Anger & Yoga

Anger has a heat all its own; for me, it’s a fire that sits in my chest, coils in my hips, tightens my breath until it feels like the world is collapsing inward. As a Black man and an Attorney, I know that heat all too well. It’s the accumulation of being misunderstood, overlooked, overburdened, or expected to stay composed while carrying more than most people can see. Yoga didn’t take my anger away. I still feel that heat. That anger is still constant. Yoga taught me how to hold it differently.

James Baldwin wrote,

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”

Not rage as recklessness, but rage as awareness, as witness, as truth-telling. Yoga became the place where I could explore that truth without being consumed by it. On the mat, anger becomes a language. In Warrior II, it sharpens the gaze. In Pigeon, it rises from the hips like smoke. In every long exhale, it softens just enough to be understood. The Vinyasa style reminds me that fire isn’t always destruction. Sometimes it’s illumination… showing me where my boundaries live, revealing what my spirit refuses to carry anymore. Breath becomes the cooling agent, the steady hand on the shoulder saying: You can feel this… and still be whole.

When I move, I let the anger speak.

When I breathe, I let it settle.

When I rest, I let it transform.

Yoga doesn’t ask me to silence my anger.

It asks me to honor it…

to let it guide me toward clarity, not chaos…

toward truth…

toward the version of myself that stands firm, rooted, and open.

Family. Hold the fire with care. Let it teach you, shape you, and free you.