(And How I Finally Took My Power Back)

Anger and I

I’ve always had a problem with anger.
But when I write “problem,” I want to put it in quotation marks.
And when I write “anger,” it really deserves a capital A.

My anger was huge.
Explosive.
Uncontrollable.
I could hurt with it, even when I didn’t want to.
And it contributed to the end of my marriage.

For a long time, I thought it was my fault.
That something was wrong with me.

Today I know that my anger was a messenger all along.

What I learned about my anger

Anger protected me.
Every time someone crossed my boundaries, every time my safety was threatened, every time I felt pain I couldn’t express — anger came to protect me.

Anger lived in my belly.
Exactly where power lives too.
So many times I felt sick, my stomach was tight, I couldn’t eat…
Now I know it wasn’t weakness — it was an unfed fire.

Anger is fire.
It burns everything, even those you love.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing — if you know how to work with fire.

Now I know that my fire is here for something else

Not for destruction.
Not for explosions.
Not to swallow me whole.

But to help me create, protect, and live my truth.

I know how to feed it now.
How to dance around it.
How to speak to it.

I’m not afraid of it anymore.
This fire is mine.

The active imagination that showed me the truth

I want to share one of my inner journeys with you.
Something I’ve been doing for a long time — and something that has been slowly bringing me back into wholeness.

The figures that entered my inner space:

Puma — my totem animal, feminine power, silent protection, boundaries.
Eagle — masculine principle, height, clarity, protection from above.
Ray — fluid body, inner movement, the wisdom of water.
Ancestors — women and men behind me.
Shamankas and Shamans.
My inner woman.
My inner man.
My inner child — little Vladka.
And Her — the Goddess of bone, blood, and womb, speaking a language my mouth knows even if my mind doesn’t.

My inner scene

I sat down to meditate.
I felt the fire in my belly.
I breathed into it.
And then I began to feed it.

I took old patterns and beliefs — mine and ancestral — the ones that no longer served.
I didn’t push them back into the shadow.
I didn’t try to fix them.
I did something entirely different:

I turned them into fuel.

Beliefs like:

“I’m not enough,”
“I have to do everything alone,”
“I shouldn’t get in the way,”
“I need to stay quiet,”
“Better if no one sees me,”
“I don’t deserve it,”
“I’m not worthy”…

I took them like dry branches
and threw them into the fire.

Not with anger, not with defiance.
But with understanding that they once protected me, but now hold me back.
And their only purpose now is to transform.

The fire rose.
It flashed through my body, heart, and belly —
as if my own flame was burning away what had burned me from the inside my whole life.

The puma guarded my boundaries.
The eagle circled above.
The shamans held space.
The ancestors stood with me, connected. We were one.

The ray moved gently and fluidly through my body.
And I knew it was right.

I realized that fire is nothing to fear when it’s yours.
When you feed it, it grows.
When you starve it, it becomes destructive.

And then I invited the Goddess within me.
She came immediately.
She spoke in her own language.
My hands moved as if they knew exactly what to do.

I held my inner woman in one hand.
My inner man in the other.
And little Vladka sat on my lap.And then — when the ritual ended — something beautiful happened.
A spontaneous dance.
All of us, around the fire.

So… what actually happened?

What happened wasn’t “just an experience.”
It was integration.

In Jungian psychology, there is a term coniunctio — the union of opposites, the merging of masculine and feminine, conscious and unconscious.
That is exactly what happened.

1. I united the masculine and feminine within me

Inner woman + inner man.
Puma + eagle.
Water + fire.
Intuition + boundary.

This is the moment that creates inner stability.
Not “either/or,” but “both/and.”

2. I healed my relationship with fire

Anger stopped being an enemy.
Fire stopped being a threat.
It returned to its original place — as a source of life, protection, and direction.

When you honor fire, it stops burning you.

And the fact that we were sitting around the fire is no coincidence.
In many Indigenous cultures, fire is the heart of the community.

3. I transformed old beliefs into fuel

Not through fight.
Not through discipline.
Not through positive thinking.

But through alchemy.

Beliefs that once kept me small became the power that now lifts me.

4. My inner child entered the space

Little Vladka on my lap = a return to myself.
A moment of trust.
A moment when the psyche says:

“I’m an adult now. I’ve got this.”

5. And then came the most important part

When energy completes its process, it wants to express.
To flow.
To release.

And so we all — all my inner parts — spontaneously jumped
and began to dance around the fire.

Freely.
Wildly.
With a joy I hadn’t felt in years.

And I laughed.

Not because it was funny —
but because it was true.

And that’s when I understood:

This is my fire.
Not an enemy.
Not something dangerous.
Not something to suppress.

It is life in its purest form.

And I am no longer afraid of it.

With love,
Vladia