Years ago, when I said no more emotional manipulation,
that was the moment I was more afraid of losing myself
than of losing my family.
Over time, they stopped.
Not because they understood at first,
but because I no longer responded to the old pattern.
They didn’t change.
I did.
I saw the pattern in myself and I stopped manipulating.
I stopped responding from guilt, fear, and the need to belong.
And although they rarely do it now,
when they do, it no longer has power over me.
Anger has a bad reputation,
but it brings me back my power.
When I receive it and allow myself to feel it consciously,
it reveals my Truth.
Unexpressed anger
turns into sadness, resentment and illness.
I feel it as fire in my belly, the center of self-affirmation.
When it accumulates,
tension scale in the body.
In my family I witnessed both extremes of repressed anger.
On one side,
someone who stayed silent and swallowed everything to avoid conflict.
On the other,
anger spilling over: yelling, belittling, power games.
Now I see that neither of these is the true flow of anger.
One turns inward, harming me.
The other turns outward, harming others.
(I still work on both patterns).
And in extreme cases, the rage escalates to emotional or physical violence.
This cannot be justified
in the name of love or spiritual endurance.
Anger touches: boundaries.
Needs.
Desires.
Inherent dignity.
Truth.
Sometimes anger is sustained by a story:
perceived injustice, expectations, old wounds.
When the story falls, the anger dissolves.
Other times, someone crosses my boundaries.
I pause —Presence —Feel it.
From there, a calm no is born.
Deep. Direct.
It does not shout.
It does not explain.
And if necessary, there is action.
It takes me out of self-imprisonment —the victim mentality.
I do not negotiate my Truth to belong.
When I listen to my anger,
I discover more of myself.
I recognize what I allow.
What I do not.
I recognize what I need.
What is nourishing.
To embodying my standards.
Anger teaches me
not to abandon myself.
Not to betray myself.
Not to perform.
It reminds me that I am free.
That I can stop repeating.
That I can choose differently.
When I begin to Love myself more,
at first it burns and destroys to make space.
It feels uncontrollable. Then it settles.
And it warms.
And reveals.
My dignity is not negotiable.
Love stops just being energetic.
Love is a verb.
I give myself what I expected from outside.
And from there,
I open myself to receive Love aligned with Truth.