Stop Trying to ‘Let It Go’: What to Do with Decades of Suppressed Rage
You can’t release what you haven’t allowed yourself to feel.
The only way through is through.
You’re angry.
And people love to tell you to “let it go.”
As if anger is something you’re choosing to carry out of stubbornness.
As if you haven’t already tried to release it.
You’ve meditated on it, journaled about it. Prayed on it. Tried to forgive
But the anger is still there.
When people say, “let it go,” what they’re often really saying is: Stop making me uncomfortable with your feelings. Pretend it didn’t matter.
But it did matter.
And trying to let something go before you’ve actually allowed yourself to feel it only creates another layer of suppression.
You can’t release what you haven’t processed.
The only way through is through.
Every time you were dismissed, betrayed, used, or lied to. Every time you smiled when you wanted to scream. Every time you stayed silent when you wanted to speak. Every time you apologized when you had done nothing wrong.
Every time you made yourself smaller so someone else could remain comfortable.
That’s decades of anger with nowhere to go, living in your body.
The Anger We Carry
There are many kinds of anger that women carry. But today I want to talk about the two that show up most often in the work I do.
First, there is:
Anger at other people.
The people who took advantage of your giving nature. The ones who dismissed your needs, benefited from your silence, took your labor for granted, or only called when they needed something.
The list could go on, but you know the ones.
That anger is valid. Appropriate. Protective. It’s your heart saying: that wasn’t okay.
Then there is the anger that’s harder to face.
Anger at yourself
For staying too long. For not speaking up. For teaching people that it was okay to treat you that way.
But it goes deeper than that.
I know this because even after decades of working on myself and with other women, I still feel it from time to time.
There are moments when I’m seething.
Not at what someone did to me, but at myself.
For all the years I poured into things that went nowhere. For every dream I let die. For the life I didn’t live while I was busy being good.
This isn’t ordinary self-criticism. I can take criticism.
What I’m talking about here is something else entirely. It’s pure, undiluted rage.
I feel it in my throat, my chest, the pit of my stomach. Sometimes it feels like I could burst into flames because the anger is that intense.
At myself.
For wasting time. For not choosing differently. For knowing better but not doing better.
It’s the kind of anger that’s almost impossible to explain to someone else. Because how do you tell someone you’re furious at yourself for… your own life?
Self-directed anger is the most vicious kind because you can’t escape it.
You can avoid people who hurt you. But you can’t avoid yourself.
It shows up in that harsh inner voice that never lets up. In the way you punish yourself through overwork or by denying yourself anything good.
It shows up in your inability to forgive yourself for being human, for making mistakes, or for not being who you thought you’d be by now.
Its rage turned inward. And if you let it, it will eat you alive.
Why “Letting It Go” Doesn’t Work
Anger is energy in the body.
When it’s suppressed, that energy has nowhere to go. It stays stored. It gets pushed down and turned inward.
Anger itself isn’t the problem. Suppression is the problem.
You can understand intellectually why you’re angry and still carry the anger in your body for decades.
You can’t think your way out of something that lives in your nervous system.
The anger has to be felt.
It has to move.
So if “letting it go” doesn’t work, what do you actually do with decades of anger that never had a voice?
What to Do With It
This isn’t about dumping your anger on the people who hurt you.
You don’t have to confront anyone. You don’t have to send the email or make the phone call.
This is about giving your anger permission to exist and giving your body a way to release it.
Acknowledge It
First, name it.
Say it out loud.
“I’m angry.”
Not “I’m frustrated.”
Not “I’m disappointed.”
Not “I’m a little upset.”
Use the real word.
Angry. Furious. Enraged.
Let yourself be as unfair and unreasonable as you need to be in private. This isn’t about having a balanced perspective. This is about finally telling the truth.
Feel It in Your Body
Where do you feel the anger in your body right now?
Put your hand there.
Don’t try to fix it. Don’t try to release it yet. Just notice it.
Is it hot? Tight? Heavy? Buzzing?
Stay with it for a few breaths.
This is you finally taking your own experience seriously.
Give It Movement
Anger is energy that needs to move.
Give it a physical outlet.
Punch a pillow.
Scream in your car.
Rip paper.
Stomp around the room.
Write with rage. Press the pen so hard it tears the paper. Use the words you’d never say out loud.
Let it be vicious.
Then destroy what you wrote.
These practices aren’t sophisticated.
They’re primal.
That’s the point.
Your anger is primal.
Speak to It
Your anger also carries information.
Ask it:
What are you protecting me from?
What do you need me to know?
What boundary needs to be set?
Then listen.
Write down whatever comes.
Your anger is wiser than you’ve been taught to believe.
What Happens After
You don’t process decades of anger in one session.
It comes in waves.
Some days you’ll feel it intensely. Other days it will be quiet.
Both are normal.
What changes over time is this:
Anger stops running your life from the background.
It stops manifesting as chronic pain, exhaustion, or resentment you can’t explain.
As old anger releases, you gain access to something healthier: clean anger in the present moment.
The kind that says, “That’s not okay,” and sets a boundary immediately instead of swallowing it and processing it for years.
You become less afraid of your own intensity.
Less apologetic for having feelings.
Less willing to be nice at the cost of being honest.
And that’s when self-love stops being an abstract concept.
Because self-love includes letting yourself be angry.
It includes defending yourself.
It includes saying, “That wasn’t okay,” and meaning it.
You cannot love yourself while pretending you don’t have the right to be angry about what you endured.
Your body has been waiting for permission to feel this. Give it permission.
What I Actually Do With My Anger
Sometimes when I feel old anger toward a particular person rising up, I wait until I’m completely alone and have a full-blown grown ass woman tantrum.
I cuss them out.
I mean, I say everything that pops into my head. I call them names. I talk about their mommas and their daddies.
I am unfair.
I am harsh.
I let myself be exactly as unreasonable as I feel in that moment.
And sometimes I write letters.
Pages of rage where I’m calling them everything but a child of God and telling them exactly what I think of them and what they did.
And here’s the strange thing.
By the end of the tantrum or the letter, I’m usually laughing.
Not because it’s funny.
But because the charge is gone. The energy has moved through me and out.
And suddenly the image of me standing in my kitchen, cussing at the top of my lungs or writing pages of rage just makes me laugh.
This isn’t immature. It’s healthy.
Anger needs a voice.
It needs to be expressed fully without censoring, without being fair or balanced or mature.
It needs to be exactly as big and unreasonable as it feels.
I do it safely.
Alone. In private. Where no one gets hurt.
This allows my nervous system to release suppressed rage without destroying my relationships or my life.
After the tantrum or the letter, the resentment that was eating me alive is gone.
And then I can actually let it go. Because it has already been released.
You are allowed to be this angry.
You are allowed to express it this messily, as long as it’s safe.
Safe means alone. Or with someone trained to hold space for rage.
Not directed at the person. Not in a way that harms you or anyone else.
But private, cathartic, completely unreasonable rage?
That’s not only allowed.
Sometimes it’s necessary.
Your nervous system has been holding it for decades.
Give it permission to scream.
Be Blessed,
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