Upside-Down Wisdom #31: Venting Anger

“You need to vent your anger.”

“You need to vent your anger.”

It sounds practical.
Healthy, even.
Like emotions are steam in a pressure cooker, and if you don’t let it out, you’ll blow the lid.

So you shout into a pillow.
Punch the heavy bag.
Unload on a friend.
And for a few minutes, you feel lighter.
Emptier.
Safer.

But here’s the thing:

That’s upside-down.

Because anger isn’t stored inside you like fuel in a tank.
It’s not a substance that needs draining.
It’s a moment-to-moment experience—created fresh by thought in the moment.

When you “vent” it, you don’t let it go.
You rehearse it.
You practice being angry.
You give it another round in the spotlight.

That’s why it keeps coming back.
Not because it’s trapped in you,
but because you keep picking it up again.

Anger fades when you stop feeding it with more angry thinking.
It doesn’t need a stage.
It needs space.

Here’s today’s Upside-Down Wisdom:
You don’t release anger by forcing it out. You release it by setting it down and walking away.

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This is Upside-Down Wisdom—a series where we flip the script on the conventional "wisdom" we've been taught. If you would like to read other posts in this series, please visit the Upside-Down Wisdom page.