When it is time to transform my life, I usually get very pissed off.
Iyanla Vanzant’s states: The Truth Will Set You Free but First It’s Gonna Piss You Off. I have always loved this chestnut.
Being pissed off is a powerful agent for change.
Every time I’ve made a major life change, you can best believe there was a considerable chunk of fire -breathing anger behind it. It’s funny to me that people, myself included, for a very long time, considered anger and its elimination the appropriate response when shit is going down that is anything but appropriate.
We often mask disappointment and confusion with anger then get to pretend that “everything is ok” when in our heart of hearts it isn’t.
Most people fear anger because they’ve never seen anyone channel it in a way that creates real change.
Anger often precedes transformation.
Anger transformed my relationships with money, creativity and personal relationships.
Many years ago, I interviewed for a position teaching in an after school drama program.
When it came time to discuss compensation, I shared my desire to earn $75 an hour. The interviewer feigned shock and shared with me that the lead instructor made $20 an hour.
After some back and forth, we agreed on $75 for each two hour session.
This was a lesson that told me the importance of speaking up and demanding to be paid my worth.
For many years, fellow artists told me to focus on making art and worry about the coins later.
In other words, stay broke!
This warped and ridiculous life management system ran my life unitl I was 43.
At that point, I met a wonderful artist (who is now my husband of eight years) who asked: why are you living this way?
After a few embarrassing conversations and a gut punch to provide some clear thinking, I fought back against a world that told me good art comes from poor artists.
I applied a new type of money management which is a form of self management and turned my money life around.
And here’s where it gets interesting…
The fuel to change my relationship with money also revealed itself in my creative endeavors.
I can’t tell you how many snickers or full out guffaws I’ve gotten from people when I ‘ve shared personal dreams and visions.
At one point, I wrote a play about a young man’s coming out and the aftermath experienced by his family.
The play was a comedy with a gag about a tub of ice cream being deliverd to the family home.
Fellow artists laughed and teased me then reminded me that this was impossible.
A decade later and Amazon and markets can deliver anything at any hour. But I digress.
I allowed this experience to piss me off and spur me on to believe in the play with the knowledge that there will always be folks who don’t “get it”.
Since that experience, I’ve completed more than six plays (one of which won an award); twenty podcast episodes, a feature film, two documentaries and launched a production company.
And finally, here’s the real power of anger and what it did for me.
Anger moved me from years of dating assholes and sociopaths into healthier, long term partnerships. Anger pushed me into moving to Japan and visiting Greece when stupid partners told me that n&!$as don’t go Japan and that it wasn’t a good time to go to Europe whenever I brought it up.
Being “nice” instead of kind brought me nothing but grief, tear-filled nights and signal clarifying days.
Getting angry allowed me to recognize why my constantly negotiable boundaries were being violated then create an action plan to prevent such foolishness from ever occuring again.
I removed parasitic and emotionally stunted paramours from my life and served pink slips to deadbeats and toxic one-sided friendhsips as well.
We are often fooled into believing that what goes around comes around and that we get what we deserve if we are patient and wait long enough.
Anger doesn’t wait and demands to be seen. Anger says pay attention-something ain’t right.
What are you pissed off about?