Rage, psychic rage at that, alienates you from compassion. Compassion, for self and for others, is the doorway to accountability, expansion, and personal power. It matters that many of us who have been marginalized walk around hating our building blocks. I specifically want to talk about Black Psychic Rage.
Many individuals designated Black hold onto a psychic rage that many have been able to describe more eloquently than I ever have (Wynter, Fanon, etc. – feel free to explore). I can only speak to it from what I’ve seen in an interventional, highly spiritual space. I can make this much weirder, but I can tell you that the first conversation I had with the dead, which I can recall consciously, occurred when I was 4. I was born this way, like pretty much at least one person per generation on both sides of my family as far back as I can touch. If you’ve met me, you’ve likely seen “knowing” in my eyes and not understood it. Perhaps you were drawn to it. I didn’t understand it myself. This allows me to get close to the unseen, and with the unseen comes deep emotion that most people are socialized not to express. This breeds defensiveness and, you guessed it, more alienation.
Back to rage. I actually don’t routinely encounter hostility to my spirituality from those designated white. There’s the occasional disdain stemming from idolatry to the handful of white (mostly) men who’ve rebranded natural understandings as capital-S “Science” the last few centuries. That rolls off because, simply put, I don’t care. I’ve had enough of being put at a distance from myself, pushed into the corner of my very being to appease structures that never will be appeased. I’ve actually spent more of my life in that space than I have outside of it. To leave that space is to get nearer to self-compassion and deeper understanding. I want people to get into the space of thriving that I call The Bloom-Space.
Examples of this Black psychic rage can range from actual loathing of “Blackness,” but it can also look like, “We are so powerful, how did that happen to us?” There’s a hint of blame in that statement – a shade of “How could you let this happen?” directed at our ancestors, as though they crafted these systems. (It’s the state of “wretchedness” Fanon described. It is sorrow, it is pain, it is anger – it is rage.) As much as I’d like to be wrong about this one, I’m not. I’ve experienced this myself. I’ve always been thrown into proximity with white “excellence” and the older I got, the less impressed I was. This made it easier to pull away from any sense that I was inferior. (That’s the post-sale okey-doke; the sale in question is slavery.)
Fundamental historical misunderstandings and designs intended to keep the spirit broken continue to persist. As they persist, every single one of us gets further away from self-compassion and self-knowledge. Black people are continuously kept in conditions, material and psychic, that alienate them from their personal power. People kept broken in spirit are easier to contain and exploit. I feel the power in my blood, the wholeness and strength of my spirit. It is what allows me to help others get closer to theirs.
No one has to believe in metaphysics or crystals to plead their own blood. It is not a church or temple that gives you connection to your blood. It’s the awakening and/or the community you find there. The destructiveness of religion has nothing to do with spiritual wholeness. Religious traditions bind – the power is in the bond, which you can craft just about anywhere with anyone or anything. Crafting those bonds brings us closer to wholeness.
So, I urge you not to alienate yourselves from self-compassion because that is where accountability lies. Where accountability is, so is personal power. Where personal power is, so is truth. Where truth is, so is healing – medicine for wounding, ancestral or otherwise. Where healing is, so is greater resourcing. Where greater resourcing is, expansion follows. I have a firm belief our personal work here on earth is repair, but it starts with addressing ourselves. It is okay to address the rage and choose differently.