The Storm

Honouring the Fierce Grace Within

“Some feelings are not meant to be managed.
They are meant to be moved through.”

There are days when my body is a thundercloud.
My heart pounds like rain on a roof,
and I swear I can feel the lightning in my bloodstream.

This isn’t a mood.
This isn’t a passing weather pattern.

This is the storm I never let loose.

I used to be afraid of my anger.
Taught to swallow it, hide it,
turn it inward until my nervous system burned
with the effort of suppression.

They called me too much.
Unstable. Unpredictable.
Told me to quiet down before I embarrassed myself.

These names are not mine.
But they live in my nervous system like ghosts.

So I learned to smile through clenched teeth.
To soften my voice.
To call it “sadness” when it was rage.
To keep the storm inside.

“So I learned to smile through clenched teeth.
To soften my voice.
To call it “sadness” when it was rage.
To keep the storm inside.”

I carry this storm so I don’t pass it on.
But the longer I hold it,
the more it grows.

This, too, is violence.
Violence against myself.
Violence against the sacred fire within me.

Because anger, in its sacred form,
is not destruction.
It is a fierce grace.
A holy heat that clears the ground for something new.

A soft violence that cracks the shell
so the seed can breathe.

If you have learned to keep the storm inside,
if you have been told your fire is too much:

Let it rise.

Let it rattle the expectations,
and unearth every buried scream.
Let it sweep through your system like wind
until the air is clear again.

Your storm is not your enemy.
It is your body remembering it was born
of lightning and rain.

“You are not too much.
You are the truth that refuses to be muted.“

In Tenderness,

A. J. Ashé | Being Human