“The supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.”

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

In 2016, many of us, (a little over half the nation) feel we “lost” the Presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. After all, the majority of Americans did not vote for him. Thousands of us who could not imagine a Trump presidency took to the streets protesting and marching and shutting down traffic. We made signs and shook our fists in the air and chanted various mantras of defiance. We took to social media and created secret and public communities where we could vent and tell the stories of our hurt and fear. But why is everyone so angry? What are we trying to accomplish? And perhaps most importantly, what now?

We’re mad and we're afraid. We're afraid of what our new President and Vice President will create. We're afraid that the Americans who filled his rallies and voted him into office will do what they shouted. We are being told we are flawed, a burden, not real patriots, and that makes us mad. We feel minimized, threatened, and disrespected because half of our fellow Americans gave in to their anger and voted this man into office.

Anger as a Moral GPS System

The Universe has two ways of giving us direction - directing our speech, our actions and our energy towards growth. One way is to present things that are charming and call to us, that give us a sense of purpose. We sometimes call this “following our bliss”. We want to move towards those things. Once we get clear on what brings us a sense of purpose, we take action and move towards that with joy and ease.

The other way is for the Universe to dump some really nasty, heavy shit on us, and say, "Wake the hell up! Now what are you going to do?" This second form of direction - getting hit with a really devastating challenge - is the only option available to Universe when we're deep asleep. We want to move away from this pain and DIS-ease. Once we get clear on what is causing us this dis-ease, moving away from it takes conscious action on our part.

Guess which direction the Universe is giving us right now?

Many spiritual traditions speak with great wisdom about anger. In the Hindu tradition, fire is associated with anger and is considered a sacred agent of transformation. Fire is a symbol for letting go of habits and thoughts that no longer serve us in order to allow positive change. Fire is called Agni in this sacred transformational form. There is usually a ring of fire around a statue or painting of the dancing Shiva, the Destroyer. The form that Agni takes internally is anger. Our inner fire. Our inner transformational force. Our inner desire to move out of the old and into the new.

In modern psychology, anger is not a “base emotion”. It’s a secondary reaction. Anger is a valuable road sign that points to deeper issues, deeper fears, deeper hurt. By paying attention to our anger, we can uncover and heal our deeper fears and damage. When we have mature awareness of anger, it can even be a powerful constructive tool that helps us set boundaries. It tells us what is acceptable and what is not in our relationships and in society. Anger gives us our voice and the courage to enforce our boundaries. It bubbles, or gushes, up out of us when we feel unseen, unheard or disrespected.

Any way you look at it, anger is not something to shrug off, ignore or try to avoid. It's not something to move out of or try to fix. It's time for us to sit in our anger. It's time for us to roll around in it. It's time for us to use it as our transforming inner fire. It's time for us to let it uncover the hurt and fear that caused it and it's time for us to set boundaries. It's time for us to use our voices to declare what is morally right and wrong.

This "avoid anger" or "move out of anger" way of thinking is a dangerous and insidious opium that has put many of us into a deep sleep. Being asleep is part of what caused this mess. Our country and our higher angels are sending us a wakeup call.

The Opium of Peace

More than a few of my friends, especially those pursuing a life of personal growth, have told me I need to get over my anger and accept reality. They have told me: “An hour spent in anger is an hour lost in love", and "It's time to align behind our new President and move forward".

I, too, am a pursuer of personal growth. I meditate every day and go to the occasional personal workshop or retreat. I have studied and practiced various aspects of Christianity, Eastern philosophies, and gratitude throughout my life. I want to be very clear about what I’m saying.

I am not going to align behind this President. He does not deserve it. This is NOT our duty as Americans. I’m angry and I will stay angry so long as our President's dishonest and disrespectful behavior continues. If you are angry, I hope you stay angry as well. THIS is our duty as Americans. It is our duty as human beings.

My "enlightened" new-age friends say that getting mad, or allowing "negative energy" in our lives is un-enlightened behavior. We've been handed this line of BS by our gurus and teachers over the years, or maybe we've just misunderstood them. Sitting in anger is uncomfortable, so we think we should get out of it as quickly as we can. Yes, the things on which we focus energy and attention grow and become more powerful. This leads us to conclude that we must always live in a state of peace and positivity and eliminate all negative emotions.

We're also told by many spiritual teachers that being "enlightened" means total surrender to what is. "All as it should be." Experiencing and sitting in unresolved anger and fear feels bad, thus it's healthier to turn away and let it go. It's a good thing to move out of fear and anger into peace, right? We end up creating our own personal little Peace Bubble.

In talking about this election, a friend told me "I'm trying to move back into my state of peace". I brought up the idea that her prior peace bubble was no longer there. There's one big problem with living in our own personal Peace Bubble. It's privilege. The marginalized people this next President has demeaned and mocked don't have a peace bubble to which they can return.

Can Muslim Americans stop being Muslim and go back to their peace once they sign a national registry of cultural Muslim citizens? Can LGBT people stop being gay and go back to their peace when our Vice President, who's legislative record as a governor is one of the most hateful and vindictive against LGBT people in the country, is actively trying to make them second-class citizens? Can women who have horrible insults hurled at them on planes and in the workplace from Trump supporters, energized and validated by his words, stop being women and go back to their peace? Can the 20 million Americans who could only get healthcare through Obamacare just decide to not get sick and go back to their peace when the Affordable Care Act is defunded? Many Americans cannot step out of the realities of their lives. Whole Foods liberals (and I'm one of them) hiding in the privilege of our peace bubbles are part of how we got here.

The Old "Peace" is Gone and We Are Changed Forever

When we look back on this election in a decade or so, we will see it for what it is - one of the biggest changes in American politics and social structure since the industrial revolution and World War II.

Here's one of the funny truths about change. Once you change, you can't go back to the old way of being. We have heard this from our great teachers throughout time. Maya Angelou said "Once you know better, you do better". The truth of this statement is that once our knowledge, our consciousness, our self-awareness takes a stair step up, we are changed. New actions naturally follow from our new awareness. She did not say, "Once you know better, you can think like you used to", or "Once you know better, you might do a few things better, or not", or "Once you know better, you can then go back to your former peace bubble". Listen to it. "Once you KNOW better, you DO better."

Here is another funny truth about change. Change doesn't happen gradually. It happens in "stair steps". This is especially true with big change when lots of people are participating in it. A large collection of people, such as a social belief system, an economic system, or a country, doesn't change gradually. It takes a big force to lead us to change as a collective. It takes stress and conflict that build over time until something snaps; something breaks and forces us to come together and rethink and discuss as a collective consciousness. Now we know better. What should we DO better?

The "peace", or more accurately, the equilibrium we existed in prior to this election, is no more. This election helped the whole country see some realities that some of us were choosing not to see - that a large section of our country is hurting economically and socially; that a large section of our country feels insulted and left out; that there is still tremendous racism and “other” mentality in this country; that our legacy political system is broken and needs some significant updates. This is new knowledge to us as a collective consciousness, although as individuals, we may have seen it coming. Now our thinking and actions must change.

Martin Luther King, Jr said "True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice." If we focus on achieving a peaceful equilibrium, our calm in this storm, we are not achieving a new peace. Falling back into a sleep will not create peace. That old peace is gone forever. Achieving our next, more evolved peace will take action from all of us. It will take lots of discussion. It will take work. We must do the hard work to move along that arc that bends towards justice, and only then will we find a new peace.

What Are You Mad About?

I’m mad. I'm furious that this small, insecure man told me, and roughly half of my fellow Americans, that we are not whole; that we are a burden; that our voices don't matter; that we do not deserve full protection under the law and full rights of citizenship; that he wants us to leave HIS country.

I'm enraged that our political parties ignored the financial struggles of a large portion of our fellow Americans; citizens who were left out of economic recovery; mericans whose only option (it seems) was to blow up the system and vote for this man.

I'm incensed that half of America denies how multi-colored and pluralistic our nation is today. Their vote tells us that it is acceptable to sacrifice Americans who are different from them for their cause.

I have heard: "What are you guys all worked up about? You're just mad because your side lost." We're mad because we're scared, and we never thought a Presidential candidate would throw half the country under the bus.

I'm beyond pissed that we are caught in a trap where the opposing party does not control ANY branch of the government and this self-centered man has unchecked executive power.

I’m angry that this deeply immoral man who said disgusting things about my mother, my sister, half our children and my brilliant and powerful women friends, has never apologized. I am disgusted that he isn’t even ashamed of his actions.

I welcome my anger today. I'm thankful for the wakeup call. I'm not looking for a way out of my negative feelings. I’m allowing my anger to blast out a call to action. I'm going to forge my anger into iron and chainmail. I’m setting an alarm so that if I fall asleep again I will wake up on my own and put on my armor and move passionately into battle.

I’m not going to wear my anger armor every day, but I will have it at the ready when white racists tell my Latino brothers and sisters to "go home". (They are home.) I will wear it when Mike Pence tells my beloved gay brothers and sisters that they can't marry the person they love and build the family they want. I will wear it when our government offers to use my tax dollars to reimburse them for shock therapy to "cure" their gay "sickness". I will wear it when wealthy Congress members with generous health insurance try do away with Medicare and take medical coverage away from 20 million fellow Americans, forcing them to live in sickness and fear. I will wear it when I go to register as a Muslim American even though I am not one.

There are also limits to how we should fight. I will not participate in the “Not my President” chant, because sadly, he is my President. He's the President of all Americans even though he doesn't want to be. I will honor our institutions and that sacred office of Lincoln and Roosevelt and Kennedy. This is not a time for riots, or violence, or words of hate, or guns. God knows we’ve had enough of that. He advocated and validated violence and division in his campaign. These are the things we must always fight.

To responsibly take action motivated by anger, we also must act with an expanded consciousness, empathy and compassion. We must focus energy and attention on what we want to grow. I will use the energy and attention that comes from my anger to propel me into action and stand up for Americans who have been minimized. I will grow and nurture justice, and therefore, real peace.

"Rage is just a cover for sorrow and everyone knows that." ~Elizabeth Aquino

So What Now?

It may seem as if there are precious little actions we can take. But there are things we can do.

We can say "please do not speak like that" when we hear someone make a misogynistic statement to a woman or tell a denigrating joke. We can make signs on cardboard and march in the streets with our fists in the air when Obamacare and the Veterans’ Administration are eliminated. We can give money to or volunteer for the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Planned Parenthood and other organizations that fight in our courts. We can sign online petitions at change.org or credoaction.com. We can post impassioned blurbs on social media, and then engage lovingly and sympathetically with our friends who disagree with us. We can tell our stories to people we know well, and those we don't, so that others might begin to understand why we are afraid. We can call our allies in Washington and urge them to help us. We can call those in Washington who oppose us and ask them to hear us; to see us; to do no harm.

I'm for damn sure doing all that. This is a call to action. If we ignore it this time and go back into our personal peace bubble, or do not take what we now know and DO something with it, we’re really asking for the big wakeup call. What's a bigger wake up call than this? I don't want to know.

I am thankful for my anger. I endeavor to be constructively angry and to continually sound the alarm.

Stay Awake

Stay Together

Raise Hell

Love Fiercely