I used to believe there were good and bad emotions. Positive and negative. Happiness, joy, and excitement on one side. Anger, frustration, and fear on the other.
Like most kids, I didn’t learn what I was and wasn’t supposed to feel until I was old enough to attend school. There, I began to associate emotions with colors. Negatives belonged to red and orange. Positives to yellow and green. There was a story being written there, even if my teachers weren’t intending to.
But mostly, I got my emotional education at home. Which is to say, I didn’t get much of one at all. With immigrant parents, you don’t talk about emotions. They only ever point out “happy” and “sad.” And they don’t even name sadness — I only knew it by what it wasn’t when they’d ask “Why aren’t you happy?”
That may seem like a harmless question, but laced in “why” is the assumption you should always be happy. After all, how could I not be? I lived in a big house, had an X-Box, and drove a Lexus to school. My parents immigrated with a suitcase containing their life, worked multiple jobs, and ate onions every day because they were buy one get two free. To be anything but happy was an audacious front to all they’ve endured.
Shame was their weapon of choice. Disappointment a close second. But the more I think about it, they were rarely used against sadness — I was good at hiding it. At least I think. Maybe they weren’t attuned to it.
Anger on the other hand? Hard to miss.
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I used to say I was a “sensitive kid” but then S pointed out “What kid isn’t?” And that’s so spot-on — there’s no way for kids not to be. Their emotions keep them regulated and safe in a world they didn’t ask to be born into.
I remember knowing whenever something felt off at home. Some underlying tension was boiling and was on the brink of release. And when it did, it did. My parents exploded in high-pitched squeals. I’d hear the screaming and yelling and slamming even behind closed doors. Feel the cold cut of silence in the air as they’d ignore one another the morning after before leaving separately to work instead of carpooling. Sit with a heavy not-so-subtle passive aggression lingering at the dinner table.
Living in this environment, I walked on eggshells—no—through a minefield. “Anger is dangerous” I must’ve whispered to myself. With seemingly anything able to flip their anger on, I learned to minimize myself. Prioritizing my parents’ wants and needs over my own to avoid triggering any conflict. It was pretty easy — I just looked at whatever K did to elicit their anger and did the opposite. Get good grades, do everything they say, and most importantly, don’t yell back. Otherwise, you’ll get hurt. Have connection withdrawn.
Did I say don’t yell back?
I might be painting the picture I never yelled or got angry — that’s inaccurate. I tried, I really did. Like when Mom told me she signed me up for overnight chemistry camp without my consent and I’d miss the last precious weeks with C, my best friend at the time, before he moved across the country. Or when I had the opportunity (and confidence) to earn a starting spot on varsity, but was forced to go to SAT prep that summer instead.
But anytime I expressed anger, I was invalidated and shamed. “You’re so ungrateful!” or “Remind me who's paying for everything?” Or they’d get angry and I’d fall into the same pattern of eventually cowering and slinking back to my room, my tail between my legs, my heart in pain once more.
So not only do I have the story “anger hurts”, but now you add “anger is worthless.” I’m not worthy of anger, much less expressing it.
So I formed this identity of someone who doesn’t get angry. Total baloney. We’re human. We experience everything — only to varying degrees of allowing.
Like many people (men especially) I directed anger inward. I bottled it up until it festered into resentment. How could I possibly allow myself to feel it? I’d hurt someone. I’d be rejected and met with shame. I’d confirm the story “I’m unworthy as I am.”
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Intellectually, I know I lived in fear of anger for much of my life, but didn’t fully realize this until recently.
A few weeks ago, I shared during class how anger wasn’t allowed for me as a kid. That night, I dreamed I was home and Mom and Dad were arguing and yelling. Angry. Then they turned toward me. I woke up in fear. My body coursed with adrenaline and I was in freeze — a state I hadn’t experienced somatically in years, if not a decade or more.
But this time, I stayed with myself. I didn’t run away or go into my head. I felt the sensations — they were alive. I put my hand over my heart and whispered “I see you’re afraid. I’m here, I’m listening, I love you.”
The words I needed to hear as a child but didn’t.
The following day, I had the opportunity to express anger in a group. I went first and it was pretty awkward. Like during my first hip-hop class, I felt clumsy and childish. Am I really a 25-year-old man screaming “FUCK YOU” and airing my grievances over Zoom with a bunch of strangers?
I am. And it felt amazing as foreign as it was at first. There was joy. Laughter. Like, I can express anger and not hurt anyone? I can express anger and be loved in it? Not abandoned? What the fuck? Where has this been all my life?
But I suppose that’s the work — showing up for yourself and loving what has never not been worthy of love.
In the aftermath, there was just energy. The spent feeling after a workout — a comforting aliveness.
“Anger is just energy. Emotions are just energy. Move the emotion. Move the energy.”
When we cap the flow of energy within us, we cap the flow of energy around us. But by opening up to ourselves, we open ourselves up to the world. Everything changes without really “doing” anything. You’ve just shifted your relationship with yourself, the flow of energy.
The more I think about it, emotions are just internal nature responding to external nature. Skies pour, flowers grow. Nature engaging with nature. Perfect flow, perfect harmony, perfect aliveness.
There’s nothing wrong with anger. There’s nothing wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with you.
Just like Inside Out 2, every emotion is worth it. Whether it is Joy or Anxiety, they make us human beings. Being human is perfectly imperfect and beautiful.
Thanks for writing this Dennis. This is beautiful. Opened something within me