin again.
