What is an anger ritual retreat?

California-based therapist Audrey Schoen says anger rituals are really nothing more than an emotional regulation technique. These practices – where we interact with our emotions to safely control them – are a cornerstone of many therapeutic treatments. “We try to figure out what's behind the anger. What is the hurt, the disappointment, the frustration, the letdown? Anger is usually a secondary emotion, and sometimes anger is justified,” Schoen says.

Because women have historically been raised to hide and mask their anger, being asked to do the opposite can be a huge relief, she adds. “Women want to experience the part of the human experience that has been denied to them by cultural conditioning,” she says. “The culture has said, 'You are not allowed to be in this space.' And we say, 'No, we are allowed. We are all human and we are allowed to have all human experiences.'”

What anger rituals really look like – and who is behind them

I joined other members of the press and some of Magik's friends for an hour-long miniature version of this larger experience. We began by breaking into small groups and taking a minute each to answer questions Magik had asked us. We talked about how our parents taught us to deal with anger and when we were last angry. Our walls quickly came down; there seemed to be an agreement in our small group that we would be honest with each other, and that alone felt good. How often do you get to skip the small talk and dive into conversations that make you realize you really aren't alone?

Promoting this feeling is intentional for Magik, who says that humanity has been an integral part of her life since childhood. “I grew up in the redwoods in Northern California, a very beautiful, magical, magical upbringing,” she says Assets“My parents were conscious entrepreneurs, so they were always interested in being philanthropic and making the world a better place by creating things that support and empower people. I grew up with that view of what was important and valuable.”

At 16, Magik had an accident that nearly forced her to have an amputation. She realized she needed not only physical healing, but mental and emotional healing as well. The accident left her without the use of her left hand, and that suddenly meant she had to ask for a lot of help all the time. “That was a real challenge for a very independent young person. And so, over the next few years, I really sought spiritual healing. I wanted to figure out how to not be angry about what had happened to me and feel empowered by something that had, in quotes, 'victimized' me. I was a victim of that trauma and I didn't want to feel like a victim,” Magik says.

She became a student of emotional catharsis, “sat at the feet of masters” and completed various certification programs. Then one of these teachers offered her a simple task: Scream. She did, and beneath her anger, Magik found a deeper well of emotion. “There was old grief and old sadness and old frustration and old disappointment and all these different parts. When I realized how much freer I felt after I actually let those feelings out, I started sharing them with others.”

After the sharing, our small group approached that emotional release. We moved into a silent meditation led by Magik that lasted maybe ten minutes. Then we grabbed our sticks and began the anger rituals that have become famous on the internet. We had 15 minutes.

Magik and her team had gathered a pile of sticks waiting to be broken open from the earth, and we got to work, spreading out and banging the sticks on the ground with howls and screams. Some participants shouted directly at the people who had wronged them, saying “No!” and other things that are far too personal to share on the internet. At first I was too embarrassed to face the task. I banged my stick on the ground and grunted, thinking of the self-doubt I was about to face on this mini-retreat. But to my surprise, that was only Part of what came up inside me when I was overwhelmed by my anger. I thought about times in high school when I was bullied and felt like I didn't belong. I thought about the job offers I didn't get or wasn't successful at. Then something changed.

One of the sticks I picked up was a piece of bamboo that broke into hundreds of pieces when it hit the ground. The cracking sound was so satisfying that I did scream, and all the other women did the same at once. It was so intimate and fulfilling to let our anger out – almost as if we were all fighting for our individual and collective collective injustices.

The 15 minutes went by quickly. Afterward, I felt drained, the way one feels after a day in the sun. A calm surrounded everyone, and we shared our experiences, nodding and snapping our fingers to express the commonality of the experience. My hands were cut, tears streaming down my cheeks. I found truth in what Magik had told me before the retreat: “There is certainly anger. But there is also so much grief and so much pain and so much sadness. And I believe that all of these challenging emotions need a safe space, they need permission to be released.”

Dealing with your own anger, in retreat and beyond

Magik and Schoen agree on one point: the rage must end when the ritual is over.

“We are all human and are allowed to have all human experiences. But that doesn't mean we aren't responsible for self-regulation anyway, right? If I'm angry, I have no right to take it out on someone,” says Schoen. Reflecting afterwards – through journaling, talking or meditating – allows you to leave that anger behind. At least for the moment.

You don't have to have access to a secluded patch of woods (or spend thousands of dollars) to participate in these rituals. Magik recommends closing the door and screaming into your pillow. Schoen has a slightly simpler prescription: silence. “We often get preoccupied with how we're feeling,” she says. “That's why a lot of people say they're not flooded with all the anxious thoughts until they get into bed.” She adds that showers, long car rides, and listening to music can trigger our brains to bring latent emotions to the surface. And when we make intentional time to deal with our emotions—whether it's silence or anger—we can prevent anger from taking over our lives and clouding our relationships.

Of course, the $4,500 question remains: Who gets to gain access to these rituals? And while the answer is those with money to spend (and lucky journalists), the impact of the anger of a small minority has been far-reaching. Videos of angry women have sparked a discussion about whose anger is acceptable and why. When we look into the distorting mirror of the internet and see these videos, our reactions to basic and ‘primitive’ outbursts of anger may just be as interesting as the rituals themselves.

One TikTok user wrote in a video of an anger ritual: “Damn. This is powerful. I believe that we women as a whole have so much accumulated anger within ourselves and our ancestors about all that we have had to endure.”