water your soul

for something to grow, you need to water it

Have you ever been so angry that you are willing to throw everything away just to get your anger out? So angry that it is not your anger but the anger that owns you. You are consumed by it and you do not even realize it.

I am sure many of us have felt like this at least once in their lives. Even if you’re not a short tempered person and you rarely get angry, there is anger within all of us. It is especially fascinating how we all have anger yet the things that anger us can vary so significantly. I get angry when someone disrespects me but not always - sometimes I can just sit and listen even if I am wrongly being spoken about. I also get angry when someone tries to control me but funnily enough, I have been controlled for most of my life.

Those are only a few of the things that anger me but they are quite personal. I can also indulge in collective anger. I get angry when someone is sexist or racist or homophobic, unfortunately of which I have met many. Most of them tend to be cultural, religious or just ignorant. It is not sad though, it just makes me angry that I cannot control the way that other people are. Ironically.

That is what drives protests though. In social psychology it is termed as conformity - when people feel compelled to follow the crowd because it is what the majority are doing. It is inspiring though and it makes you feel like you are fighting for something, for a just cause. Many times however, people just comply instead of conforming and they only follow the majority solely because it is the majority and not because they personally feel attached to what is being protested.

You might have done this in your daily life. Outside of political opinion, when you are hanging out with your friends or your co-workers and you have to pick a place to eat. You wanted to get shawarmas or sushi but everyone else wanted to go to McDonalds. What bland taste they’ve got, you think to yourself but you still end up going to McDonalds. That is complying. If you went to McDonalds and actually enjoyed the food, then that would be conforming.

We are built in such a way that we are malleable and flexible and we can easily manage ourselves to fit in somewhere even if you do or do not want to. I think that is what makes a lot of people angry - having to change yourself when you do not want to.

So, then don’t change yourself to fit in?

If only it were as simple as that. Even if we do that, we would not be doing ourselves a favour because then we would just end up alone and loneliness is probably something people fear more than they do spiders and snakes. When you are alone, you finally have to face yourself and after being around everyone so much, a part of you also fears that maybe you will not recognize yourself in solitude.

Anger is loud. It is boisterous and consuming and it serves as the perfect distraction. When you are angry, you do not have to hear the rational and logical thoughts anymore. You do not have to hear the thoughts that build clarity within you. You can just explode. You can shout, scream, yell or even get physical! I think it is such an impactful emotion, even stronger than sadness and envy. When you are angry, it is not so much as an internal thing as it is external. You can angry at something or take your anger out on someone but I don’t think we can ever share other emotions in such a way.

You cannot take your sadness out on someone, yes you can vent to them but even in that venting there is some level of anger and frustration laced. You cannot take your happiness out somewhere, but something can make you happy. The object inflicts the feelings, not vice versa. However, anger is one of those emotions where you can do both. It is interactive and influential. It would probably be more challenging to make a group of people collectively feel happiness or sadness unless you show them an amazing movie but anger comes a lot easier.

You know how we have analogies for anger? We can refer to it as a big wave of water that drowns out all other emotions and consumes you. We can refer to it as a glass of water that overspills because we hold in our anger so much until it erupts. And my most favorite - anger is like fire. When you are resting and the anger is at base level, anger is like a flickering flame. Small but fiesty. When your anger rises, this flame turns into a house fire, burning yourself and everything in your way as you exert it. At least if anger is a big wave you can hold your breath until it is over or if it a glass of overspilling water, you can just wipe up the spill later. But when your anger is this big house fire, what can you do? We don’t have firefighters running around our body to put out fires wherever there is too much anger.

The fire just destroys everything.

That is why you can never take you words back, you can never take your actions back no matter how much you apologize or take accountability for it. You just burned everything to ashes and it is something that can never be brought back again. The burn scars will always stay with you and with the people you took your anger out on.

It is miserable honestly. When my anger consumes me, I tend to write poetry. Just a few days ago, I read over the poetry I wrote when I was angry. When I was writing it, I really thought I ate. I thought it was the most brilliant piece of literature I had ever written. After rereading it, I wish I had burned that poetry using the fire from my anger. It was so horribly written. It made no sense and my words were all over the place.

It is no mystery that anger is an unstable emotion. You can do fascinating things when you are angry. You can become physically stronger but mentally? Your brain is probably the size of a pea at that time. Not literally obviously but angry people are not smart people. That is why we resort to the lowest of insults - personal insults. Your mom this, you mom that, you so ugly this and you have no prospects. These kind of insults may sound cool in the moment but when you think about it, if it is something that also applies to you then you are not just insulting your opponent, you are also insulting yourself.

For context, this was the poem I wrote when I was angry:

Excuse my rubbish handwriting. I tend to write badly when I am angry. Something that I did not mention in this poem was - at that time, I wanted the anger to consume me. I was ready to burn in the fire of my anger so long as it would burn the people I hate and the ones who made me angry in the first place.

Even if I wanted revenge, what kind of revenge is it if I am also getting hurt in the process of it? Surely, that is not revenge - it is just stupidity. Something that my silly pea sized angry brain could not wrap around at that time.

So what can I do to stop myself from shrinking my brain when I am angry? Is there even anything I can do to prevent it? Control your anger and it will pile up and still consume you. Let it out and it still consumes you. So, Shifa, I ask to myself - what could possible be the solution to the neverending torment that is the emotion anger?

Your soul.

Your soul is the answer to everything.

You just have to water the flower in your soul.

At this point, you’re probably like, how many analogies is this girl going to use? Now that, is probably making you angry.

Hear me out though! A few years back when I had just graduated high school and had my entire life flipped upside down by some resentful people - I was devoid of all motivation. I just wanted to die. Honestly, the only thing keeping me alive was the hatred I had for those people. I was motivated by bitterness and spite. There was no issue with it until the anger did not just consume my hatred for them, but it also started consuming me.

Spite is a great motivator but in the process of living that way, you end up making everything in your life about the people you hate the most. It is so contradictory and impractical. So, I pulled up my socks and bought a new journal. It meant a lot to me because it was the first ever journal I bought and had not received as a gift from someone else. It was mine own and everytime I wrote in it, it was not a reminder of the person who gifted it to me, but it was a reminder of myself. Call it a way to claim control over my life.

With the damaged motivation and sense of self I had, I wrote something brilliant on the first page of that book. I wrote:

Then I proceeded to write a bunch of goals I wanted to achieve. I wrote about how I wished to pray 5 times a day, exercise until I could do a pull up and open up a cafe.
Safe to say I have done none of those things and now I am even an atheist but at least I exercise regularly :)

I have no idea where I find this optimism but maybe it is because I agree to the fact that my soul is not a soul.

It is a flower.

It is fragile and it is strong.

It can die and it can grow again.

It can fly vicariously through its fallen petals and it can stay grounded with its roots in one place. As humans, we only live and die once. If reincarnation exists then we do not remember our previous lifetimes and if heaven and hell exist then we have never seen them to tell the tale. It is a sad truth but our souls? Our souls are not like our lives. They are resilient and even after living the most horrible segment of your life, you still manage to find a way to make yourself okay after it.

Did you know that after you drown, your body floats to the top? Even while you are drowning and flailing to reach the surface, your body is trying to help you float to the top. Even if you lay flat on your back on the top of water without doing anything to make sure you stay afloat, you will still float.

I think our souls are a lot like our bodies in water. Even after the fire from your anger burns and bruises everyone and yourself - your soul still floats to the top after the fire has died out.

So how do you water your soul? I don’t think you even have to. It is so resilient, it will find a way but I can tell you how I watered mine: I just did that things I always wanted to try. I lived like it was the first time I was living which is how you are supposed to. I meditated (my boyfriend finds that boring and ineffective) so maybe you can dance somewhere with your eyes closed. I drank tea and sat in the light, on the floor to feel more connected with the earth. I bought a jigsaw puzzle (they are quite expensive if they are big) and then finished it in 3 days. I started drawing again and I would place my signature and date in the corner like I was some famous artist.

But I am a famous artist. My soul probably worships me for doing that tiny little thing. It’s like that feeling when we used to draw suns in the corner of the page when we were children. And just because we coloured a little out of the lines, we wouldn’t throw away the whole page. And just because we would write really bad, borderline ineligible, doesn’t mean we would stop writing entirely.

So when you fail. Don’t stop trying entirely. And when you feel like you cannot remember the last time you were ever happy, just remember the last time you were ever angry. I don’t think the anger inside us can ever deplete. Even after the fire has burnt the whole place down, it will just go back to being a flame. That will always remain. Your anger will always stay and so will your soul.

I have faced many a terrible moments in my life. I am sure I am not the only one. Just water your souls and let it be. I do not know if this is our last life but it always feels like it is the first so just live it that way and your soul can do all the hard work for you instead.

Lots of love,

2025 Shifa.

---