Not too long ago (what is time anyway?), I had a release ritual. I was walking around angry, but not angry enough, to immediately sit with it. So I parked my anger until I couldn’t anymore. It got to a point that the anger was taking too much energy. The ritual was basically me acknowledging my anger, sitting with it, naming all the reasons why I felt angry, and reaching a point of forgiveness and letting go. Sitting with this took about two journal entries that can feel quite tiring while dealing with such intense force like anger.

That recent experience reminded me why it’s wise to deal with anger as soon as possible, ideally right away. When I finally released the anger I was holding in for about a month, I noticed how much space it was taking. Feeling the difference between the different states, I realized that being angry is very expensive. Like an expensive cab with the meter running; the longer I stayed in the cab of anger, the more I paid. Up to a point with tension in my chest, because anger asks for vital resources as payment.

While feeling and processing anger may cost us some time and energy, not facing our anger may cost us our joy and peace. Let’s not do that.

I think discussing some reasons why being angry is expensive is useful, for it can make us wonder if anger is worth what we are willing to pay for it.

Here are 5 reasons why staying angry is very expensive.

1. Anger corrodes

Anger is not positive or negative in and of itself. It’s a human response and thus an energetic entity. If you would just allow it to be without shaming it or running away from it, it remains neutral. If you suppress it, it becomes toxic to the body and psyche. If you hold on to it, it becomes cancerous.

I recently learned a new word—Corrosion—and I think that its meanings can be used as a beautiful metaphor to explain the energetics of anger. Corrosion can be defined as the degradation of a metal due to a reaction with its environment (NASA, Corrosion Fundamentals). Another definition is “to weaken or destroy gradually” (Merriam-Webster). Both definitions apply here, because what anger does is basically gradually degrade our bodies and psyche—as a reaction to our environment—if left unprocessed.

This is because it is a very intense, by nature reactive form of energy. It can be very destructive if not healthily processed. Much like the metals that corrode in environments that are chemically unstable for them, our bodies and minds spiral into destruction as a reaction to the unsustainable nature of walking around with- and carrying anger.

Once we sit with the energetics of anger and understand their implications, we can become more mindful about our relationship with it.

2. Anger justifies the unjustifiable

When we feel angry, we feel harmed. And not healthily processing our anger can lead to acting on it. Acting from a place of unprocessed anger means acting from a place of reaction and deception.

When we react to our environment—particularly from an angry place—we can become destructive. We justify the harm we cause in the name of anger. Our reactive experiences deceives us into acting out disproportionally, justifying the unjustifiable.

I can name a few examples to make this point a bit more vivid: someone who hasn’t learned how to sit with their anger and healthily process it may end up physically harming someone else because they don’t know how to control their anger and felt insulted by what that person said. Another person who still has unprocessed anger gets a bad news and smashes their phone in the wall as a reaction to this news. Or a parent who hasn’t learned how to regulate their anger will go off on their child for making an innocent mistake—like a toddler making a mess in the house. All of these people will justify their reaction, despite their reactions being disproportionate to what happened and even unjustifiable.

We would all be better people if we learned to regulate and process our anger as soon as possible.

3. Anger may sleep but never rests

Closely related to the second point, while we can compartmentalize emotions, walking around with unprocessed anger is like walking around with a ticking bomb. Someone or something can trigger your dormant anger in no-time. This can lead to reactive behaviors instead of responsive ones.

Ever wondered why some people have a “short fuse?” That’s unprocessed anger. People who are 4, 5 seconds from wilding are “walking bombs”—and the fuse is a trigger that may have nothing to do with their unprocessed anger.

But more subtly, you can be walking around “all good” with compartmentalized anger. I am well aware that one doesn’t have to be 24/7 consciously mad. Sometimes, you have a situation that is maddening but you compartmentalize; you park it until further notice. But every time something happens that triggers a memory about what is unprocessed, you get mad again.

That was my case for the past month. I was able to enjoy my days as long as I didn’t address what was happening. But the moment I would think or talk about it, I would feel tension in my chest.

Being angry is expensive, even when you don’t acknowledge your anger or sit with it immediately, it affects you.

4. Emotions can become states of being

You will never meet someone peaceful and perpetually angry. Your dominant emotions become your state of being.

Anger eats from your joy. Stay angry for too long, and you become bitter; you become angry. A truly peaceful person will not—cannot—stay angry for too long, for they know anger robs them from their joy and eventually their peace.

Sometimes, anger is justified, but how long do you want to stay in that space? Do you want to make your anger your identity? Because that’s what will happen if you keep justifying your anger: you no longer feel angry, you become angry.

It costs too much to be angry for a prolonged time. Of course, it’s up to each of us to define for ourselves what is “too long.”

5. Anger ripples and multiplies

We are social, energetic beings, vibrating at different frequencies. Much like cell towers sending and receiving invisible but very real signals, waves of energy are cast back-and-forth every moment of the day from everyone in the world. Anger ripples and multiplies, much like frequencies of love and “good vibes.” The longer you stay in the frequency of anger, the more of its energy you emit into the world. The more anger you emit, the more it multiplies. The more unprocessed anger the world has cast into it, the more destruction we will see.

The world has enough anger as it is. Do we want it to further ripple and multiply?

Again: anger is a neutral emotion until it corrodes and becomes madness. Being angry is expensive. Staying angry is dangerous, as anger asks for vital resources as payment.

But what about the world?

I think I should address the horrible, maddening state of the world when talking about anger. There is SO MUCH happening that can create emotional reactions within us—emotions that make sense, anger included. All the -isms, all the -cides, all the -phobias. I mean, there is enough to be mad about. Furious even. Bigotry is at an all-time high. Empathy seemingly at an all time low.

Being part of the world, some of us feel deeply for it. Anger is a justified—even understood—all things considered. I get it. I feel it. But I don’t hold onto it. Because again, being angry is expensive. I just listed and expanded on 5 reasons why I wouldn’t hold on to anger for too long.

But we must honor it. There is such thing as sacred rage. But different than a reactive emotion, it’s a conscious, responsive use of the rawness that comes with anger. While destructive too, it blasts the way for change. It serves a purpose. But it’s not something to dwell in; it’s something to use and let go of. As a natural alarm and instrument for change, anger allows us to channel our fire for liberation. And this is a price that must be paid to bring forth a new world. But that leads to a whooolllee other conversation.

To finalize this post on individual anger—for there can be a whole other post of the purpose and functions of moral outrage—I will leave you with a wonderful quote by the wonderful Marianne Williamson: