Breathe into your belly.

Hit play and then read this. Then hit the play button again and work with the medicine and energy of this healing song.

The day before I wrote this, I experienced a bout of sacred rage. First, anger but then, sacred rage… anger that comes with direction, focus and the compelling urge to do something to make change. You ever feel like that?

If you really tap into its power and purpose, it also can bring you the ability and desire to not only express sacred rage but use it for good, use it to make a difference and spread awareness.

Sometimes if you’ve experienced trauma or lived around a lot of anger, the default is to want to push it back down or rage like a fire out of control but what if you could truly tap into that sacred rage in a way that rather than exhausting you, gives you more energy and peace, and fuels your cause, while helping you get through a difficult situation?

I want to share a song with you to help you release some of your anger but also to help you if you find yourself in a moment of that sacred rage coming up in your body. I’ll explain a bit more about what that feels like and what to do with it.

HOW IT FEELS AND WHAT TO DO RIGHT AWAY:

When sacred rage hits, it comes with such a strong force that it can catch you off guard and put you into an instant state of fight, flight, freeze or fawn, particularly if you’ve experienced trauma in your life. “Fawn” is a new one to me that I learned from a therapist. Going into a “Fawn” state is basically people-pleasing, surface responses. When you recognize you’re in that state of adrenalin rush, it’s important to:

• Breathe.
• Feel the energy and emotion (whatever is coming up) in your body and tap into the power of it as well as the WHY. Why is it rising up in you?
• Express yourself. Bring the emotion up and out through your voice from a sense of groundedness in a way that honours the purpose of that energy and emotion.

Here’s how the healing song Journey to Freedom and its teachings can help you use that energy of sacred rage in a good way:

When Journey to Freedom poured through me, I was in one of those moments. I felt overwhelmed by sacred rage, though I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time. I felt personally violated, my home had been violated, and the person who did it was not taking any responsibility for it. I felt sacred rage rise up in me, compelling me into action. It’s a powerful sensation and emotional calling.

KNEE-JERK REACTION – BE MINDFUL: My first action was to yell back at the person, which is a knee-jerk reaction. Not always the greatest response in that situation and I’m hoping these teachings can help you instead jump to a healthier response than mine in that moment, although there are times when yelling is absolutely appropriate (someone is in danger, or when you’re calling out blatant racism and being a powerful ally when the offender is causing harm, for example).

When I realized they were not interested in resolving anything or taking responsibility for the harm they had created, I didn’t know where to put that energy. I am a very shy, peaceful, quiet person and when that sacred rage rises in me, it can put me into a trauma response and I needed to come out of that.

This is what’s happening right now with many of us in the Indigenous community (Google residential school and you’ll see what I’m talking about). When faced with traumatic grief, people tend to go into a trauma response – but if we’re not grounded in ourselves first, we can lose access to our higher and inner resources. There are ways to USE that sacred rage without causing more harm to those who are traumatized.

ASK FOR HELP: My next action in that moment was to ask Spirit for help, for some way to use this energy to help me and others in moments like that.

GROUND YOURSELF AND CLEAR YOUR SPACE: I’m not talking about removing all the sacred rage before you can use it. I’m talking about making sure you’re fully present in your body. I smudged myself and my space. There are many ways you can ground yourself and clear your space. Go around the room with a rattle or shaker to break up the energy. Drum. Sing. Pray. Smudge (use the smoke of cleansing plant medicines like sage, sweetgrass, cedar, frankincense, myrrh or Palo Santo), if smudging is one of your practices. I didn’t clear out all the anger but that wasn’t the point. The point was to get myself to a more present, calmer state so I could use that energy and anger, that sacred rage, to transform my own energy and the energy and impact of the situation.

When I became fully present, I remembered that magically, a big bundle of cedar branches had just come to me, and cedar is amazing for clearing space, so that is what I used.

ASK FOR HELP: I asked/prayed for a healing song, and as I have learned to do over the years, I listened for the healing song and sang it as it came through. I was shaking and crying my way through the song, moving the energy through me as I sang. That’s how I was able to get that sacred rage out of me, but the song I knew would help not just me but others as well. What are YOUR gifts? What could your response be, given who you are? What or who would you ask or pray to for help? If you think about it now, then when those moments happen, you won’t drain yourself and instead, you will be able to positively impact yourself and the situation immediately.

SING & BE WHO YOU ARE: This healing song is called Journey to Freedom because that was what it took me on. I started off feeling out of control, angry, helpless and unsure of what to do. I ended up feeling calm, peaceful and expanded, and I had an amazing emotional release. On top of it, because I was using my gifts in the moment, I created this song for myself and all of you.

We humans are natural transformers of energy and emotion. Right now, many people are out of control, some are stuck in trauma or the intensity of their own emotions, empaths are often dealing with everyone else’s intense emotions, and we all really need a pause.

What can you do in this moment to create meaningful change in the world through your actions?

PAUSE.

BREATHE.

LISTEN TO AND/OR SING THE SONG.

Your actions might seem very small sometimes and you might wonder how that – how you – can make a difference. You absolutely can. We need to start within ourselves first.

Love & Blessings,

Brenda MacIntyre, Medicine Song Woman

RESOURCES:

• For more quirky raw realness and channelled musical goodness, sign up for my free livestreams.

FOLLOW ME ON SPOTIFY – MUSIC FOR THESE CRAZY TIMES:

• Follow My Artist Account on Spotify.
• Follow my Global Pandemic Playlist on Spotify. The studio (CD, not live) version of the songs I sang in the livestreamed concert are also in this playlist.
• Follow the RENEWAL Playlist for springtime on Spotify