Female Rage, Midlife Anger and turning it into power

We explore female anger as life force, tracing how resentment turns to rage, how society polices women’s voices, and how boundaries transform heat into clean power. Real stories, body wisdom, and practical steps to name it, own it, and act with care and clarity.

• simmering resentment in midlife and the hidden load
• the dishwasher as symbol of unequal labour
• sensing anger in the body and naming it
• anger’s scale from despair to joy
• safety, patriarchy and why women’s voices get labelled
• history, leadership and the cost of suppression
• grief for wasted years and missed nos
• boundaries that hold and non‑negotiables
• parenting big feelings with firm limits
• healthy release without harm and turning anger into action

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Transcript

Naming Female Rage

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Say It Sister, the space where two midlife women speak truth, feel deeply, and change the world together. We are Karen Harris Kelly and Lucy Barkas. We're friends, we're coaches, and we're women who have had enough of staying silent about topics that really matter to us. And we want to share our conversations with you out loud.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Hey, it's great to see you, Karen. And uh today we're bringing our raw energy into our conversation and out to play. We're talking about female anger, that inner rage that bubbles up and you just can't push it down anymore. It can be scolding, uncontainable, and it's like this fire that's beyond anger. If frustration is cold, buried version of anger, and resentment is the bitterness, then rage is the version that refuses to stay quiet.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Well, personally, I've been doing anger work since my late 20s, and I remember how hard I found it back then, how I was like having to go really, really deep, and it felt just weird. Um, but when I got into the anger, there was so much of it which always really shocked me. But lately it feels different. And I said to my husband the other day, I feel like I could smash the whole house up. I'm so angry, and saying it really helped me to sort of name what I was feeling. You know, it did shift something for me, but I'm also aware that there is still the rage that sits in beneath my system. Um and instead of pushing it down, I want to release it, but I'm also a little bit wary of the neighbours if I start shouting. So I'm kind of trying to hold all of these things. And you know, when we work, we do our work with Wise Women Lead, we are seeing that this is common for women, and we're seeing where they're at. And to be honest, we're all feeling the same. You know, we have all these needs that arise into the top, like volcanoes that are about to explode, and there's so much pressure, so much suppression, and the lava is right there under the surface.

The Volcano Under Midlife

SPEAKER_01 1:59

So I met a friend who I hadn't seen you know, to properly converse with for at least a year, and um she's brilliant, she's you know, the academic type works in a very high lecturer kind of role. Um, she's got two brilliant teens who are probably, you know, um, I'd say mid teens and then going off onto their next journey of education, and they're excelling, they're brilliant. And then she'd written me a message just saying um something about co-parenting. So I'm like, Monacora said, co-parenting, does that mean you're not with your husband anymore? And she said, Yeah, about 13, 14 months ago, she she quit that marriage, and she was saying, you know, that she's still really good friends with him, she's got a lot of love for him, a lot of respect. But actually, for years there'd been this simmering resentment. Uh, she was a career woman, he had his career, they both had the responsibility of the home and raising the kids. But she said, you know, he just wouldn't cook, wouldn't do the laundry, wouldn't tidy up after himself, um, couldn't think for himself. Um, he would like almost purposely do a bad job of loading the dishwasher, yet he was quite capable of running uh an organization. So it was like this, you know, on purpose being useless, just so she'd be like, Well, I'll just do it. And I think she, well, she admitted herself that she had been carrying and rescuing and fixing and filling in the gaps for too long until she just couldn't do it anymore. Um, and literally she's saying, you know, I literally just needed 50-50 household labour, childcare labour, a bit of that emotional labour. Um, and so none of this was instant. And that's what she said since talking to other women who are um leaving their lives as such. Um, she said, it's never instant, it's never actually the volcano. That simmering anger and rage and resentment bubbles a long time before you quit. Um, and and her ex-husband was completely surprised, didn't see it coming at all. Um, and so you know, I just wanted to share that that it shows up in so many ways, but there's a reason why in menopause there's also a term that's come out called men divorce, because that seems to be the outlet that comes, but it is from this simmering rage, and and let's be honest, um, we're all now pretty clear that the systems we exist in weren't built for us, and we've spoken about this many, many times that we were told that we could have it all, and we were shoved into these moulds and uh told to be grateful. We know that we've experienced it ourselves, but actually, we can't hold all these multiple roles and carry in these invisible jobs. Um, so yeah, while in the workplace within the home, it just gets harder and harder. Um, and I know that's been your experience at times as well, where eventually you just say, enough.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

The breaking point, which is something that I've become very obsessed with lately, you know, that it's amazing because the dishwasher seems to be the cause of many, many divorces or many breakups, because it's like that dishwasher, the way that that is not being handled is the final breaking point that creates the end of the relationship, whether it's a marriage or not, you know, and we really know that they're not really arguing about the dishwasher.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah.

Co‑Parenting And The Quiet Build‑Up

SPEAKER_00 5:34

You know, there's like you said, there's many more things. I think for me, female rage is so deep in the body, it's been pushed down for so many years, and we can feel it simmering, but we're very good still, even though we're in perimenopause and we're raging, we're still really good at going, we can name it now and say, I'm so angry, or I'm raging, you know, and maybe we'll shout in our car or whatever at somebody driving past us or whatever we're doing, but then then we go and we push it down again, and what we don't do is release it out fully. Um it's interesting because when I do the work with women, I'll say to them, like, I feel that anger's in the space or in the body or in the room with us. I feel like it's there because it has an impact on me, and I'll but rather than I don't all sometimes I'll say feels like anger, sometimes I don't, because I want them to know what it is, and so I'll say, Well, what is that feeling and where is it? And they go in and I'll say, Was it is it hot, cold, or tepid? Now, if the temperature tells me everything that I need to know, that's when we go we can go into sort of naming and labelling, but fundamentally they need to feel that, and I think yeah, you know, that sort of like cold, insipid feeling of resentment, you know, it sort of lies quite deep down in the in the in the core of the body. You know, when people say it's cold, I'm like, Oh god, it's been there ages, then it's really old, you know, and it it's it's like a journey, isn't it? And and what I've also learned is that uh emotions are families and they sit together in spaces, and certain ones sort of like sit together, but then you've got other emotions that are joining. So, for example, you know, you've got despair as the very bottom um, the very bottom chord on the piano that's like the you know, the really deep bassy, you can't get any lower than that, and that's like flat line bottom, can't get up depressed, and then by the time we get up to anger, we're halfway through the journey, and then at the very top you've got love and joy. So actually, we're completely in this place of like moving through scales and chords, like we're playing a piano. We always talk about the piano, and whilst we want to be up at this frequency at the top, we've also got to realise that sometimes we're at the bottom, and then anger is that one that gets us moving, gets us, gets gives us life force energy, you know, like says we we're just not doing that anymore. And as we get into our forties and fifties, our relationship changes, and I just don't think we can we can push it down for sure, because I still do that, but it's like it won't go down like deep enough, you know. Like before you could get it right down, now it's like kind of sitting more like you know, like more like around here, and then it's sort of rising up again, and it takes those little like breaking points, like the the dishwasher that you know off it comes, and you know, our masks are slipping. Um we feel like you know, like we're going on or we're getting like angry at no, you know, sometimes it's like why am I so angry at that? Why am I so angry at the dishwasher? Um, because there's so much more, yeah. You know, and and it's just about going, oh I'm curious about that now. Like, you know, Curus feels a little bit cold still to me, actually. It's like I know I have to go do that work, and understanding that we've got the hormonal shifts, we've also got a spiritual shift, and we're also redefining who we are now. Um, you know, and then the the decades of swallowing, stuffing things down, that all needs to be handled in some way, in a safe way, so that we can get back into our power again. I mean, anger can be really powerful, but we're probably doing the wrong things and we're probably gonna get anger back. So if we're out there sort of like splatting anger out, someone's gonna turn around and splat back to us, and so you can't.

The Dishwasher As Breaking Point

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Yeah, I think that's the the world we live in today. Um, angry women aren't safe uh because of the the way that society is constructed. And yesterday I was um I was flicking through Instagram and I saw this amazing video, and it was a women's choir, but it was using women's angry, loud voices um for the harmonies, and the overlay that went on it was basically saying that the reason why um society and particularly men don't like the sound of a woman's scream or a shout is because they've they've not been accustomed to dealing with emotion of any kind. So the the message was basically when a woman screams, yells. I mean, you know, well, if you'd have heard me in childbirth, you'd I I was surprised at the voice that came out of me. But actually, it was just a really natural expression of what was going on in that time. But for men, they've been taught to contain and to control and to be level. So when they hear it in us, they call us crazy, um, dysregulated.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

And actually, the woman's worse, I think they say worse things than dysregulated. That feels like a nice term for what the people like I was not regulated giving birth, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

But but yeah, even now when I remember arguments with my ex who used to just pod me and push me to make me snap, and then he would then call me the crazy one, or God, you've lost it, look at you, or not in front of the kids, whatever it was, because um it was almost like a bit of a game that he played, but it was almost like, ah, now that's that's the real you, Lucy. And I'm like, No, you push me to this rage because you wouldn't listen to me or you wouldn't acknowledge me. Um, and it comes back to that whole thing of like, well, women aren't supposed to be angry, um, but you know, we're supposed to be the good girls, we're supposed to be compliant and agree and you know, um push that voice down. But you know, try telling Boudicca that um to try and be, you know, compliant and when the Romans came in and took her property, and then in punishment of her complaints, then raped and murdered all of her daughters. You know, that's that's gonna create some rage, and she's one of our legends, she's somebody that we all know about in British history, but women are taught to revere, and it's almost like um the Victorians, or maybe a bit before, you know, it pushed taught us how to be so prim and proper, sugar and spice and all things nice. But that's not what w woman, it's not what a human experience is.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

No, it's not real, is it? It's not real life, it's definitely not real life today. You know, I think women were sort of like, you know, they got married and they were sort of locked up, weren't they really? And they were bringing up the kids and doing all that, and you know, so many women out that didn't really get to express themselves. And for me, you know, anger is a form of expression.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

What we do with it, it can create the most amazing things, like you said, that the the choirs, you know, when you look at the hacker, you look at that, it's just this amazing revolutions and um you know, the a lot of the political or or should I say, holding the government to account for stuff is caused by women saying this is not fair. And I always go back to the um the Hillsborough disaster, and it was the mothers who were fighting that because they were angry that do not blame my child, do not blame you know the supporters, and they fought. So I know that anger channelled can be really, really life-changing.

Feeling Anger In The Body

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Absolutely, and I you know the whole thing about I think the thing for me is about suppressed anger is it hurts the woman. And this is the thing that we learn we learn as we go through life, and especially now later on, and it's like internalized rage is the worst place for that rage to go. But we but we you know I mean I was like googling the other day, like did women have women started wars? And actually quite a lot of women have started wars, but they've done it under the patriarchal um system of you know landing.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Can I challenge that? Is it really quite a few women or have women done it?

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Well, it's quite a few came on in comparison to to men. Well, I didn't ask the question about men, but when I looked, I was I was surprised because the claim I was making for myself was women don't start wars, so I was like, I'd better go check that out. And then I was like, actually that's not true. But they are women in you know patriarchal systems that you know, for example, Queen Elizabeth created a lot of wars, and you know, what the British Empire did, you know, going out and claiming land. Victoria upheld the empire, you know, exactly. So, but that was under the patriarchal way of operating, and obviously, as a queen born into that system, her job was to, you know, build and grow our nation. So she delivered f she delivered in that seat, but it wasn't uh a women's um approach to society and life and culture. So when we're in a system, you may have women carrying these things out, but they're doing it from the place of um the seat. This is what is expected of me, yeah. And if you don't do it, then someone else will come in and do it for you, we'll do it anyway, you know. And I think I think I see the trappings of that in the work that I do. It's like, well, actually, if I'm in this seat, therefore I have to carry these things out because if I don't, I won't have the seat anymore, you know, and and the awareness that when you could go find another seat somewhere else, it was better for you. Um, you know, and that's part of a different type of conversation. So we're going off like we've we've gone off as well as soon.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Elizabeth and Victoria will have felt rage, they will have felt angry that maybe they couldn't have done things a certain way, or if somebody had tried to betray them, or um that the male advisers who didn't trust them were playing Machiavellian games around them, they will have had anger and rage. It's just we only see these images of them being very regal and serene. But no, I can absolutely imagine they they would have been raging.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

I think the thing with it as well, if we bring it this back now to modern times, because we've kind of gone on a bit of a history tour here, and it is this idea of what I see with women in the workplace now is that they take the seats and sometimes what they're asked to do, they can do it for a certain amount of time, you know. But if it involves people and people that they care about and their teams, there's a different approach. And so when it comes to values, morals, principles, they're not willing to they're not willing they may, you know, they may think we can always justify something to ourself. You know, if I do that, if I do that, if I do that, then I can secure these people, you know, whatever it might be. But actually, when it comes down to it, if it goes against the principles that we have on the inside, there's only a matter of time that they're willing that they'll stay in those roles before they go elsewhere. Um and that's the bit that I I'm sort of talking about here, and and actually the cost of that suppressed rage that they feel when something is just wrong is brutal. And I've seen that over the last couple of years, you know, with with really senior leaders and just thought the price is too high. And they get to the point of the price is too high, and that's when a senior leader will leave or go somewhere else. And you know, they're obviously looking for some somewhere better, they're looking for somewhere where the organizations are approaching things differently. I don't think you ever really know until you're in the seat what's really going on behind closed doors, but um I just know that women are just not willing to, you know, do that, and also the cost of the suppression of their anger is so great that it does it does do something physically um in their bodies um in terms of illness and different things. So yeah, we've got to learn to um acknowledge what's happening, listen to our bodies, work out what we need to do with the emotions, and then work out what we need to do with our own path and our own journey as leaders, and not um for me it's like there's a just there's always that there's always a line or a point when we go, actually I'm not willing to do that, and having those really clear non-negotiables, um, because if we're feeling the rage and we're feeling the anger, it's because we're being asked to compromise too much, and that that price is too high.

Anger’s Scale From Despair To Joy

SPEAKER_01 17:44

And I think the the key here is to um to not let that anger and rage out in a way that's going to be harmful to yourself or to others, and it's about having that like ah, this is what I'm feeling, I can't do this anymore, and then working out a really healthy way out of that situation, and you know, I I I was reflecting on the this conversation beforehand, and I was thinking about um, I think you mentioned the word grief in our um our pre-chat, and and how I may be yeah, holding on to some grief or need to process some grief, and actually, what came up for me when I looked at that a little bit more was what I grieve is the years of wasted time, the suppression, the not speaking my mind because angry women are not what society wants, and everything in that patriarchal system that taught me how to be a woman, how to be successful, how not to speak your mind too much, or don't debate too much, um, don't be too much, and all of this that is what I actually now grieve, all of those wasted years when I I could have just allowed that that anger, that opinions, those thoughts and feelings out. And so just to be clear, you know, the uh Karen and I are different energies into the world, and that's why we work so well together. I have never ever been um any kind of wilting wallflower. Um, I have always been a loud rebel, very opinionated and sometimes argumentative, especially when there's something that I need to call BS to. Um, but it's not in a volcanoes way. I always would use my intellectual way to suppress the emotion so I could keep my cool in that debate or argument because it was generally with other men. Um so I was never quiet, I was never shrinking, but I was controlled. And actually now that's part of what I really grieve. It's like, well, why the hell was I trying to play small when they were interrupting me, they were telling me I was wrong without any facts. Why didn't I hold my own? That's what I grieve. What about you? What what about your relationship with with your rage? Because I said you and I have got different energies. I'm an outward. What about you?

Safety, Society, And Women’s Voices

SPEAKER_00 20:16

I think it's that awareness well, isn't it, around grief and anger? And actually the anger can often be a cover for the deeper sadness that sits inside us. So if we get into anger, we don't have to sort of go a bit deeper and actually go, what I'm actually, what am I really feeling like? What yeah, I'm feeling angry, but there's clearly a load of other emotions that I've ignored. And when we go into that, there's information and wisdom, and it's like ooh, I'm I feel really sad about the fact that I didn't, you know, speak up properly because you do speak up, but it's like I think when we're sort of holding back and we're not fully going there, we only half say things sometimes. Or in my case, I've I speak up, but people don't always don't always listen to what I'm saying. So I might say something and I think like the crickets are outside, you know, like the crickets and there's no response, and I think I've just said something really important and I'm getting no acknowledgement at all. And that then makes me angry, you know, um because I just think am I talking into a void? And you know, and that's been my that's been my experience of growing up all my life, really, of me going, I've got this sensation, I've got this feeling, and I'm gonna speak it, and then people just ignore, and then they they continue doing what they wanted to do anyway, and then I kind of think, well, what's the point in speaking up? So that was more my story of going, well, I might as well just keep my my words to myself, stay quiet, because I don't have enough confidence to go for it a second or third time and say no. Um, I'll just comply, you know? And that's that makes me sad. That's where my sadness comes in at all. When I look back and I go, Oh my god, I knew something I sp I spoke it, but I got ignored. Um and then I think we get into some really dangerous patterns of going. People don't respect me or my voice isn't enough. And actually that's not true. Um, we have to learn to be really quite forceful with it. And our anger is, you know, serving us to say, Hold on a minute. Because I think if we're in deep sadness, we're probably not going to sort of go back in a second time. If we sort of like go down further, we'll be like sort of crumbling on the inside. But the anger actually serves us and we go, No, no, I spoke. You're not listening. I said stop coming towards me, and now you're coming towards me, and I'm telling you now, stop, or else I'm calling the police, or whatever we need to say. And that's a really extreme it's an extreme example. But how much stuff happens out on the streets where people come towards you and you think, I don't want you, and I you know, like having to be very, very clear with people about boundaries, like physical boundaries in this case. And I I learned that much later on in life, and I trust now that I can uphold those boundaries, but I didn't I never got taught it. So, you know, that's why where I think anger can be really, really great, and especially later on in life, because if we didn't learn boundaries younger and we weren't in a boundary, you know, or the boundaries were very confusing, you know, and not clear at all, so we didn't really know where we stood as children, um, because our parents weren't really very equipped and most of them didn't have the life skills that we have, you know, and we've now got all this experience, and so teaching that to women so that they can not just go, I'm angry, but is it just me? Oh, I'll speak up, but no one's listening to me. Okay, well I'll just suppress it. It's like no no no, this is really, really important work. Um so yeah, I think I feel sadness around the fact that my no got ignored um all the way through my life until I just went when I say no, I mean no. And that's like a feeling on the inside of my body that I'm like, you don't mess with me on this one because you can try it, but I might I might be weaker in my physicality or something, and there might be something else where I'm not as strong. But when it comes to my no, it's a really real absolute.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

It's interesting because um I think I was very boundaried as a kid, and my parents had very strong boundaries, um, which did give us a lot of freedom because we all knew, you know, what well yeah, each other's boundaries and what where we would step over it and how we would deal with it. We never ever had arguments in our household though. And so if somebody stepped over a boundary or did something you didn't agree with, um it was always disappointment or silent treatment. Yeah. So I never learnt to deal with my anger, but there would be a lot of debating about it, which is where I learnt to debate, to share and exchange ideas. So when I then went out into, well, even just high school, going into the school and the teachers would say something, I would always challenge, and it was when they would then say, um, that's not very ladylike, or you're just causing trouble, I would get angry then and I wouldn't allow it out as um in front of the teachers because I'd been taught to respect my teachers. Um, but actually I would then take that home and I would then bury it because on one hand, in my home, I was allowed to debate and challenge and think for myself, and then was going out and being conditioned to be a good, compliant worker be. Um, and actually, yeah, during my I think it was when I was at university where they suddenly started encouraging that free thought and free speech and to challenge ideas, I just felt like this whole world had opened up and I really was that in a rebel, and I got it was amazing. Nobody told me to shut up, and then I went to work, and then I I did all the good girl things that society expected, and there were lots of things at work that should not have been going on um that I didn't agree with, but to survive, especially in the corporate world, you have to play the game, and to allude to what you were saying about women who have got to a certain level, they've been playing the game so long that that mast stops um working anymore, and they just say, I'm done, and I absolutely got there. Um, and that's that again that makes me angry. So, should we talk a little bit about some of the things that makes us angry? Because I'm I'm I'm feeling it, I'm like, it's bur bubbling up inside of me. Why don't you share some of the things?

History, Patriarchy, And Power

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah, and I just want to talk about emotion because I think the thing is when we allow ourselves to be fully emotional, it's really quite messy because that's how we that's how we know we're in the emotion, and therefore we need to be around people who are able to handle that, have got the space and time for it, um, you know, are willing to hold space because it's also really hard for the person holding the space for the person who's in the messy emotions, um, you know, and I've been learning that with my own daughter, you know, and and really allowing her to feel her emotions, and it's really, really hard for me because she's my daughter and she's seven, she's not like a grown-up. And then I'm like, oh my god, I'm so tired, I'm so tired, I'm so tired. And it's because I'm handling all this emotional output from her and saying, Your emotions are welcome here. You can have your emotions, however, when it and and bound putting boundaries in place for her and saying, however, when you do this, or when you say mean things or towards me, or when you you know get physical, that is a definite no. So it's like you can have the emotion, but you don't hit you don't you don't then vent it towards me, the dog, your dad, anyone else. Um now she doesn't do anything like that towards anyone else, but she can get physical sometimes, as kids do, and you know, and you're just like and that's the bit that I've I've had to learn that's been really hard for me because I'm like heartfelt, this heartfelt person, you know, and like all about feelings and emotions, and then I'm like, but boundaries are needed because without the boundaries it you become a punching bag or you're holding too much emotion for other people, and that you've got to work out where to put that stuff because that's not actually my job, is to I'm not here to hold her emotion because I've got to work out my own emotions. So it's like working with all of that and learning a lot and learning why our parents probably went into rational thought for us, like you know, it's like well, let's talk about it, you know, and then let's fix it. Um, and sometimes just the feelings, as long as they don't hurt somebody else, just having the feelings are enough. So I'm on that, I'm on that journey in a different from a different seat now.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

You can I just share a story um that kind of ties into that about being able to express your really raw rage. And a dear friend of mine um had been portrayed by a very long-term partner, um, and she'd gone through all of the denial, then the all of the emotions, and then she got stuck in that that anger because she was ready to release, she needed it to go somewhere, and um she tried to articulate to him, but he wasn't listening. Um, so she decided to kick the crap out of his car. And I would afterwards she felt so ashamed, and I actually said, Look, you're a grown-ass woman. Yeah, um, you the rage that you were feeling was insurmountable, but you didn't take it out on a person, you took it out on an object that mattered to him, you know, and in the court of law, yes, it would have been criminal damage. Um, but it was like, no, you took that anger and you took it out on something external that actually has no feelings that can't be emotionally damaged by your rage. And I actually, yes, like I said, it was criminal damage. Um, but I was like really proud of her for channeling that because previously, in a previous life, you know, in years before, she would have taken it out on the kids or on him or got angry at work or something. So um, and I just wanted to just share that because whether we are seven or 47, actually, if we haven't learnt to release our rage in a healthy way, we are gonna start working it out on other people and cause destruction. And let's face it, we see that happening all around the world in homes, in governments, in society. Um, and yeah, that's the lesson I guess. You know, how how can we move through this anger and do it in a really skilled way? But it's gotta embrace the anger.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Embrace the anger. So the things that make me angry, um, well, I always wanted to be a woman. It sounds weird, it's like I came here saying, I want to be a woman, but um, I was always really proud of being a girl that then became, you know, a young woman that has kind of moved through the life phases, and like I can't imagine being a man. So I was always like, Oh, I'm so proud of being a woman, you know, and um feeling really sort of I don't know, sort of like I can I'm doing this with my shoulders, but it's like I can just imagine myself walking through the streets going, I'm a woman, I'm so proud. Um and I loved the idea of the sisterhood and the softness and the power that comes with that. You know, soft power is one of my words for this year because I feel like power can be really soft but really still really powerful. So working with all these things, and now at this point in my journey, I'm looking back and I'm going, Oh my god, I have been I have been treated differently because I'm a woman, not in the right ways, but in the very wrong ways. And I I do believe in equality, but I do believe we're also different. So I'm trying to get all of that right in my head. It's like, well, actually, I go through different things every month, and I'm not flatline, and I've got these, you know, change and shifts inside me all the time, and um that makes me really, really resilient, and I can handle pain and la la la la la. And at the same time, sometimes I would like a little bit of that. And it's like, so that's on the physicality and the biology level, but I just feel like actually I've had to work so much harder, and I still work so much harder than my husband, and and he goes, Like, I feel really sorry for you because you're such a hard worker and you you're such a grafter, and you and like I look at my life sometimes and I think there isn't a corner of my life where I'm not working hard, like I am at it. Um you know, like and it's sometimes it feels like I'm working way too hard, and that's I have to reset that and come back, but it's because I've been trained to let go, like I had something in my system that from a young kid that was like, if I want it, I'm gonna have to go out there and do it, and I'm gonna have to make it happen, and because I knew it wasn't gonna get handed to me somehow. I somehow knew that you know and that has been the truth of my life, and so therefore I've been doing that and and doing that and doing that, and now I'm in midlife and I'm like, what a load of bullshit. Um it makes me really, really cross because I just think I've had to fight harder, I've had to like really sort of like pull myself up those cliffs and you know, get myself into those seats, and um I'm still sort of jumping through loads of hoops to sort of you know convince people of certain things that I know is right and truthful, you know, not when I'm coaching because that's a whole different ball game and that's just pure like pure connection and pure like brilliance coming through. But when you come out of the coaching seat and you're in an everyday world, it's like why are we justifying ourselves? Why do we have to work so extra hard just to get somewhere and most of the time we're not even getting paid the same? Um, you know, and we're carrying so much more emotionally, physically, um yeah, on every single level. So that makes me so now I'm raging about that. Um and I didn't know I didn't know it until the last I'll give it like I think because I think the last three years it's become very clear to me, and I've just thought, oh, I'm I'm angry and I'm also sad because my daughter I have a daughter and I'm like, oh god, Catalina, you know, like this is not it's not an easy road and it's not an easy ride.

Workplace Values And The Cost Of Suppression

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Oh no, no, and there was a brilliant um video that some masterful geniuses made, and it basically had um uh a mum and dad at the beginning of a starting line of a hundred meter sprint, and he'd got a briefcase of sandwich box carrying two kids, and then the mum had nothing, and they just did the race, and of course, she sped way ahead because she wasn't carrying all of that extra stuff, um, and it was just a really simple message that actually it's not about gender, because actually, we might do things slightly differently because our bodies and our hormones and whatever are different, but when you take all of that away, all of those extra burdens, and we're on a plain um you know, playing field, we can we can run, we can excel, and then when you start at you know looking at it intersectionally, you add any of the other marginalized um elements into it. You and I are white, we're privileged. We live in a white country, an English-speaking country, where so it's our first language. You add any of that on, and oh my god, it's so much harder. So I totally get your rage, which actually then starts speaking to my rage and my anger because I'm really angry, and basically it's the patriarchy, uh, it's the um, and it's the white patriarchy. So it's I'm angry at old, powerful white men who cling on to their positions um and their money and their power and their wealth and bully other people to keep control, try gaslighting us and telling us that it's not true, and the fact that they are actually in the the global minority, and the rest of us, there's more of us than them, and yet they still walk around with this arrogance of mediocre men, and so then I then get really angry at intolerance and hate. So anybody that is marginalised, anybody that is othered or dehumanised, and I see a lot of it going on in the world right now, and I used to read about it in the history books, but but we're living it right now, and I am angry. Um, and then I'm still well, I'm angry that women are still blamed for men's behaviour, whether it's uh the way that she's dressing, the way that she answered back, the way that um she shows up, everything. If a man is behaving badly towards another woman, they go into victim mode or they blame the woman, and that makes me really, really angry. Um, you know, I think right now I'm just done with being responsible for everybody else's healing and happiness except our own, and we've been at the bottom, you know, of that for too long.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

I agree, I agree with you on that one. And I I've got a little story just to share. It was going back to 20, it's around about 2015. Um, I was like, women, rage, it's an issue. And I spoke to Red Magazine, and the features editor was like, I love it, it's a brilliant idea. We were gonna do like a workshop around it and have women together, and she was gonna come up and cover it, and we were gonna do a full like anger release. Um, and then she she went to the editor, and the editor was like, We're not running that piece, we're not doing that story, and um she just didn't like it. And and I'm like, I mean, this is 2015, so it's quite a long time ago. Now we've had, you know, last year was the year of rage for women. Um I've had so many conversations with men who were like, you know, they're like sisters to me. Um, and they're like, women are getting really angry, and I'm I'm I'm here for it. It's absolutely amazing, you know, and like absolutely it's absolutely as it should be. Um, you know, and I and I'm like, yeah, I I saw this, I knew this, but it was so more suppressed, and now that volcano is is coming to the surface. And so I want to celebrate that because that needs to happen in order for us to, you know, be the phoenix that comes through the fire and actually look at it and go, we've got issues, we've got issues, we've got issues, we've got no, they're not our issues, personal issues, they are issues in the systems, there are they are issues in society, these are business structural, organizational issues, and the fact that we are angry about it means that this is true. Um, and if you connect other women, like I wanted to do with that, you know, that that rage program, um, I didn't call it rage, I called it anger, um, you know, a softer version of it, I suppose. And you know, and we all join together, then the movement comes, and then the movement brings change, and then we're here, you know, me and you together, like creating the the work that really embeds the change.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

And I'm often But of course it was never gonna go because the people who own the magazine were probably those same old white men who hold all the power, they don't want angry women, they want us to be compliant. So um it's interesting though, because you said 2015, because I think it was 2016 that the Dalai Lama said that the world will be saved by uh white Western women, and it's happening. Um, so again, you you always see things before everybody else, slightly ahead of the curve, which is a problem sometimes because everyone's like, What are you talking about?

Grief For Wasted Years

SPEAKER_00 39:03

What are you on about? I don't understand you, and I'm like, I know, just trust me, it's right. Um it's coming, it's happening, no, it's coming. I'll speak to you about it again in 10 years' time, and then maybe you'll be ready, you know. And and meanwhile, like I'm like that behind the scenes, working too hard, paddling on my bike. Um it's just life, isn't it? Um I'm grateful and I'm you know, I said before, like being a woman, like I was proud. And when I get into that and I think about what's going on, I the pride moment I'm getting hot, so like there's energy moving in my body, and um I know that I was born in this space and time for a reason, and you know, I am one of many. Um, a tiny little, you know, spark on the horizon somewhere, um a small thing. Um, but I'm here with a big mission, and um I know you are too, and we just really want to help women. Um, what can you share as you know, something that a woman can do to help her um own this part of herself?

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Um I truly believe what helped me most of all was actually naming what I was angry about. Um, and I think we've done loads of empowerment kind of exercises, which is like I want, I need, I am worthy of, and writing all those lists. But when I did my I am angry at, it felt so liberating because it was almost like I've been gaslighting myself for all those years. Um, and to pinpoint where was my passion coming from? Because actually, yes, I was angry, but it was it I was passionate as well. And with that passion, then I can then start taking some positive action rather than unhealthy, dysregulated anger action. Um, so it turns it then into a cause or almost like a bit of a life purpose. So I would say recognise your anger and then ask what's it all about? You know, what's what's in it? What's that spark, that common thread? And probably as you're writing it down, you've got every bloody reason to be angry about that injustice, that unfairness, the way that you were treated or not treated. Um, and just accept, yeah, this is real, this this is absolutely okay. I would say that's the first thing for me. Name it, own it, understand it.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Absolutely. I love that the three-step process. Um, I would say some of the best things I've done has been when I've listened to that voice of like this isn't right, and I have gone in above my station many times to be honest, and said, This is not right, this is what I think. And change has happened and it's been amazing. And I'm talking about the sort of like the organizational um level, you know, when people have gone, I I agree with you. Like when someone when you move from anger and it's clear and and it's the right thing, and you communicate it clearly, people and people hear it and they uh get on board with you and they're the right people. I mean, there's many hoop the hoops are now sort of like I'm jumping through the hoops, but so many brilliant things have happened, and I think they've been my most powerful and most divining moments of my life. Um when it's been ignored, or you know, someone's pushed through my my no, they've been the worst moments of my life, but they have also made me who I am today, and they've made me more determined and more um powerful in a way to sort of go no is no. Yes is yes. Let's be really clear about what's a no and what's a yes, and let's work out. Um without anger, it's weird. I'm gonna say something here that is like um not what you'd hear often, but without anger, I feel like we'd allow so many other things to happen that we shouldn't. You know what I mean? There's a point in time when I look at what's going on in America and I'm reading some people's posts, coaches, amazing coaches, posts about there's a point when we have to stand up and we have to say no more of this. Um and what's one of the lines was um if you do the dirty work, you get promoted at the moment. So that really, really landed with me. The rest of it didn't land as much, but that was like, oh, people have been rewarded for like doing awful things. Um there's a point as a human being when we have to say that is just wrong, and I'm gonna say it's wrong, and if you don't like that, I will go and I will go somewhere else and find people, you know, that are on board with me where we can we speak the same language because Oh, do you know what you're getting me angry again now? Sorry, we kind of came out to the side, didn't we?

Boundaries, No That Means No

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Let's not let's not open up the wounds, but um But yeah, no, I'm really I'm really thankful that you did say it though, because again we have been taught don't say that anything about religion or money or sex or politics. We don't talk about that, and actually, yes, we bloody well should. So, you've seen the different ways Karen and I express anger and how we work through it, and the lessons that we were taught, and how we are expressing anger and rage. Right now. So it's over to you to claim your right to feel the unfairness, the injustice, and the intolerable in your world, and to give yourself permission to just feel and name it and express yourself in a really healthy way. So no more keeping it silent to keep the peace, but always stay safe and look after yourself because your partner, your boss, your society isn't quite ready for your inner boudica, but we are getting there.