Kali Meister

psychic, teacher, life coach, empath, author, spiritual healer, tarot reader, reiki master, public speaker, and laughter yoga instructor

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How Do We Handle the Rage in Our Hearts? A Response to Rage on Social Media

August 12, 2017

4:37 PM

About a Car and Driver Mauling a Crowd of Anti-fascism Protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia:

 

I'm sitting in my office watching my newsfeed on Facebook while trying to control my breathing. Let me back up and say this may be one of the most unrefined and personal blogs I will post on my site, but I feel it is required. Right now I am a human watching other humans hate and injure humans out of a place of anger and rage. I'm crying, my heart is aching, and I am angry and enraged. Part of my work on myself as a light-worker and spiritual being has been on my personal issues with rage and angst based in anger. Anger was something that bubbled under the surface of me through all of my 30s and into my 40s. In fact, until just recently I have lived with rage in my heart and anger in my soul. It was only in April of 2017 when I suffered a medical issue with my heart that I truly let go of the power anger and rage had over me. 

However, I know that these negative emotions never go away. I'm feeling them as I type. I have tears clouding my vision--literally and figuratively I always want to see things as they are.  But, as a light worker there are teachings that focus on the world being how we choose to see it. There is such a beauty in that, but how do I maintain the positivity of my desires when I open my social media and see anti-fascist protestors being mauled by a Dodge Charger and crushed between two other cars? Where is the balance here? Where is discernment? I see people in my newsfeed saying to pray for peace and that two wrongs don't make a right. Others say an eye for an eye and want vigilante justice. What do I do when neither side of this coin appeals to me? 

Another friend posted something that has been resonating with me since I saw the news about the car and driver that mauled a group of people in Charlottesville, Virginia. She wrote about American President Trump saying, "Say what you will, but we have to reflect on how Trump pulled hate's mask completely off and now we have to look at our ugly selves." That is what I have also been feeling. It's not just Trump and America, though. This is global. I speak with clients in New Zealand, Australia, and England and their social structures are also breaking down in fear and violence because of racial and socioeconomic crises. And that is what we are ALL in right now...a global crisis. 

Where does that leave any of us as a human race? How do I justify being angry but also being a light-worker and a spiritual being whose focus is on love, recovery, and the healing of the planet? If I talk about meditating over this violence does that make me delusional and lazy? If I rage and say that the alt-right white nationalists deserve to be drug through the streets and brought to violent justice am I a part of the problem? I guess the real question is, "How do I feel empowered while I also feel so completely out of control?" I feel a need for control comes from a place of ego. We must figure out how to release the ego in ourselves before we can heal. And releasing it is not an eye for an eye, but is it not destroying the self in confidence to turn the other cheek? Also, how do I do this while keeping my privilege in check and not speaking from a place of white female entitlement? How do I do this "right"? Is it all about us each being "right"? 

Ego has us each desperately grasping for control over our own realities when they do not correspond with other realities. I changed my name from Kally to Kali, in part, for that reason. I wanted to control my part of the world and how I am seen through message. I wanted a name that spoke for me in narrative and not action. Oddly, The Hindu Goddess Kali's story is relevant to this post. The story of Kali goes; when the ego sees Kali it trembles because it sees its eventual demise. A person of ego will never see Kali or understand her compassion, they will only see her in wrath. I have also always felt those who see me in ego will never truly see me, much like the Goddess. What Kali shows is that violence is nothing more then the ego's need to be seen in action? Wrath, an action, is an expression of the ego.

I prefer to be a storyteller in this moment. I prefer to use my words over my actions right now because I actually fear my potential of negative actions that stem from a place of rage. Maybe discussing my fears will cause someone who reads this to understand themselves a little better and not act from a place of fear, shame, anger, and rage. The difficulty of this for me is that for the last several years I have learned the most by watching people's actions and allowing that to define who they are... that has been my reality. Maybe this is part of the balance for me that has gotten me back to being a social activist writer in this post.

I hope that this post resonates with people and allows someone to understand their own rage and let go of ego a little bit. We must enjoy who we are, but respect others to enjoy themselves. We have to be honest with each other without immediately wanting to resolve differences in opinion with violence. We have to not fearfully anticipate violence because we fear not being understood. We have to think, and then act. We have to somehow be grateful in the midst of it all and not devalue basic needs and the intrinsic value of the planet. But most of all we have to acknowledge all of this while also letting go of the need to control it all.

We need to value each other in creation regardless of who we believe created us and why we were created. I feel this is possible if we let go of the ego and live without it for awhile. I know this is possible. I believe with all of me that we can all be better than our traumatic events.