April 15, 2024 • 38 mins
What do we lose when we’re not allowed to be angry?
In a lot of ways, anger is more taboo than grief. They’re deeply related, as you’ll hear in this two-part episode: both grief and anger are considered “negative” emotions, things you shouldn’t feel, and definitely shouldn’t express in polite company. But what if reclaiming our anger was the way to build the world - and the relationships - we most want?
All of that and more with the best selling author of Rage Becomes Her, Soraya Chemaly.
In this two-part episode we cover:
- What is the right amount of anger?
- Why deciding some emotions are “good” and some are “bad” isn’t really helpful
- What would “anger competence” or “anger literacy” look like? (and why would you want that??)
- Why Soraya says “most grief is ambiguous grief”
- How the old split between the head (logic) and the heart (emotion) cuts us off from what we most want
- Finding your best community by embracing your anger
We're re-releasing some of our favorite episodes from the first 3 seasons. This episode was originally recorded in 2023.
Looking for a creative exploration of grief? Check out the best selling Writing Your Grief course here.
About our guest:
Soraya Chemaly is an award-winning writer and activist whose work focuses on the role of gender in culture, politics, religion, and media. She is the Director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project and an advocate for women’s freedom of expression and expanded civic and political engagement. A prolific writer and speaker, her articles appear in TIME, The Verge, The Guardian, The Nation, HuffPost, and The Atlantic. Find her best selling book, Rage Becomes Her at sorayachemaly.com. Follow her on social media @sorayachemaly
About Megan:
Psychotherapist Megan Devine is one of today’s leading experts on grief, from life-altering losses to the everyday grief that we don’t call grief. Get the best-selling book on grief in over a decade, It’s Ok that You’re Not OK, wherever you get books. Find Megan @refugeingrief
Additional Resources:
We mention Pauline Boss in this episode. If you’re not familiar with her excellent work on ambiguous loss (a term she coined in the 1970s), check out her website at ambiguousloss.com
To read more about anger and how it relates to grief, check out It’s OK that You’re Not OK.
If you want to explore your anger with creative prompts and exercises, check out the guided journal for grief, How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.
Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A grief clinics: your questions, answered. Want to speak to her privately? Apply for a 1:1 grief consultation here.
Books and resources may contain affiliate links.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are raised in a society that doesn't allow you
to believe you should be cared for.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm
your host, Megan Devine. This week Part two of anger Fest,
otherwise known as my conversation with best selling author Siriah Shamali.
More on this favorite topic coming up right after this
first break.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Before we get started.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Two quick notes. One, this episode is an encore performance.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I am on break working on a giant.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
New project, so we're releasing a mix of our favorite
episodes from the first three seasons.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Of the show.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Some of these conversations you might have missed in their
original seasons, and some shows just truly deserve multiple listens
so that you capture all of the goodness. Second note,
While we cover a lot of emotional, relational territory and
our time here together, this show is not a substitute
for skilled support with a license mental health provider, or
for professional supervision related to your work. Take what you
(01:04):
learn here, take your thoughts and your reflections out into
your world and talk about it. Hey, friends, have you
listened to part one of this conversation with Sarriah Shamala yet?
This is part two, and we jump right into our
conversation in progress. Now a little bit of a setup
in case it has been a bit since you listen
(01:25):
to part one, or your go and rogue and jumping
in mid conversation without listening to part one. First, we
ended part one as Soria and I were discussing the
media's insistence on happy endings, like even when you're doing
a podcast interview, and how that insistence on a happy
ending or a high note effectively squashes being sad or mad.
(01:45):
We'd also been discussing the state of the world and
the long, long, long history of repressing anger, especially for women,
and part two we get into the concept of resilience,
but also we get into conne and relatedness and joy.
(02:06):
I hinted at this last time in my part one introduction.
But friends, embracing your anger, voicing your rage is what
helps you find connection and community, especially with the people
who cares passionately about the world as you do. Anger
unlocks a whole lot of joy. Okay, let's get back
(02:31):
to it. My conversation with Sarriah Shamali joining it already
in progress. I think this is the thing is like
we really really want a happy ending. We want there
to be a solution that means that we don't have
to get mad or sad or sad. Right, No sadness,
(02:51):
no madness, no, none of those things. And if you
keep showing me the state of the world, I am
going to feel things and I'm gonna have to take action.
And we sort of come back full circle with like,
not only is there no valid way for me to
feel the feelings that I have when I really look
at the state of the world, but I don't know
(03:11):
what to do with it. I don't know what the
powerlessness like, I don't know what to do with the
rage and the sense of injustice that is being lit
up in me. I don't know what to do with
the overwhelming grief for what has been and what is now, Like,
I don't know what to do with it, and I
(03:33):
feel like for me, for me, the answer is anger.
Right for me, the answer is the action that that embodies.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
But I don't know. I mean, is that so.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I don't even know?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
My question? Isn't there right? But there is one?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
What you're saying, because when I was writing, I've been
writing about resilience for almost two years now, and so
much of what we think of in our culture as
resilience is just more sexist bullshit. It's all about being
strong and mentally tough and self sufficient and autonomous. And
you can't be any of those things without completely exploiting
(04:13):
the people around you, either the people who are doing
your emotional labor around your mental stoicism, or the people
who are clothing you and feeding you and making sure
that you can get to work and be productive and
all of those things. So the question is, what is it?
Why do we glorify a type of strength? There's nothing
(04:34):
intrinsically wrong with the notion of strength, but we get
to define what strength is. And the way we define
strengths is particularly calibrated to support this status quo system
that we have. So how do we dismantle it? And
so I think that for me two words became really
relevant for Barns and endurance, which established different standards for
(05:00):
what it means to adapt, to change and to live
in the world in relation to other people. Because I
think that if you understand not individual subjectivity is the
core of what's important, but relational well being as the
(05:20):
core of what's important, then your standards will shift right
and they'll shift whether you're talking about anger or grief
or work. The whole system shifts because all of a
sudden you have to consider what it means to be
in relation, not just in relation to another person, but
(05:42):
for example, dismantling the divide between the mind and the body,
or thinking about how we relate to nature. Everything is
shifted by that, and this is not new information. We
understand that we live in a pluriverse. There are many
other ways to be in the world, other cultures who
perceive the world differently, whose language constructs the world differently.
(06:06):
We've just destroyed a lot of them, you know. We've
actively engaged and continue to engage in destroying other ways
of knowing. And that's because the only relationship that matters
in this worldview is one of dominance, and the way
you can maintain that is through violence.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
No, it's not that we don't have a relationship. It's
that strength is tied to violent domination.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yes, it's that there's only one channel acceptable, and even
that one is not acceptable for most of the world.
That's because there's a line of yours that I really like,
are a quote of yours that I really like? Or
you said, anger is the most social emotion. I love
this because we usually think of it only in that
one channel, only that one option of destructive and separatist
(06:53):
and all of these things. But what I hear you
describing is that it is a lie allowing our full
relatedness that will allow us to engage in the world
as it is, and the world that we might allow
ourselves to hope could be well.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And I think too, we are raised in a society
that doesn't allow you to believe you should be cared for.
We have no rights to be cared for in our society,
which is just crazy. We have a right to be
cared for. It's essential to human cooperation and human thriving
and honestly to our survival at this point, right. But
(07:29):
in fact, the entire structure, the social contract of our
governance is that we don't need.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Care, or that it's weak to need care.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
It's totally weak. Yeah, maybe you're dependent, you're a leech,
your parasite, you want free stuff, all of that. And
not only is that corrosive to the social fabric, it
causes distrust, it's harmful to our relationships. But it's a
lie because in fact, the people who believe that they are.
All of those things have baked in and titlements in
(08:01):
the system of governments that we have, and so it's
an illusion and it's destructive. So what happens if we
stepped back and we said, what if we didn't build
a social contract around that radical and isolating idea of
an atomistic self and a self? No one is without
(08:21):
dependence throughout their lives. Literally, you're born dependent. Chances are
fairly good you're going to die dependent, and many people
along the way need help at various points or all
of their lives. So in the end, it's also profoundly
ablest to have the whole world built around this imaginary personhood, and.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It goes against what we most want, which is connection
and relationship.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, that's how we survive and thrive. And you know,
I think what's really striking to me. I think people
think that the opposite of resilience is weakness or vulnerability,
and I think the posite of resilience is loneliness. Ooh right.
If there's an opposite to resilience, it is loneliness. And
what we have right now is a culture globally where
(09:11):
men are profoundly lonely and in the English speaking world,
which is basically an Anglo world where white boys and
men are the most lonely in society.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, and look what they do with that loneliness.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And look what they do. They commit suicide or they
turn it against others, and so in fact, their strength
is their greatest weakness because that loneliness comes from somewhere.
It's an ideal. It's a kind of a compensatory masculinism
in the society that's saying you have to be strong
and self sufficient. Don't go for this feminizing bullshit in
(09:46):
the culture. That's like, they're just more than enough misogynists
and assholes running around saying stuff like that, and kids
are listening to it, boys are listening to them.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I mean, it's just such a like complex Clusterfuck.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
That's a complexus. And that's where you go back to.
It's overwhelming. I'm just gonna withdraw.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, and I think this is like, this is where
it's important to come back to, like, Okay, we have
to be able to tell the truth, to see clearly
the situation at hand, and then wonder for ourselves, what
are my radical acts in the face of this, like
caring for our own bodies listening to our own bodies,
listening to our own relatedness and our needs for connection.
(10:30):
Like basically whatever the dominant culture says is a bad thing,
Like maybe we want to lean into that more. I
go back to like several years ago, before the pandemic,
there was a signa the health insurance outfit did a
study on loneliness and they found that loneliness was a
bigger public health risk than smoking.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Sure, just find fascinating because like, what I haven't seen
a lot related to that study is like what comes
out of that study is like, let's change loneliness and
not asking the first question, which is why are people lonely?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Why did they get so? Like what is it? Right?
I was just talking to a friend of mine who
was at CEES the Technology Computer Extravaganza, annual giant Global Show,
Las Vegas, and he was describing a new technology which
is an immersive viewing experience basically without a headset. So
(11:22):
it's kind of a VR experience without having to wear
the headset. And it is a big screen. So imagine
a giant television in a living room and the person
watching it, Let's say they're watching a soccer game, the
television monitor will lock onto the eye movement of the
person watching, and the entire perspective of the game will
(11:47):
take into account where that person's eyes are, so the
focal point becomes where the person's looking, which makes this
feel much more immersive. And I burst out laughing, and
I was like, what happens when there's more than one
person in the room? And my friend laughed and he
was like, what do you mean. I'm like, what happens
(12:08):
when two people are watching?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
What happens? And then we all burstot laughing. And my
husband said, it's a technology for lonely white guys who
can afford it, right.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Who want to feel connected and part of what's happening.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, oh gosh.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I don't believe technology is our problem. Technology is what
we make of it. But we're making shitty technology.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Well, I think we're making technology that presumes lonely, lonely
white male, like we're increasing that gaze. And the other
thing is like what I heard as you were describing
that immersive thing is like, we want you to be
able to feel like you're connected, but we're doing it
within this realm of disconnection, right, Like what if we
(12:55):
were trying to address that primal human needs need for
relatedness and connection by allowing people to feel what they
feel and giving us structures and pathways to talk about
what it's really like to be here. Like you want
cutting edge, baby, go for relational cutting edge, not tech
cutting edge.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
But you know this is interesting because I actually think
that the you know, the Internet's economic model relies on
our emotions. It relies on our effective relationships, are effective sharing.
It particularly relies on the virality of negative emotions anger, shame, outrage, terror, fear.
(13:39):
That's its engine. That's why we have the problems we
have with information truth, misinformation, disinformation, and so people are
seeking out those relationships, but in fact they're seeking them
out in some of the most destructive ways because to
admit to a lot of those feelings in an interpersonal
(14:04):
context is foreclosed to them. Right Like a man is
probably far less likely to look at his wife or
his child and say, I'm scared shitless, that I'm losing relevance,
that I can't make money, that my country isn't my
country anymore, like all the white terror that we see,
all the despair. He can't say that to his loved
(14:28):
ones without feeling shame, but he can hop online and
share the experience of saying, we have to be strong,
we have to fight back with other people who are
feeling the same thing.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
It's a way to cope with the grief and the
fear and the despair in a way that is yeah,
in a way that is familiar and sanctioned.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, that's right, right, And I think this embodiedness is important.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Actually absolutely, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yes, Like you have to be disembodied, you have to
be cut off from bodiments and the animal nature of
being in these bodies in order to other people like that.
My undergrad thesis or my psych thesis was on the
creation of torturers.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Right, But that is a subject for a different day
because I can totally geek out on that one. But
like this idea that when the only sanctioned and acceptable
channel for anger, which is a sense of injustice or
violation or respect like rights and being allowed to be
(15:34):
who you are, all of these things, like when the
only channel for that is destructive, then anger itself gets
is kind of off the table.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, that's right. And for us what happens is also
due to socialization, you end up just hurting yourself more
than anything. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I don't necessarily believe this is terribly accurate, but I
remember studying psychology back in the nineties and one of
the things going around back then was depression is anger
turned inwards.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And a lot of people still say that.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
I'm not fully on board with that one.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I think there's a lot more complexity there, but there
is something that we lose when we don't have other
ways to express anger. We've been talking with best selling
authors Sarriah Shimali.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Let's get back to it.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Any repressed emotion finds its way into your body, and
so whether it's self harming behaviors, anxiety, depression, there are
lots of things that's been linked to cancer rates. It's
not that it's causing it, but there are very high
correlations between the incidents of repressed anger and autoimmune Like
(16:51):
the illnesses we think of, particularly as women's illnesses, they
share this quality of repression of anger, and I just
don't think that's been stuff or teased out well enough
or you know. But one of my other goals in
writing this was that women didn't get sicker, didn't get
more tired, could maybe consider what it means to ask
(17:13):
for help, and the danger there is that the people
you care for don't care like that's the risk if
you say, I'm really angry because I'm doing everything, I
feel taken for granted, I'm exhausted, I don't have any sleep,
I have no leisure time whatever you're saying, right, I
can't make ends meet. You actually are saying can you
(17:33):
help me work through this? But the person you're talking
to doesn't want to hear it, then you're really in trouble.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, then you have some big choices you need to make.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You have some big choices you have to made. And
it's interesting too because one of the studies I think
that is most disturbing to people who read the book
sometimes is that in heterosexual couples, women won't express anger
as anger. They'll express it as fear or sadness to
compensate for the feelings that they have that feel wrong
to them or cause them shame, but in fact they're
(18:06):
not wrong because men in those couples they get angry
at a woman for expressing anger because they think she's
breaking relationships, so instead of actually listening to her and
reciprocating or changing behavior or brainstorming. They just shut it down. Yeah,
you know, and so instead of listening and saying, let me,
(18:27):
let me understand what you're going through, And that doesn't
leave the woman much recourse because in fact, what she's
left with is the awareness that this man that she's
with doesn't care what's.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Bothering for, Yeah, isn't willing to make changes to prioritize
their needs that are expressed through that anger.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, And this is the thing that anger is the
need for change, that something isn't working and I need
to voice that do something about it takes some action
on my own behalf or on the behalf of somebody
or something I care about, and systems don't like to change.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, it's very resistant. It's very hard hard.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
To Yeah, change is hard. And there's also it's all
also tied up with you know. If I say to
my partner, like, I'm really angry and this feels imbalanced
and unfair, then they take that in as a personal
attack in some ways. I think earlier you said, like
we we absorb somebody else's anger and give it back
(19:24):
as shame or name it shame, like you think I'm bad,
And then we're right back where we started with, Like, oh.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well, you know, it's interesting because I've written a lot
about me too as a threat to men's identities, because
I remember the years building up to me too, the
sort of genealogy of hashtags that led us to the
moment where we could do me too. And me too
was global and so many men I knew didn't matter, Conservative, progressive,
(19:54):
didn't matter. We're just in denial. They're like, can this
must be an exaggeration, It can't be that bad. What
do you mean you feel scared when you walk at night?
Like some pretty basic stuff? Basic basic stuff, right, And
I thought, these are people who clearly care for the
women around them, So why the denial? And in fact,
(20:15):
I think that it's pretty clear that me too was
like a punch to the gut for two primary things
that men associate with being good people, providing and protecting.
If women are saying I want to provide for myself.
I don't want to go into a workplace where I'm
harassed and I can't get a promotion unless I have
sex with someone, they're like, I want to provide for myself,
(20:37):
that's thing one. And if women can provide for themselves.
Then what are men supposed to do? And then thing
two is you're not protecting me. You would have to
follow me twenty four to seven, and even then you
couldn't protect me. You can't protect me on the way
to school, in the bus, in the bathroom, in the
parking lot, in the office, in like wherever. So what
is it to providing and protecting that's left? And I
(20:59):
just I think it's pretty It makes a lot of
cognitive sense to say that's just not happening, that's just
not as bad as you're saying.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's just yeah, it does not compute like that that
the that people are lying about their lived experience is
the most logical and acceptable answer to the situation at hand,
because it cannot possibly be that the world is as
you say it is.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Because if it is, am I a good person, well
be a good person?
Speaker 3 (21:24):
How is there a place for me?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And we come back again to the root of everything
we've talked about is connection and relatedness and being able
to be soft and shift and connect and allow the
pain of the world to enter into that and enter
into our relationship so that we can get honestly, like
in my my most Pollyanna moment is like we can
(21:50):
get what we all long for, which is being seen
and connected and supported for who we truly are and valued.
Like we can do that when we tell the truth
and all others to tell the truth about their own lives,
and when we let that stuff in, Like, to me,
that's the beautiful world, right, But it involves a lot
of messiness and a lot of reckoning and a lot
(22:11):
of outrage.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
All of those things, and it involves all those negative
emotions nobody wants to deal with. Yeah, that's really I
think a lot of it. Like, yeah, and nobody likes
to give up power? Who are we kidding? No?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
And there's I mean, it's that shift of what does
power even mean? And I think we could probably talk
for ten more hours on the concept of power and what.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Is true power.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Actually I like this idea though, of Like we've mentioned
this several times in our conversation, that we have one
acceptable channel for anger and it belongs to a very specific,
well described person in a very well described way, and
it's not available to anybody else. And one of the
things that you said was that there are many ways
(22:54):
to be angry, And I feel like, I feel like
if we could spend a couple of minutes talking about
the that we can be angry because I'm not capable
of always ending on a happy ending, especially if it
doesn't make sense. And I want to know what to
do with the anger, with the looking at our relationships
(23:17):
and the state of the world and all there is
to grieve and all there is to be angry about,
and have an idea of what's next.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So I thought a lot about this. Yeah, and the
conclusion I came to was really this idea that we
have to stop thinking of it as a negative emotion.
That's thing one. The thing too is okay, Well, once
we decide this isn't bad, it is what it is,
What do I learn from it? What is it that
(23:46):
I want? How can I make that happen? If I
can't make it happen, what next I have to accept something.
Maybe I am grieving because I understand this won't change.
Like I had a fifteen year old come up to
me in a high school one day after I get
a talk, and poor thing. She was so distraught, and
she said, do you think that patriarchy will end in
my lifetime? She was serious, She was so overwhelmed, and
(24:12):
she just didn't know what to do, you know, and
it was a little heartbreaking because I couldn't say yes,
you know. But I think then you think, well, what
can I do? You know, what should I do? How
do I transcend this this grief? And that's an interesting
way to put it, right, transcending the grief, because you
(24:32):
have to go through the grief. I think, like, you
don't put it aside, you don't climb over it.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
It's you know, it's not.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
A stool, you know. And so I thought in the book,
I thought, Okay, well, the fact is it's a kind
of an energy that we have, and what can we
do with it? Because I always found that in anger,
I think, like grief have come some of my dearest relationships.
(25:03):
No activist feminist movement that I've ever been part of
did not start with a woman getting angry. And there's
so much humor and so much vision, and so much
creativity and so much caring that goes into that anger
and the relationships that are born by it. The recognition
that other women, for example, and men, but in my
(25:26):
experience it was mainly women. The recognition that we share
this anger was a source of comfort and joy and happiness.
And then the anger turns into something different, because in fact,
it's informed a relationship that has this remarkable potential for
connection and change. So I do think that that's all true.
(25:48):
And I've been bowled over since I published this book
in twenty eighteen by the sheer number of people that
have contacted me to share their artistic outputs, sculpture, poetry, writing, painting.
It's an infinite array of people saying, Okay, you know
(26:12):
what I feel this way. I need to do something
about it. I can't do X, I'm going to do Y.
And out of their creativity comes connection, comes community, comes
this sharing of experience that makes a new meaning for people.
And I think that goes back to what we said.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Earlier that it's not just I feel this. I don't
want to be destructive with it. I guess I won't
feel it at all. It's more like, what how can
I connect? How can I express? How can I relate
with this? There's the list. When I saw that quote
where you said there are so many ways to be anger,
You're like joyful anger, creative anger, political, artistic, and social anger,
Like there are so many things you can do with
(26:53):
your outrage.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, I think so and for some people it's baking.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
For us, absolutely, I don't care what you do with it.
Like the it's it's be in relationship with the with
the reality of your of your embodied experience, right.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Like for other people it's it's forming community organizations for
other people starting schools. It doesn't matter what it is. Yeah,
you know, that's why I say it's it's social emotion.
Like we want to call an angry girl or woman
sad because that is an emotion of retreat. Anger is
(27:31):
a forward emotion. In anger itself is hope because you
can't be angry if you don't hope that something could change.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yes, I love that there.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I was going to quote you because there's this great
thing that you said that anger is the expression of hope.
And I and I do try to end each episode
here with what is hope? Knowing what you know and
living what you've lived. What does hope look like for
you right now?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
So?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Can we can we talk about that?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Like a very bad day?
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Hey, they happen.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Man, I am hopeless a lot of the time, which
is why we're having these conversations because I think for me,
hope is always like used grammatically and correctly. And also
it's not realistic, like I hope that things work out
for the best.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
No, yeah, why That's why I've stopped thinking in terms
of hope, and I've thought forbearance and endurance and notive thing,
but endurance as equanimity over time, endurance as a deeper understanding,
And a lot of my focus personally is on understanding
(28:37):
the way modern culture, modernity created a kind of temporal
regime that informs all of our lives, and that was
disrupted by COVID, by the way, like cod COVID threw
the cadence of modern life into total disarray, and some
people came out of that with I'm not going back.
(28:58):
I'm just not doing that again. I'm slowing down. I'm
finding a new jo like whatever it is. They're like,
no way am I doing that again. But I think
a lot about these standards and what they mean for
notions like hope, And how do we think about time
when we think about hope? How do we think about
(29:19):
time when we think about resilience? How do we think
about the linear that the notion of linearity in grief? Right,
our experiences are that they're this linearity. It doesn't exist
so why are we shaping our expectations around it? You know?
And so for me, hope is two steps forward, one
step back, step to the right, step to the left,
(29:40):
go up a little, maybe go down a little. It's
just not it's not this thing that's just you know,
an arrow going that way. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I like hope as a more amorphous living thing that
we find ways to express or find ways to dismiss
depending on the day.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
We didn't think about We didn't talk about this at all.
But there's this sort of French postmodern philosophers late twentieth
century Duluzin Gatari, whose theories of kind of riizomatic knowledge
and thinking they kind of go through loops of being
criticized and then having a resurgence. But what I'm seeing
(30:23):
that's really funny just in the culture in the last
several years, is this fascination with mushrooms and my celia,
and it really aligns so closely with their thinking about
how life works. And we have what they called ar
boreal thinking and knowing there's you know, we're rooted in
the ground, and there's a central core and then things
(30:45):
branch off and there are logical endpoints. They're like fuck
that that's just not right right. So in fact, it's
really helped me to think of hope.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
In that way as rizomatic.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, because you don't know where it begins.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
In mycological ecological hope. That great, that's a great name
for something that's mycological.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
But definitely this notion that you can begin an end
anywhere and that you don't know and that things move
in every direction at all times. I just like that.
It just resonates more.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I love that. I think I'm going to reflect on
that for a while. Mycological hope. What would what would
mushroom based mycology hope? Because I you know, I was
a student of Joanna Macy for a long time, and
I whenever I was temporarily stuck, I would go with
her thinking like a mountain, right, thinking in geologic time,
for pacing and all of these things, thinking like a mountain.
(31:40):
But I think I think my new my new form
of that is going to be thinking like a mycological organism.
I don't know if it's still true, but the last
time I went looking for it, the largest known biological
organism in the world is it my ceilium. It's a
it's an it was either I think there was a
race for a while between a standard of aspens or
(32:01):
a single mushroom system that was like nine miles.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yes, I think at last I read it was the mushroom.
I don't know, I'll go back.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, yeah, I think there there was some scientific there
was some branching there that the aspens didn't really count
as a single organism in the same.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Way that the mushroom might anyway.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Full nerdom and the ways that it relates to what
we've been talking about with like, I love this. I
love that there is no entry point, there is no
exit point. Start where you are, and if you don't
like where you are in your understandings of how anger
lives in you and what it means to claim that
anger and to claim whatever hope looks like for you,
Like I don't know, pick a different fruiting body on
(32:40):
the mushroom system and explore that one.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
And you may be surprised, you know, because I think
if we're rigid about it, honestly, it's to me in
the end, it's how cognitively flexible can you allow yourself
to be because you just don't know. I'd never know.
I'm like, oh, well, that was surprising. Why was it
surprising to me? Advised me about that personal experience or place.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Curiosity is really a good.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
And self compassion. I've never been one for the self
care industry. I think it's morbal.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
That's part of capitalism, sure.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Part of capitalism. And also it's so easy for neoliberalism
to take the language of self compassion and just could
turn it into something very unhelpful. But I do actually
think that until we understand how ourselves are formed by
our cultures, it's hard to be forgiving. A forgiving of
(33:34):
the time. We need very hard to take time.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, take time without that added causil of take care
of yourself, care for yourself so that you can come
back and be productive. Right, So it's separating that and
realizing that listening to yourself and caring for yourself and
taking care is an end stop in and of itself.
You don't do that so that X.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Y and Z's I don't have to see Antricia hers
she's the nap ministry.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yes, love it.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
So that's more or less where we came to write
like she exactly that's what she's talking about. And in
her case, she's so clear, she's like you can't talk
about rest and self compassion without talking about white supremacy. Yeah,
but you can't do it, so don't do it.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, right, Like if you can't say the whole the
whole system, then like you're missing the point of it.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
You do it and you don't say it, you're part
of the problem, not the solution, you know. And that
just requires people to sit quietly with their anger, with
their grief, with their discomfort, with their shame. It's not
easy for.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Anyone, No, it truly truly isn't and conversations about it
naming it Like, for me, that is the power of
this work is in a way where we're creating structures
for people to explore and experiment with by naming what
is actually happening, and it's it's giving people options. And
I'm I'm so glad that you and I got the
(35:01):
chance to talk about this stuff together. Now obviously in
the show notes, I'm going a link to your ted talk.
I'm middle link to your book. Is there anything else
you want people to know where to look for you
when your next book is coming out?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Thank you? I have I have a website that's just
my name, and then dot com Sarajhmada dot com. There
are some other books there if people are interested. No,
thank you, I think that's.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Good, excellent, Okay, we are going to put that in
the show notes everybody. Sarriah, thank you so much for
being here. Stay with us, everybody. We will be right
back with your questions to carry with you or right
after this.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Each week I leave you with.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Some questions to carry with you until we meet again.
Here's the thing for me in this episode parts one
and two. It's amazing just how hopeful it is to
connect with the angry people.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
As Sarriah said, anger is a social emotion and connecting
with people who feel as passionate about the state of
the world as you do. Well, that's the kind of
community that I want to be part of.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
What about you?
Speaker 2 (36:17):
What's stuck with you today? From this conversation on anger
and grief and joy and connection? What parts made you
think or cry or feel even just the edge of
your own anger brewing and waiting to be free. Everybody's
going to take something different from today's show, but I
do hope you find something to hold on to check
(36:41):
out Refuge and Grief on Instagram or here after Pod
on TikTok to see video clips from the show, and
please leave your thoughts in the comments on those posts.
Everybody's got something to say about anger and I want
to hear it. Be sure to tag us in your
conversation starting posts on your own social media use the
hashtag here after pod on all the platforms. We love
(37:03):
to see where this show takes you, and remember to
subscribe and leave a review. Reviews help more than you
know they're not. Just like I like to see reviews
of how much you love the show, but it also
helps potential listeners know that this is a pretty rad
show to listen to. Anyway, if you want to tell
us how today's show felt for you, or you have
(37:25):
a request or a question for upcoming explorations of difficult things,
send us an email. You can do that right on
the website. Megandivine dot Co. We want to hear from you.
I want to hear from you. This show, this world
needs your voice. Together, we can make things better even
(37:46):
when they can't be made right.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Want more Hereafter.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Grief education doesn't just belong to end of life issues.
Life is full of losses from everyday disappointments to events
that clearly divide life into before and after. Learning how
to talk about all that without cliches or platitudes or
simplistic think positive posters is an important skill for everyone.
Find trainings, workshops, books and resources for every human trying
(38:13):
to make their way in the world after something goes
horribly wrong at Megandivine dot Co. Hereafter with Megan Divine
is written at produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer
is Amy Brown and Elizabeth Fozzio, Edited by Houston Tilley.
Music provided by wave Crush,
We are raised in a society that doesn't allow you
to believe you should be cared for.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm
your host, Megan Devine. This week Part two of anger Fest,
otherwise known as my conversation with best selling author Siriah Shamali.
More on this favorite topic coming up right after this
first break.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Before we get started.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Two quick notes. One, this episode is an encore performance.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I am on break working on a giant.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
New project, so we're releasing a mix of our favorite
episodes from the first three seasons.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Of the show.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Some of these conversations you might have missed in their
original seasons, and some shows just truly deserve multiple listens
so that you capture all of the goodness. Second note,
While we cover a lot of emotional, relational territory and
our time here together, this show is not a substitute
for skilled support with a license mental health provider, or
for professional supervision related to your work. Take what you
(01:04):
learn here, take your thoughts and your reflections out into
your world and talk about it. Hey, friends, have you
listened to part one of this conversation with Sarriah Shamala yet?
This is part two, and we jump right into our
conversation in progress. Now a little bit of a setup
in case it has been a bit since you listen
(01:25):
to part one, or your go and rogue and jumping
in mid conversation without listening to part one. First, we
ended part one as Soria and I were discussing the
media's insistence on happy endings, like even when you're doing
a podcast interview, and how that insistence on a happy
ending or a high note effectively squashes being sad or mad.
(01:45):
We'd also been discussing the state of the world and
the long, long, long history of repressing anger, especially for women,
and part two we get into the concept of resilience,
but also we get into conne and relatedness and joy.
(02:06):
I hinted at this last time in my part one introduction.
But friends, embracing your anger, voicing your rage is what
helps you find connection and community, especially with the people
who cares passionately about the world as you do. Anger
unlocks a whole lot of joy. Okay, let's get back
(02:31):
to it. My conversation with Sarriah Shamali joining it already
in progress. I think this is the thing is like
we really really want a happy ending. We want there
to be a solution that means that we don't have
to get mad or sad or sad. Right, No sadness,
(02:51):
no madness, no, none of those things. And if you
keep showing me the state of the world, I am
going to feel things and I'm gonna have to take action.
And we sort of come back full circle with like,
not only is there no valid way for me to
feel the feelings that I have when I really look
at the state of the world, but I don't know
(03:11):
what to do with it. I don't know what the
powerlessness like, I don't know what to do with the
rage and the sense of injustice that is being lit
up in me. I don't know what to do with
the overwhelming grief for what has been and what is now, Like,
I don't know what to do with it, and I
(03:33):
feel like for me, for me, the answer is anger.
Right for me, the answer is the action that that embodies.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
But I don't know. I mean, is that so.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I don't even know?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
My question? Isn't there right? But there is one?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
What you're saying, because when I was writing, I've been
writing about resilience for almost two years now, and so
much of what we think of in our culture as
resilience is just more sexist bullshit. It's all about being
strong and mentally tough and self sufficient and autonomous. And
you can't be any of those things without completely exploiting
(04:13):
the people around you, either the people who are doing
your emotional labor around your mental stoicism, or the people
who are clothing you and feeding you and making sure
that you can get to work and be productive and
all of those things. So the question is, what is it?
Why do we glorify a type of strength? There's nothing
(04:34):
intrinsically wrong with the notion of strength, but we get
to define what strength is. And the way we define
strengths is particularly calibrated to support this status quo system
that we have. So how do we dismantle it? And
so I think that for me two words became really
relevant for Barns and endurance, which established different standards for
(05:00):
what it means to adapt, to change and to live
in the world in relation to other people. Because I
think that if you understand not individual subjectivity is the
core of what's important, but relational well being as the
(05:20):
core of what's important, then your standards will shift right
and they'll shift whether you're talking about anger or grief
or work. The whole system shifts because all of a
sudden you have to consider what it means to be
in relation, not just in relation to another person, but
(05:42):
for example, dismantling the divide between the mind and the body,
or thinking about how we relate to nature. Everything is
shifted by that, and this is not new information. We
understand that we live in a pluriverse. There are many
other ways to be in the world, other cultures who
perceive the world differently, whose language constructs the world differently.
(06:06):
We've just destroyed a lot of them, you know. We've
actively engaged and continue to engage in destroying other ways
of knowing. And that's because the only relationship that matters
in this worldview is one of dominance, and the way
you can maintain that is through violence.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
No, it's not that we don't have a relationship. It's
that strength is tied to violent domination.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yes, it's that there's only one channel acceptable, and even
that one is not acceptable for most of the world.
That's because there's a line of yours that I really like,
are a quote of yours that I really like? Or
you said, anger is the most social emotion. I love
this because we usually think of it only in that
one channel, only that one option of destructive and separatist
(06:53):
and all of these things. But what I hear you
describing is that it is a lie allowing our full
relatedness that will allow us to engage in the world
as it is, and the world that we might allow
ourselves to hope could be well.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And I think too, we are raised in a society
that doesn't allow you to believe you should be cared for.
We have no rights to be cared for in our society,
which is just crazy. We have a right to be
cared for. It's essential to human cooperation and human thriving
and honestly to our survival at this point, right. But
(07:29):
in fact, the entire structure, the social contract of our
governance is that we don't need.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Care, or that it's weak to need care.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
It's totally weak. Yeah, maybe you're dependent, you're a leech,
your parasite, you want free stuff, all of that. And
not only is that corrosive to the social fabric, it
causes distrust, it's harmful to our relationships. But it's a
lie because in fact, the people who believe that they are.
All of those things have baked in and titlements in
(08:01):
the system of governments that we have, and so it's
an illusion and it's destructive. So what happens if we
stepped back and we said, what if we didn't build
a social contract around that radical and isolating idea of
an atomistic self and a self? No one is without
(08:21):
dependence throughout their lives. Literally, you're born dependent. Chances are
fairly good you're going to die dependent, and many people
along the way need help at various points or all
of their lives. So in the end, it's also profoundly
ablest to have the whole world built around this imaginary personhood, and.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It goes against what we most want, which is connection
and relationship.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, that's how we survive and thrive. And you know,
I think what's really striking to me. I think people
think that the opposite of resilience is weakness or vulnerability,
and I think the posite of resilience is loneliness. Ooh right.
If there's an opposite to resilience, it is loneliness. And
what we have right now is a culture globally where
(09:11):
men are profoundly lonely and in the English speaking world,
which is basically an Anglo world where white boys and
men are the most lonely in society.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, and look what they do with that loneliness.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And look what they do. They commit suicide or they
turn it against others, and so in fact, their strength
is their greatest weakness because that loneliness comes from somewhere.
It's an ideal. It's a kind of a compensatory masculinism
in the society that's saying you have to be strong
and self sufficient. Don't go for this feminizing bullshit in
(09:46):
the culture. That's like, they're just more than enough misogynists
and assholes running around saying stuff like that, and kids
are listening to it, boys are listening to them.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I mean, it's just such a like complex Clusterfuck.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
That's a complexus. And that's where you go back to.
It's overwhelming. I'm just gonna withdraw.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, and I think this is like, this is where
it's important to come back to, like, Okay, we have
to be able to tell the truth, to see clearly
the situation at hand, and then wonder for ourselves, what
are my radical acts in the face of this, like
caring for our own bodies listening to our own bodies,
listening to our own relatedness and our needs for connection.
(10:30):
Like basically whatever the dominant culture says is a bad thing,
Like maybe we want to lean into that more. I
go back to like several years ago, before the pandemic,
there was a signa the health insurance outfit did a
study on loneliness and they found that loneliness was a
bigger public health risk than smoking.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Sure, just find fascinating because like, what I haven't seen
a lot related to that study is like what comes
out of that study is like, let's change loneliness and
not asking the first question, which is why are people lonely?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Why did they get so? Like what is it? Right?
I was just talking to a friend of mine who
was at CEES the Technology Computer Extravaganza, annual giant Global Show,
Las Vegas, and he was describing a new technology which
is an immersive viewing experience basically without a headset. So
(11:22):
it's kind of a VR experience without having to wear
the headset. And it is a big screen. So imagine
a giant television in a living room and the person
watching it, Let's say they're watching a soccer game, the
television monitor will lock onto the eye movement of the
person watching, and the entire perspective of the game will
(11:47):
take into account where that person's eyes are, so the
focal point becomes where the person's looking, which makes this
feel much more immersive. And I burst out laughing, and
I was like, what happens when there's more than one
person in the room? And my friend laughed and he
was like, what do you mean. I'm like, what happens
(12:08):
when two people are watching?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
What happens? And then we all burstot laughing. And my
husband said, it's a technology for lonely white guys who
can afford it, right.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Who want to feel connected and part of what's happening.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, oh gosh.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I don't believe technology is our problem. Technology is what
we make of it. But we're making shitty technology.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Well, I think we're making technology that presumes lonely, lonely
white male, like we're increasing that gaze. And the other
thing is like what I heard as you were describing
that immersive thing is like, we want you to be
able to feel like you're connected, but we're doing it
within this realm of disconnection, right, Like what if we
(12:55):
were trying to address that primal human needs need for
relatedness and connection by allowing people to feel what they
feel and giving us structures and pathways to talk about
what it's really like to be here. Like you want
cutting edge, baby, go for relational cutting edge, not tech
cutting edge.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
But you know this is interesting because I actually think
that the you know, the Internet's economic model relies on
our emotions. It relies on our effective relationships, are effective sharing.
It particularly relies on the virality of negative emotions anger, shame, outrage, terror, fear.
(13:39):
That's its engine. That's why we have the problems we
have with information truth, misinformation, disinformation, and so people are
seeking out those relationships, but in fact they're seeking them
out in some of the most destructive ways because to
admit to a lot of those feelings in an interpersonal
(14:04):
context is foreclosed to them. Right Like a man is
probably far less likely to look at his wife or
his child and say, I'm scared shitless, that I'm losing relevance,
that I can't make money, that my country isn't my
country anymore, like all the white terror that we see,
all the despair. He can't say that to his loved
(14:28):
ones without feeling shame, but he can hop online and
share the experience of saying, we have to be strong,
we have to fight back with other people who are
feeling the same thing.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
It's a way to cope with the grief and the
fear and the despair in a way that is yeah,
in a way that is familiar and sanctioned.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, that's right, right, And I think this embodiedness is important.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Actually absolutely, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yes, Like you have to be disembodied, you have to
be cut off from bodiments and the animal nature of
being in these bodies in order to other people like that.
My undergrad thesis or my psych thesis was on the
creation of torturers.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Right, But that is a subject for a different day
because I can totally geek out on that one. But
like this idea that when the only sanctioned and acceptable
channel for anger, which is a sense of injustice or
violation or respect like rights and being allowed to be
(15:34):
who you are, all of these things, like when the
only channel for that is destructive, then anger itself gets
is kind of off the table.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, that's right. And for us what happens is also
due to socialization, you end up just hurting yourself more
than anything. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I don't necessarily believe this is terribly accurate, but I
remember studying psychology back in the nineties and one of
the things going around back then was depression is anger
turned inwards.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And a lot of people still say that.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
I'm not fully on board with that one.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I think there's a lot more complexity there, but there
is something that we lose when we don't have other
ways to express anger. We've been talking with best selling
authors Sarriah Shimali.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Let's get back to it.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Any repressed emotion finds its way into your body, and
so whether it's self harming behaviors, anxiety, depression, there are
lots of things that's been linked to cancer rates. It's
not that it's causing it, but there are very high
correlations between the incidents of repressed anger and autoimmune Like
(16:51):
the illnesses we think of, particularly as women's illnesses, they
share this quality of repression of anger, and I just
don't think that's been stuff or teased out well enough
or you know. But one of my other goals in
writing this was that women didn't get sicker, didn't get
more tired, could maybe consider what it means to ask
(17:13):
for help, and the danger there is that the people
you care for don't care like that's the risk if
you say, I'm really angry because I'm doing everything, I
feel taken for granted, I'm exhausted, I don't have any sleep,
I have no leisure time whatever you're saying, right, I
can't make ends meet. You actually are saying can you
(17:33):
help me work through this? But the person you're talking
to doesn't want to hear it, then you're really in trouble.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, then you have some big choices you need to make.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You have some big choices you have to made. And
it's interesting too because one of the studies I think
that is most disturbing to people who read the book
sometimes is that in heterosexual couples, women won't express anger
as anger. They'll express it as fear or sadness to
compensate for the feelings that they have that feel wrong
to them or cause them shame, but in fact they're
(18:06):
not wrong because men in those couples they get angry
at a woman for expressing anger because they think she's
breaking relationships, so instead of actually listening to her and
reciprocating or changing behavior or brainstorming. They just shut it down. Yeah,
you know, and so instead of listening and saying, let me,
(18:27):
let me understand what you're going through, And that doesn't
leave the woman much recourse because in fact, what she's
left with is the awareness that this man that she's
with doesn't care what's.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Bothering for, Yeah, isn't willing to make changes to prioritize
their needs that are expressed through that anger.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, And this is the thing that anger is the
need for change, that something isn't working and I need
to voice that do something about it takes some action
on my own behalf or on the behalf of somebody
or something I care about, and systems don't like to change.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, it's very resistant. It's very hard hard.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
To Yeah, change is hard. And there's also it's all
also tied up with you know. If I say to
my partner, like, I'm really angry and this feels imbalanced
and unfair, then they take that in as a personal
attack in some ways. I think earlier you said, like
we we absorb somebody else's anger and give it back
(19:24):
as shame or name it shame, like you think I'm bad,
And then we're right back where we started with, Like, oh.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well, you know, it's interesting because I've written a lot
about me too as a threat to men's identities, because
I remember the years building up to me too, the
sort of genealogy of hashtags that led us to the
moment where we could do me too. And me too
was global and so many men I knew didn't matter, Conservative, progressive,
(19:54):
didn't matter. We're just in denial. They're like, can this
must be an exaggeration, It can't be that bad. What
do you mean you feel scared when you walk at night?
Like some pretty basic stuff? Basic basic stuff, right, And
I thought, these are people who clearly care for the
women around them, So why the denial? And in fact,
(20:15):
I think that it's pretty clear that me too was
like a punch to the gut for two primary things
that men associate with being good people, providing and protecting.
If women are saying I want to provide for myself.
I don't want to go into a workplace where I'm
harassed and I can't get a promotion unless I have
sex with someone, they're like, I want to provide for myself,
(20:37):
that's thing one. And if women can provide for themselves.
Then what are men supposed to do? And then thing
two is you're not protecting me. You would have to
follow me twenty four to seven, and even then you
couldn't protect me. You can't protect me on the way
to school, in the bus, in the bathroom, in the
parking lot, in the office, in like wherever. So what
is it to providing and protecting that's left? And I
(20:59):
just I think it's pretty It makes a lot of
cognitive sense to say that's just not happening, that's just
not as bad as you're saying.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's just yeah, it does not compute like that that
the that people are lying about their lived experience is
the most logical and acceptable answer to the situation at hand,
because it cannot possibly be that the world is as
you say it is.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Because if it is, am I a good person, well
be a good person?
Speaker 3 (21:24):
How is there a place for me?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And we come back again to the root of everything
we've talked about is connection and relatedness and being able
to be soft and shift and connect and allow the
pain of the world to enter into that and enter
into our relationship so that we can get honestly, like
in my my most Pollyanna moment is like we can
(21:50):
get what we all long for, which is being seen
and connected and supported for who we truly are and valued.
Like we can do that when we tell the truth
and all others to tell the truth about their own lives,
and when we let that stuff in, Like, to me,
that's the beautiful world, right, But it involves a lot
of messiness and a lot of reckoning and a lot
(22:11):
of outrage.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
All of those things, and it involves all those negative
emotions nobody wants to deal with. Yeah, that's really I
think a lot of it. Like, yeah, and nobody likes
to give up power? Who are we kidding? No?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
And there's I mean, it's that shift of what does
power even mean? And I think we could probably talk
for ten more hours on the concept of power and what.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Is true power.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Actually I like this idea though, of Like we've mentioned
this several times in our conversation, that we have one
acceptable channel for anger and it belongs to a very specific,
well described person in a very well described way, and
it's not available to anybody else. And one of the
things that you said was that there are many ways
(22:54):
to be angry, And I feel like, I feel like
if we could spend a couple of minutes talking about
the that we can be angry because I'm not capable
of always ending on a happy ending, especially if it
doesn't make sense. And I want to know what to
do with the anger, with the looking at our relationships
(23:17):
and the state of the world and all there is
to grieve and all there is to be angry about,
and have an idea of what's next.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So I thought a lot about this. Yeah, and the
conclusion I came to was really this idea that we
have to stop thinking of it as a negative emotion.
That's thing one. The thing too is okay, Well, once
we decide this isn't bad, it is what it is,
What do I learn from it? What is it that
(23:46):
I want? How can I make that happen? If I
can't make it happen, what next I have to accept something.
Maybe I am grieving because I understand this won't change.
Like I had a fifteen year old come up to
me in a high school one day after I get
a talk, and poor thing. She was so distraught, and
she said, do you think that patriarchy will end in
my lifetime? She was serious, She was so overwhelmed, and
(24:12):
she just didn't know what to do, you know, and
it was a little heartbreaking because I couldn't say yes,
you know. But I think then you think, well, what
can I do? You know, what should I do? How
do I transcend this this grief? And that's an interesting
way to put it, right, transcending the grief, because you
(24:32):
have to go through the grief. I think, like, you
don't put it aside, you don't climb over it.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
It's you know, it's not.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
A stool, you know. And so I thought in the book,
I thought, Okay, well, the fact is it's a kind
of an energy that we have, and what can we
do with it? Because I always found that in anger,
I think, like grief have come some of my dearest relationships.
(25:03):
No activist feminist movement that I've ever been part of
did not start with a woman getting angry. And there's
so much humor and so much vision, and so much
creativity and so much caring that goes into that anger
and the relationships that are born by it. The recognition
that other women, for example, and men, but in my
(25:26):
experience it was mainly women. The recognition that we share
this anger was a source of comfort and joy and happiness.
And then the anger turns into something different, because in fact,
it's informed a relationship that has this remarkable potential for
connection and change. So I do think that that's all true.
(25:48):
And I've been bowled over since I published this book
in twenty eighteen by the sheer number of people that
have contacted me to share their artistic outputs, sculpture, poetry, writing, painting.
It's an infinite array of people saying, Okay, you know
(26:12):
what I feel this way. I need to do something
about it. I can't do X, I'm going to do Y.
And out of their creativity comes connection, comes community, comes
this sharing of experience that makes a new meaning for people.
And I think that goes back to what we said.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Earlier that it's not just I feel this. I don't
want to be destructive with it. I guess I won't
feel it at all. It's more like, what how can
I connect? How can I express? How can I relate
with this? There's the list. When I saw that quote
where you said there are so many ways to be anger,
You're like joyful anger, creative anger, political, artistic, and social anger,
Like there are so many things you can do with
(26:53):
your outrage.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, I think so and for some people it's baking.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
For us, absolutely, I don't care what you do with it.
Like the it's it's be in relationship with the with
the reality of your of your embodied experience, right.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Like for other people it's it's forming community organizations for
other people starting schools. It doesn't matter what it is. Yeah,
you know, that's why I say it's it's social emotion.
Like we want to call an angry girl or woman
sad because that is an emotion of retreat. Anger is
(27:31):
a forward emotion. In anger itself is hope because you
can't be angry if you don't hope that something could change.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yes, I love that there.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I was going to quote you because there's this great
thing that you said that anger is the expression of hope.
And I and I do try to end each episode
here with what is hope? Knowing what you know and
living what you've lived. What does hope look like for
you right now?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
So?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Can we can we talk about that?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Like a very bad day?
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Hey, they happen.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Man, I am hopeless a lot of the time, which
is why we're having these conversations because I think for me,
hope is always like used grammatically and correctly. And also
it's not realistic, like I hope that things work out
for the best.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
No, yeah, why That's why I've stopped thinking in terms
of hope, and I've thought forbearance and endurance and notive thing,
but endurance as equanimity over time, endurance as a deeper understanding,
And a lot of my focus personally is on understanding
(28:37):
the way modern culture, modernity created a kind of temporal
regime that informs all of our lives, and that was
disrupted by COVID, by the way, like cod COVID threw
the cadence of modern life into total disarray, and some
people came out of that with I'm not going back.
(28:58):
I'm just not doing that again. I'm slowing down. I'm
finding a new jo like whatever it is. They're like,
no way am I doing that again. But I think
a lot about these standards and what they mean for
notions like hope, And how do we think about time
when we think about hope? How do we think about
(29:19):
time when we think about resilience? How do we think
about the linear that the notion of linearity in grief? Right,
our experiences are that they're this linearity. It doesn't exist
so why are we shaping our expectations around it? You know?
And so for me, hope is two steps forward, one
step back, step to the right, step to the left,
(29:40):
go up a little, maybe go down a little. It's
just not it's not this thing that's just you know,
an arrow going that way. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I like hope as a more amorphous living thing that
we find ways to express or find ways to dismiss
depending on the day.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
We didn't think about We didn't talk about this at all.
But there's this sort of French postmodern philosophers late twentieth
century Duluzin Gatari, whose theories of kind of riizomatic knowledge
and thinking they kind of go through loops of being
criticized and then having a resurgence. But what I'm seeing
(30:23):
that's really funny just in the culture in the last
several years, is this fascination with mushrooms and my celia,
and it really aligns so closely with their thinking about
how life works. And we have what they called ar
boreal thinking and knowing there's you know, we're rooted in
the ground, and there's a central core and then things
(30:45):
branch off and there are logical endpoints. They're like fuck
that that's just not right right. So in fact, it's
really helped me to think of hope.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
In that way as rizomatic.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, because you don't know where it begins.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
In mycological ecological hope. That great, that's a great name
for something that's mycological.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
But definitely this notion that you can begin an end
anywhere and that you don't know and that things move
in every direction at all times. I just like that.
It just resonates more.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I love that. I think I'm going to reflect on
that for a while. Mycological hope. What would what would
mushroom based mycology hope? Because I you know, I was
a student of Joanna Macy for a long time, and
I whenever I was temporarily stuck, I would go with
her thinking like a mountain, right, thinking in geologic time,
for pacing and all of these things, thinking like a mountain.
(31:40):
But I think I think my new my new form
of that is going to be thinking like a mycological organism.
I don't know if it's still true, but the last
time I went looking for it, the largest known biological
organism in the world is it my ceilium. It's a
it's an it was either I think there was a
race for a while between a standard of aspens or
(32:01):
a single mushroom system that was like nine miles.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yes, I think at last I read it was the mushroom.
I don't know, I'll go back.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, yeah, I think there there was some scientific there
was some branching there that the aspens didn't really count
as a single organism in the same.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Way that the mushroom might anyway.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Full nerdom and the ways that it relates to what
we've been talking about with like, I love this. I
love that there is no entry point, there is no
exit point. Start where you are, and if you don't
like where you are in your understandings of how anger
lives in you and what it means to claim that
anger and to claim whatever hope looks like for you,
Like I don't know, pick a different fruiting body on
(32:40):
the mushroom system and explore that one.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
And you may be surprised, you know, because I think
if we're rigid about it, honestly, it's to me in
the end, it's how cognitively flexible can you allow yourself
to be because you just don't know. I'd never know.
I'm like, oh, well, that was surprising. Why was it
surprising to me? Advised me about that personal experience or place.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Curiosity is really a good.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
And self compassion. I've never been one for the self
care industry. I think it's morbal.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
That's part of capitalism, sure.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Part of capitalism. And also it's so easy for neoliberalism
to take the language of self compassion and just could
turn it into something very unhelpful. But I do actually
think that until we understand how ourselves are formed by
our cultures, it's hard to be forgiving. A forgiving of
(33:34):
the time. We need very hard to take time.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, take time without that added causil of take care
of yourself, care for yourself so that you can come
back and be productive. Right, So it's separating that and
realizing that listening to yourself and caring for yourself and
taking care is an end stop in and of itself.
You don't do that so that X.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Y and Z's I don't have to see Antricia hers
she's the nap ministry.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yes, love it.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
So that's more or less where we came to write
like she exactly that's what she's talking about. And in
her case, she's so clear, she's like you can't talk
about rest and self compassion without talking about white supremacy. Yeah,
but you can't do it, so don't do it.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, right, Like if you can't say the whole the
whole system, then like you're missing the point of it.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
You do it and you don't say it, you're part
of the problem, not the solution, you know. And that
just requires people to sit quietly with their anger, with
their grief, with their discomfort, with their shame. It's not
easy for.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Anyone, No, it truly truly isn't and conversations about it
naming it Like, for me, that is the power of
this work is in a way where we're creating structures
for people to explore and experiment with by naming what
is actually happening, and it's it's giving people options. And
I'm I'm so glad that you and I got the
(35:01):
chance to talk about this stuff together. Now obviously in
the show notes, I'm going a link to your ted talk.
I'm middle link to your book. Is there anything else
you want people to know where to look for you
when your next book is coming out?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Thank you? I have I have a website that's just
my name, and then dot com Sarajhmada dot com. There
are some other books there if people are interested. No,
thank you, I think that's.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Good, excellent, Okay, we are going to put that in
the show notes everybody. Sarriah, thank you so much for
being here. Stay with us, everybody. We will be right
back with your questions to carry with you or right
after this.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Each week I leave you with.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Some questions to carry with you until we meet again.
Here's the thing for me in this episode parts one
and two. It's amazing just how hopeful it is to
connect with the angry people.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
As Sarriah said, anger is a social emotion and connecting
with people who feel as passionate about the state of
the world as you do. Well, that's the kind of
community that I want to be part of.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
What about you?
Speaker 2 (36:17):
What's stuck with you today? From this conversation on anger
and grief and joy and connection? What parts made you
think or cry or feel even just the edge of
your own anger brewing and waiting to be free. Everybody's
going to take something different from today's show, but I
do hope you find something to hold on to check
(36:41):
out Refuge and Grief on Instagram or here after Pod
on TikTok to see video clips from the show, and
please leave your thoughts in the comments on those posts.
Everybody's got something to say about anger and I want
to hear it. Be sure to tag us in your
conversation starting posts on your own social media use the
hashtag here after pod on all the platforms. We love
(37:03):
to see where this show takes you, and remember to
subscribe and leave a review. Reviews help more than you
know they're not. Just like I like to see reviews
of how much you love the show, but it also
helps potential listeners know that this is a pretty rad
show to listen to. Anyway, if you want to tell
us how today's show felt for you, or you have
(37:25):
a request or a question for upcoming explorations of difficult things,
send us an email. You can do that right on
the website. Megandivine dot Co. We want to hear from you.
I want to hear from you. This show, this world
needs your voice. Together, we can make things better even
(37:46):
when they can't be made right.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Want more Hereafter.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Grief education doesn't just belong to end of life issues.
Life is full of losses from everyday disappointments to events
that clearly divide life into before and after. Learning how
to talk about all that without cliches or platitudes or
simplistic think positive posters is an important skill for everyone.
Find trainings, workshops, books and resources for every human trying
(38:13):
to make their way in the world after something goes
horribly wrong at Megandivine dot Co. Hereafter with Megan Divine
is written at produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer
is Amy Brown and Elizabeth Fozzio, Edited by Houston Tilley.
Music provided by wave Crush,
Host
Megan Devine
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