I was 11. A typical kid, not particularly noticeable or successful, but not struggling or different either.
My sister was about to get married, and in our tradition, before the wedding, there is the Henna celebration – a ceremony symbolizing good luck and blessings before entering married life.
The party was held in our backyard, and all the family gathered.
Everyone was dressed in their finest clothes, the tables were set, and music played in the background.
It was an atmosphere of joy and anticipation. And I, like any kid who wants to be part of something big, wanted to be there, to feel like I belonged. I remember how excited I was beforehand. My entire extended family, my sisters’ cool friends, and basically everyone I looked up to were coming over to our house – wow. I bought new clothes, tidied up my room, fixed my hair (which I hated doing), and did everything to be as prepared as possible.
I remember walking among the guests, trying to find my place.
I looked around and saw the adults laughing, the kids playing on the side, and somehow, I felt a little lost. Everyone seemed so confident, and I didn’t really know how to fit in, how to be a meaningful part of this family celebration that we were all supposed to share. I wanted to find a way to be involved, but I didn’t know how.
And then I saw him – the groom’s friend, holding a big old video camera in his hand.
At that moment, it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.
A video camera, something that could capture all the important moments.
Without thinking too much, I walked up to him and asked if I could film.
He looked at me with a smile and, without hesitation, handed me the camera.
A wave of excitement rushed through me – I was like a little director, someone who could control the story, be behind the scenes but also at the center.
From the moment I got that camera in my hands, it was all I cared about.
I wandered among the guests, searching for the right angle, trying to capture the best moments.
I was fully immersed, and this role of “the cameraman” gave me a sense of importance I had never felt before. I had a purpose, something that allowed me to be present without really exposing myself. It was the perfect excuse to hide behind the lens.
But then, as the evening went on, something happened that shattered me.
The groom saw me walking around with the camera and came over to stop it all.
He told me firmly that I wouldn’t be filming the evening, that it wasn’t my place, that it wasn’t appropriate. I don’t remember his exact words, but I remember the exact feeling –
as if something inside me just shut down. I was confused and hurt. The role I had built for myself, the feeling that made me feel important – it all collapsed in a single moment.
My reaction was dramatic. I didn’t understand why this was happening. Why was he taking away the one thing that made me feel like I belonged? I exploded. I cried. I was angry. I went to my room and stayed there, alone. I didn’t want to see anyone. All the pleas from my sisters and my mom didn’t help – the pain ran deep. It wasn’t just about the camera but about the feeling of not being seen, not being important enough to be part of it all.
From that moment on, something inside me started to close off. I was a kid, but the wound was real and deep. It wasn’t something I could just bandage up and move on from. The anger and the hurt settled in, heavy, even if I didn’t know how to name them. I felt it, but I didn’t allow it to take space.
My heart, once open and childlike, began to fill with walls of protection.
Life went on, as it always does, but I wasn’t the same kid.
After that Henna night, I started feeling less and less like I belonged.
As I moved into my teenage years, I felt the distance between me and my family growing.
They were physically there, but I wasn’t really with them.
I was like an observer – present, but not participating.
At family dinners, I stayed quiet. At other celebrations, I found ways to avoid being involved.
I always had an excuse – “I’m busy,” “I’m tired,” “I’m just not feeling well.”
But the truth? The truth was that I didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to feel that rejection again.
I didn’t want to give them another chance to hurt me.
That distance, that pulling away, created a deep rift. Inside, I was filled with distrust – not just toward my family, but toward people in general. I stopped sharing, stopped talking about what bothered me.
I built invisible walls around myself, hoping they would protect me from pain, from vulnerability.
And if, God forbid, I felt that anger or frustration again – I would just push it deeper down, trying to forget. I silenced that voice inside that said, “You’re angry. You’re hurt. Let it out.”
This continued throughout my teenage years. I remember how I would withdraw into myself, how words got stuck in my throat whenever there was a family conversation.
Every time someone tried to reach out, to figure out what was going on, my response was always the same – “Everything’s fine.” Everything was “fine” because that was easiest.
It didn’t require me to confront what was inside.
I just locked that emotion away, hard, not letting it break free.
Years passed, and that wound, even though I didn’t give it space, only deepened. And like most things we avoid dealing with – it resurfaced at the most unexpected moment.
Then, after the army service(which probably deserves its own 20 posts...),
when life started to take a new direction, I began searching for something else.
Something that could heal what I had kept locked up inside for all those years.
I stumbled into a yoga class by accident. I didn’t even know why I was there.
But something about the air of quiet, of movement, of breath – for the first time made me feel there was something here I didn’t know. Something that might be able to break down the walls I had built.
Yoga was the gateway, but what truly changed everything was meditation. I found myself immersed in active meditations, especially Osho’s. In that space where anything goes, where you could dance, scream, cry, hug – the anger began to surface.
That anger that had been stuck inside all those years, never given a place.
At first, I didn’t understand what it was, why I suddenly felt this way.
I even hated it – the effort, the aggression, hating myself for being angry.
But as I got used to sitting with these feelings, something in me began to release.
I started to understand how important it was to feel that anger – not to run from it but to acknowledge it.
I remember one of the most powerful moments.
It was during a late-night session at Osho Humaniversity,
after days of intense emotional work, dancing, sharing, and heart-to-heart connection.
I shared with some friends about that Henna night, and suddenly, those same feelings came up in my body – tension, heat, my face tightening – as if everything was closing in on me.
Then we reached the moment of emotional release, and I just felt a wave of anger rising within me. Everything I had felt over the years, all the frustration, the hurt, the distrust – it all came out in one burst. I screamed, I cried, I let go of everything that had been trapped inside. And it was freeing.
For the first time in my life, my anger had a real place, in a safe space.
And from that moment, slowly, I began to notice how this emotion,
which I once thought was an enemy, was actually one of my greatest tools.
Anger became energy – energy that could drive me, free me, strengthen me.
I’m writing these words now, and my body is vibrating with that energy.
This is the energy of creation; this is the energy of life.
I learned how to give it space, how to express it safely –
not just for myself, but also within my relationships.
When I began feeling that anger resurfacing, it was scary.
After all those years of learning how to suppress it, hide it, as if anger was some enemy
I needed to escape from – when it came back, full force, it shook me.
I was sure it would destroy everything I had built – my relationship, the peace I had found in life.
I particularly remember one moment. It was during a conversation with my partner.
The conversation started calmly, peacefully, like any ordinary conversation.
But suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt a wave of anger rising within me.
It wasn’t anger directed at her but a general anger, something buried deep inside me for a long time.
It was anger at the world, at the past, at all the times I felt unseen.
This anger wasn’t related to anything she had said or done, but it started bubbling up inside me.
At first, like every time in the past, my first thought was to run.
Not to feel, not to show her what was going on inside me.
I was afraid she wouldn’t understand, that she’d think I was angry at her. But this time, it was different.
I decided not to hide. Instead of suppressing it, I chose to sit with that anger, to give it space.
I took a deep breath, paused the conversation for a moment, and quietly said to her,
“I’m feeling angry right now. It’s not about you, it’s just coming up inside me, and I need to talk about it.”
Her reaction surprised me.
Instead of getting defensive, instead of taking it personally like I expected – she was just there.
She listened, really listened, and I felt how her presence gave me space to be with what I was feeling.
It was the first time in a relationship where I didn’t feel the need to run away, to pretend everything was fine. I felt safe expressing what I was going through, and that sense of safety changed everything.
The moment I gave myself and my anger a place, our conversation changed.
Instead of anger blowing up the conversation or destroying what we had built – it became a point of connection. It was as if, in one moment, all the walls I had built around that emotion, around that vulnerability – collapsed. It was freeing.
Instead of being an enemy, my anger became an energy for change, for closeness.
She didn’t see me as someone angry; she saw me as someone vulnerable. And in that moment, I realized: all those years of trying to hide, trying to be strong and not show my feelings – those were the very things that kept me distant from the people I loved.
My relationship with her gained a depth it had never had before.
I learned, maybe for the first time, how anger can build rather than destroy.
I understood that it’s not the emotion we should fear, but how we handle it.
When I started giving myself space to really feel, without pretending,
without trying to be someone I wasn’t – everything changed.
Anger became not just a tool for expression but a tool for healing, for connection, for love.
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