The Anger I Swallowed Was Costing Me My Joy

I don’t really want to tell y’all all my business…

But I’m gonna tell you a little bit.
Just a peek. Just enough.

Because this part of the journey?
It’s the one that took me the longest to face.

For years—years—I was emotionally unaware of my own boundaries, my own expectations, and even my own self. I couldn’t have told you where my limits were. I didn’t know what was mine to carry or what I had no business holding at all.

And in that place, life got heavy. Really heavy.

I was married and still grieving.
I was smiling and still breaking.
I was functioning—but I was also raging, silently and then not-so-silently, behind closed doors.

The Grief That Went Unspoken

In the early years of my marriage, we experienced a lot of loss.
Miscarriage.
Death in the family.
The final foreclosures on investment properties I had worked so hard to build.
A car accident that left us with even more to manage.

It felt like loss was on repeat.
One after another.
A constant hum of heartbreak.

And because I didn’t yet have the emotional language to name what was happening… I stuffed it. I suppressed it. I smiled through it.

Until I couldn’t.

He Got It All

My husband—whew, bless that man—was the one who caught it all.
The anger. The yelling. The misplaced frustration.
Everything that hadn’t been processed or even acknowledged would explode in his direction.

Every small thing became a big thing.
Every comment became an offense.
Every disagreement became proof that life just wasn’t going to let up.

Did he contribute to the emotional weight I carried? Absolutely.
But he wasn’t the only reason.
He was just the closest in proximity.

The anger I was carrying wasn’t just about him.
It was about me.

What I hadn’t mourned.
What I hadn’t named.
What I hadn’t allowed myself to feel because I thought anger made me ugly.

I thought being mad made me mean.
I thought good women didn’t rage.

I Was Mad, But I Wasn’t Free

I was mad at life.
Mad at God.
Mad at circumstances I couldn’t control.
Mad that I was trying to do everything “right” and still getting gut-punched by reality.

And here’s the part that people don’t talk about:

You can be a good person and still carry deep, deep anger.
You can be generous and joyful on the outside… and still be full of resentment and hurt on the inside.
You can serve and still suffer.

I didn’t know how to say, “I’m mad and I don’t know what to do with it.”
So I kept performing.
Kept functioning.
Kept “looking” like I was okay.

But I wasn’t.

And every time I swallowed that anger instead of examining it, I lost a piece of my joy.

The Turning Point: Anger

Eventually, I had to stop pretending I was okay.

I had to stop starting and stopping things out of emotional confusion.
I had to stop throwing myself into motion so I didn’t have to feel.
I had to stop using “nice” as a mask for numb.

Because all that suppression? It didn’t make me healed.
It just made me distant from myself.

And it wasn’t until I sat still—really still—and started asking the real questions that I began to understand:

I wasn’t just angry. I was disconnected.
Disconnected from the parts of me that had gone unacknowledged for far too long.

The Parts I Had to Examine

To get to joy, I had to walk through every room in my emotional house.

That meant looking at:

My sad self
My angry self
My exhausted self
My confused self
My resentful self
Even my jealous and fearful self

I had to look at all of it.
Name it.
Hold it.
And then figure out how to honor it without letting it run my life.

Because joy doesn’t come from perfection.
Joy comes from wholeness.

Today? I’m Still Healing—and I’m Free

Today, I’m still doing the work.
I still feel all the emotions.
But I don’t run from them anymore.

If I’m upset, I check in with myself.
I ask the question: “What’s really going on here?”

I name the feeling.
I honor it.
And then I decide what to do with it from a place of emotional intelligence—not reaction.

Because the goal isn’t to never be angry again.

The goal is to feel it, understand it, and not let it cost me my joy anymore.

Let’s Talk About It

What unspoken anger are you still carrying?
What part of your joy is being dimmed because you haven’t made space to feel what you really feel?

This is your gentle invitation to feel it all.
To stop performing strength and start pursuing wholeness.
To take the lid off your emotions—not to drown in them, but to finally breathe.

And if you want a room where Black women are doing that work with love, softness, and truth—come join us in Wealthy Women Conversations on Facebook. We are healing out loud and reclaiming our full emotional range.

#SlowerWealthierHappier
#SoftLivingIsSuccess
#BlackWomenDeserveEase
#ThisLifeFeelsLikeMe
#JoyIsMyBirthright

Slower, Wealthier, Happier