Many of us are carrying anger right now that makes sense.

When the world feels unstable, when violence is unchecked and rising, when people we care about are being harmed or erased—we feel it in our bodies. In our sleep. In our tone, our tears, our tightness, our impatience, our exhaustion.

I want to name this with tenderness: you are not wrong for feeling deeply.

Anger is a healthy response to injustice.

When we see unfairness as young people, we feel outrage.

As connected adults, we can still feel that outrage on behalf of others when we witness their dehumanization.

This kind of outrage is based in our humanity. It’s a response rooted in love and our ability to feel connected. Of course we’re outraged when we witness someone’s dignity being squashed or ignored.

It helps us stay awake.

It helps us stay human.

It helps us remember what matters.

Rage is different.

Rage comes from powerlessness.

It is toxic.

It gets internalized in the body and shows up as disease.

It can push us toward actions that aren’t effective because they’re guided by hurt, victimization, and hopelessness.

Rage creates the kind of movement that feels like you’re doing something when you’re really just rocking in place. Like a rocking chair—we feel like we’re moving but we aren’t going anywhere.

Many of us confuse rage with passion or motivation.

I know I did.

I held rage for a long time, and it made me sick. Not only in my body, but in my spirit.

I thought it was keeping me going.

I thought it was proof that I cared.

But it blurred my vision. It confused me about my own humanity and other people’s humanity.

And ultimately, it made me less effective at bringing about the change I wanted to see in the world.

The hard truth my mentor Lillian invited me to face: I had to start with myself.

That meant feeling and releasing the powerless, discouragement, and overwhelm. Feelings fueling my rage. Feelings that still arise in me at times.

It meant admitting that I needed support.

It meant learning how to stay in contact with my pain without letting that pain drive me and my actions.

Little by little, it meant finding my way back to something more solid, more human, more true.

Someone once told me, “You lead where you need to learn.”

I have held those words close.

I made a decision to lead where I needed to move. In me. For me.

To keep pointing myself toward where I want to go.

To gather the words and wisdom that help me stay oriented there.

This is not about bypassing the reality of what is happening.

It’s about refusing to let despair have the final word.

It’s about not allowing distress—mine or society’s—to define me.

It’s about choosing clarity over collapse.

It’s about letting outrage help us protect dignity, while also tending the tenderness and fatigue that so many of us are carrying right now.