My experience was a sliver of the longer retreats Magik holds in destinations around the globe. These immersive experiences feature activities such as one-on-one coaching, daily rituals, and sustainable agriculture info sessions. The next one will take place in the Redwoods<\/a> and costs up to $4,444 for five days. Magik has drawn people from across the world, including participants from the USA, Germany, Lithuania, Estonia, France, Portugal, Spain, and more, according to one of Magik\u2019s spokespeople.\u00a0<\/p>\n Online, Magik\u2019s rage rituals have drawn support and scrutiny in equal measure. While some commenters have expressed relief in just watching <\/em><\/a>women express their anger, others have questioned the basic legitimacy of the practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople will do anything but therapy<\/a>,\u201d wrote one Reddit commenter in response to a video of a rage ritual.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another commented that rage rituals \u201cwill give these women the thought that the only way to \u2018healthily\u2019 \u2018treat\u2019 these feelings is to lash out and hit things, screaming and attacking.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Still others have called them \u201cpowerful,\u201d noting<\/a>, \u201cI literally cried seeing this. I NEED this.\u201d<\/p>\n California-based therapist Audrey Schoen<\/a> says that rage rituals are really nothing more than an emotional regulation technique<\/a>. These practices\u2014which involve interacting with our emotions so that we can safely manage them\u2014are a cornerstone of many therapeutic treatments. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to uncover what\u2019s under the anger. What is the hurt, the disappointment, the frustration, the letdown? Anger tends to be a secondary emotion, and sometimes anger is warranted,\u201d says Schoen.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because women have historically been taught to hide and mask their anger, the invitation to do the opposite can be a huge relief, she adds. \u201cWomen are seeking to experience the part of the human experience that they\u2019ve been divorced of through cultural conditioning,\u201d she says. \u201cCulture has said \u2018you\u2019re not allowed to be in this space.\u2019 And we\u2019re saying, \u2018No, we are. We all are humans, and we\u2019re allowed to have all of the human experience.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n I attended a miniature, one-hour version of this larger experience with other members of the press and some of Magik\u2019s friends. We started by breaking into small groups and taking a minute each to answer the questions Magik had given us. We talked about how our parents taught us to process rage and the last time we were angry. Our walls came down quickly; there seemed to be an agreement between our small group that we would be honest with one another, and that alone felt good. How often do you get to skip past the small talk and dive into conversations that make you realize how truly not alone you are?\u00a0<\/p>\n Fostering this feeling is intentional for Magik, who says that humanitarianism has been essential to her life since a young age. \u201cI grew up in the Redwoods in Northern California, a very beautiful, enchanted magical type of upbringing,\u201d she tells Fortune<\/em>. \u201cMy parents were conscious entrepreneurs, so they were always interested in being philanthropic and making the world a better place by creating things that would support and empower people. I grew up with that as the lens of what was important and what was valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n At 16, Magik was involved in an accident that nearly led her to become an amputee. She found that she needed not only physical but mental and spiritual healing. The accident left her without the ability to use her left hand, and that suddenly meant asking for a lot of help, all the time. \u201cThat was really challenging for a very independent young person. And so over the next several years, I really sought spiritual healing. I wanted to figure out how to not be angry about what had happened to me and to feel empowered by something that had, quote-unquote, \u2018victimized me.\u2019 I had been a victim of this trauma, and I didn\u2019t want to feel like a victim,\u201d says Magik.<\/p>\n Alexis Dowling<\/p>\n<\/div>\n She became a student of emotional catharsis, \u201csitting at the feet of masters\u201d and pursuing various certification programs. Then, one of these teachers offered her a simple assignment: <\/em>Scream. She did, and beneath her anger, Magik found a deeper well of emotions. \u201cThere was old grief and old sadness and old frustration and old disappointment and all of these different pieces. Once I found how much freer I felt on the other side of actually letting those emotions out, I started sharing it with others.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n After the sharing portion, our small group neared this emotional release. We moved on to a quiet meditation led by Magik that lasted for maybe ten minutes, and then we grabbed our sticks and commenced the rage rituals that have become internet-famous. We had 15 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Magik and her team had gathered a pile of sticks waiting to be cracked open by the earth, and we got to it, spreading out and smashing the sticks on the ground with wails and screams. Some participants yelled directly at people who had wronged them, saying \u201cNo!\u201d and other things that are far too personal to share on the internet. At first, I was too embarrassed to give myself over to the assignment. I hit my stick on the ground and grunted, thinking about the self-doubt I wanted to confront on this mini-retreat. But to my surprise, that was only part <\/em>of what came up as I was swallowed by my anger. I thought of times in high school when I\u2019d been bullied and felt like I didn\u2019t belong. I thought of job opportunities I didn\u2019t get or didn\u2019t succeed at. Then something changed.<\/p>\n One of the sticks I picked up was a piece of bamboo that shattered into hundreds of pieces as it met the dirt. The crack was so intensely satisfying that I did<\/em> scream, and so did all of the other women, all at once. There was something so intimate and fulfilling about letting out our rage\u2014almost like we were all screaming for both our individual and <\/em>collective injustices.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 15 minutes ended quickly. Afterward, I felt wrung out, the way you do after spending a day in the sun. A calm wrapped around everyone, and we shared our experiences, nodding and snapping to express the mutuality of the experience. My hands were sliced open; tears fell down my cheeks. I found truth in what Magik told me before the retreat: \u201cThere is rage, certainly. But there\u2019s also so much grief and so much pain and so much sadness. And I believe that all of those challenging emotions need a safe space, they need permission to be released.\u201d<\/p>\n Something both Magik and Schoen agree upon is this: Raging needs to end when the ritual is over.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe all are humans, and we\u2019re allowed to have all of the human experience. That doesn\u2019t mean that we aren\u2019t still responsible for self-regulation, right? Like, if I\u2019m angry, I have no right to take that out on somebody,\u201d Schoen says. The reflection that comes afterward\u2014via journaling, talking, or meditating<\/a>\u2014is what allows you to put that anger behind you. At least for that moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n You don\u2019t need to have access to a secluded wooded area (or thousands of dollars) to participate in these rituals. Magik recommends shutting your door and screaming into your pillow. Schoen has a slightly simpler prescription: stillness. \u201cWe busy ourselves out of how we\u2019re feeling often,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s why a lot of people say that it\u2019s not until they got to bed that all of the anxious thoughts flood in.\u201d She adds that showers, long car rides, and listening to music can coax our brains into bringing latent emotions to the surface. And when we offer ourselves specific time to deal with our emotions\u2014be it with stillness or with rage\u2014we can keep anger from ruling our lives and souring our relationships<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course, the $4,500 question remains: Who gets <\/em>to access these rituals? And while the answer is those with money to burn (and lucky journalists)\u2014the impact of a small minority\u2019s rage has been wide-reaching. Videos of angry women have ignited a conversation about whose anger is acceptable and why. When we look into the funhouse mirror of the internet and see these videos, our reactions to basic and \u201cprimitive\u201d expressions of anger may be just <\/em>as interesting as the rituals themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n As one TikTok user wrote on a rage ritual video<\/a>, \u201cDamn. This is powerful. I believe we, collectively, as women have so much ancestral and personal rage built up overall we\u2019ve had to endure.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nWhat rage rituals are actually like\u2014and who\u2019s behind them<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Interacting with your rage, in retreat and beyond<\/h2>\n