When Anger Becomes an Ally: Meet Scarlet

By Erva Ozkan ||

Scarlet was always there, though I never wanted her to be. She was never a friend to me. Whatever she said, I dismissed. I believed she had nothing worth hearing. At times, her voice felt overwhelming – filling the space, disrupting my calm. Perhaps, in some moments, she even pulled me away from danger. Other times, she felt too intense, too sharp. I couldn’t listen. Or maybe I simply didn’t want to. Still, she kept returning. She appeared when life felt unfair, when something didn’t sit right, when a quiet discomfort began to grow. I didn’t invite her, and yet there was no way to keep her out. She showed up again and again, especially in moments when something in me felt hurt or crossed.

For a long time, I saw her only as a disturbance – something to control, to silence, or to avoid. But one day, in a rare moment of stillness, I paused. Instead of pushing her away, I allowed myself to sit with her. And in that space, I realized that perhaps I could make room for her, too. That was the moment I decided to give her a name: Scarlet.

Scarlet was my anger.

Naming her did not make her disappear, but it changed how I met her. She was no longer just a reaction or a force I had to fight. She became something I could turn toward. And slowly, our relationship began to soften. The turning point came with a quiet question: What if my anger is trying to tell me something? That question opened a space I did not know I needed. Instead of reacting immediately, I began to listen – to her, to my anger, to what it was carrying beneath the surface. What once felt overwhelming began to feel meaningful.

“Fierce self-compassion is about listening deeply enough that we are willing to act on what we hear.”

Through this, I started to see that anger is not something personal to me alone. It is a shared human experience, though we each carry it differently. Yet, it is often misunderstood. In many environments – especially where calmness is associated with professionalism or maturity – anger is seen as something negative, something to suppress or avoid altogether. But anger is not random. It often emerges when something important has been touched – when our boundaries are crossed, when we are not heard, when we are treated in ways that do not reflect our worth. It can grow out of moments of unfairness, misinterpretation, or the quiet accumulation of unmet needs. Seen in this light, anger is not an enemy. It is a signal. It tells us that something matters, that something within us is asking for attention.

If anger is a signal, then the question is not how to get rid of it but how to respond to it.

Often, we try to calm it down as quickly as possible. We remind ourselves to stay patient, to remain composed, to not overreact. While these intentions may come from a good place, they can also create distance from what we are actually feeling. In trying to move away from anger, we may also move away from ourselves.

What Would Happen If…

What would happen if, instead, we met our anger with compassion? Not agreement, not indulgence, but compassion. To meet anger with compassion is to turn toward it with curiosity rather than judgment. It is to ask, gently, what is this anger protecting? what part of me feels hurt, unseen, or unsafe right now? In doing so, we begin to notice that anger often carries something more vulnerable beneath it – hurt, exhaustion, disappointment, or a quiet longing to be understood.

When that underlying layer is acknowledged, something begins to shift. The intensity of anger may soften, not because it disappears, but because it is finally being heard. In this way, anger becomes less of something we need to fight, and more of a doorway – one that allows us to come closer to ourselves

Compassion – Not Always Soft

Compassion is not always only soft; it can be fierce too. There are moments when anger is not just asking to be understood but asking us to act. Moments when something within us says, this is not okay, and asks us to respond. This is where fierce self-compassion comes in. There is a familiar image of a mother bear protecting her cub. When her cub is threatened, she does not pause to appear calm or agreeable. She becomes strong, alert, and, if necessary, fierce. From the outside, this may look like anger. But at its core, it is not aggression – it is protection. It is care in its most active form. In much the same way, our anger can carry that same protective energy.

Fierce self-compassion is not about soothing ourselves into silence. It is about listening deeply enough that we are willing to act on what we hear. It is the courage to say no when something does not feel right, to set boundaries when they are needed, to step away from what harms us, and to choose what supports us. It is the willingness to take ourselves seriously. In this form, anger is not destructive – it is purposeful.

It becomes a force that helps us stand for ourselves. It aligns us with our values. It reminds us that we are allowed to take up space, to protect our well-being, and to respond to what feels unjust, both within ourselves and in the world around us. This is not always easy. I am, after all, a messy human being. I experience anger in many areas of my life – at work, at the university, within relationships, and within myself. There are still moments when Scarlet feels too loud, too fast, too much. But now, when I sit with her – when I truly listen – I begin to understand.

She is not here to harm me. She is here to stand for me.

And when I listen, something soft follows. A sense of clarity. A quiet kind of peace. Perhaps anger is not something we need to silence, but something we can learn to understand and be an ally.

To all our Scarlets: Thank you for staying, even when we didn’t listen.

Image by GN with OpenAI.