“Sacred Rage”

In my travels, the TMJ reemerged the day after I was involved in very intense emotional fight between two of my friends. I’d experienced this pain on and off over the last few months, but this was the worst it’s ever been. Friends trained in acupuncture and osteopathy had helped resolve the issue in the past but I didn’t have access to them in my travels. Being an empath, I realized I likely absorbed the emotions from that moment as I separated two people I cared about from yelling and almost hurting each other. The energy was fierce, and now my body was experiencing pain based off of unprocessed emotions.

I reached out to as many individuals that could help as possible, seeking tools to heal myself. A dear friend who is a practicing Osteopath in Canada, sent me a podcast about fascia (https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/feel-better-live-more-with-dr-rangan-chatterjee/id1333552422?i=1000747845450) Fascia is the interconnected web within the body that unites every organ, tissue, and cell. It’s only been studied recently in modern medicine, but ancient practices have been aware of it for thousands of years, especially in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Being trained in Alternative Medicine myself, I knew how our bodies store emotion but when the guest on the podcast spoke within 5 minutes about jaw pain being associated to the emotion of anger, I was speechless…

Over the next few weeks, as the excruciating pain in my jaw came in waves, I dove into self-healing physically and emotionally. I utilized fascia facial massages from Human Garage which helped to relieve tension briefly, while also journaling diving deep into the emotion of anger, how it was trapped in my body, and what anger I had not fully process that I was holding onto.

It was a challenge. Being around conflict growing up, I’ve evolved to do my best not to express anger in my life. I’d seen how this emotion had hurt others, myself included, and so I identified that emotion as “bad”. In reality though, it had a purpose.

Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs may be, Jesus gave a great example of how anger should be expressed when he went to Jerusalem and saw the corruption of the Temple.

“When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, and he stopped everyone from using the Temple as a marketplace. He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”” ‭‭Mark‬ ‭11‬:‭15‬-‭17‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Even Jesus felt anger, and expressed it at the appropriate time.

Sacred Rage. Fire is not deadly unless utilized as a weapon. In the forest, wildfires serve a purpose. They recycle dead trees, bringing back nutrients to the soil in the form of a natural fertilizer. New life is possible by clearing underbrush and bringing sunlight to the forest floor, opening up possibilities of diverse plants to come back and call in new wildlife. Fires in nature act as a reset button. Anger and rage serve the same mission. When felt with awareness, anger provides the correct response to mistreatment, corruption, and evil in this world.

A few weeks into experiencing the pain of TMJ, I went to a friend in Clearwater, FL. She guided me through her unique type of healing: Integrative Energy Therapy. Though skeptical going into it, what I experienced left me in awe and wonder. With her help, I felt into specific moments I’d experienced anger and finally let go and surrendered the specific people and events that I’d been carrying. Immediately, and I say immediately, I felt my temporomandibular joint open. Like a key finally releasing a lock, my jaw unlocked and began tingling and buzzing, fresh blood flow now moving through the area. For the next few hours, I felt like novocaine had been shot into my jaw. The mystery was solved. The physical, the mental, and the emotional healing all brought me to a place of relief, a place of peace.

Emotions are messengers. When they are not fully processed, they store in the body. Our body keeps the score.

Feeling is healthy. Emotions are essential. Anger is sacred.