Most of us don’t grow up learning how to feel anger.
We learn how to avoid it.
How to bottle it up, laugh it off, or explode and apologize.
We’re taught that anger is dangerous, destructive, something to fear or suppress.
Especially if you're a woman or grew up in a family where calmness was prized and conflict was avoided at all costs.
But anger itself?
It's not the enemy.
It’s information.
In Rage Becomes Her, Soraya Chemaly names anger as a “clarifying force.”
It points to what matters.
It rises when we’ve been violated, dismissed, or devalued.
And yet—we’re often more ashamed of the anger than the injustice that provoked it.
Harriet Lerner writes in The Dance of Anger that when we don’t listen to our anger, we stay stuck.
We keep trying to be palatable, to smooth things over, to be liked.
Meanwhile, anger has been quietly telling the truth in the background.
“Anger is a signal,” Lerner says, “and one worth listening to.”
We tend to confuse anger with the behavior it sometimes fuels.
Yelling, withdrawing, slamming doors, icy silence—these aren’t anger.
They’re reactions.
And when we give anger space to be felt, before it's forced to erupt, we can choose something different.
For men, anger often gets distorted through the lens of toxic masculinity.
It’s not that men are more angry—it’s that culturally, anger is often the only acceptable emotional outlet they’re given.
Grief becomes anger.
Fear becomes anger.
Even tenderness, when not allowed, can twist into irritation.
Often, when men feel a sense of vulnerability, it can be confused with powerlessness, and anger becomes a protective shield, leaving others feelings pushed away, instead of the very connection they are craving.
We see endless models of anger-as-power-over—domination, control, intimidation.
But what we rarely see is anger as a path to connection or clarity.
When anger is owned with vulnerability, it can say:
“This matters to me.”
“I need something to change.”
“I feel hurt, and I want to stay in relationship.”
That kind of anger?
It doesn’t destroy.
It protects.
It connects.
It clears the fog and makes room for honesty.
At Roots, we often say: emotions are data.
And anger is some of the most honest data we get.
It tells us what’s not working.
What we value.
Where our boundaries have been crossed.
Learning to welcome anger—to feel it in our body, to get curious about its message—is a grounding practice.
It doesn’t mean you’ll lash out.
It means you’ll get clear.
And clarity is what makes change possible.
Whether you’ve spent your life suppressing anger or been told you're “too much,” your anger might be worth befriending.
Not for the sake of yelling louder.
But for the sake of finally hearing yourself.
