Episode #23: HOT TAKE: Anger Isn’t Dangerous — Repression Is.

Every October, I gather with women for something that looks a little wild from the outside: "The Great Pumpkin Smash".

We write down the things we’re done carrying — the guilt, the grief, the rage — and then we smash those damn pumpkins into the ground. And this ritual actually comes in two parts:

Part one: expressing anger in a safe way: through sound, movement, & symbolic release so the energy has somewhere to go instead of living inside you.

Part two: being witnessed in your anger: surrounded by others who don’t flinch, fix, or fear it so your body learns that expression doesn’t equal rejection. That you can be fully seen in your fire and still be loved.

Why? Because women are taught that anger is ugly, that expressing it makes us dramatic or ungrateful. For so many of us, anger directed at us was never safe. It came as yelling, silence, punishment, or withdrawal. So our bodies learned early that anger — any anger — meant danger.

So instead, we swallow it. It turns into headaches, anxiety, exhaustion, people-pleasing. We become experts at smoothing things over, shrinking our reactions, smiling through it. And every time we do, that unexpressed fire gets stored somewhere in the body — our chest, our throat, our gut — simmering quietly under the surface.

Rituals like this give that fire somewhere safe to go. They let you express anger in a way that doesn’t harm you or anyone else and be witnessed in it without judgment. Because that’s the other piece of healing: realizing that your power, your voice, your raw emotion don’t make you “too much.”

They make you whole.

Join us for this episode as I share the story of that night, guide you through a short somatic practice for safely expressing anger, and let you hear directly from a few of our Sacred Circle sisters about their experience in the ritual.

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We will see you next Wednesday for our next episode!