How to be Fierce....finding your inner Kali!!

This is an article I read in my Yoga Journal magazine. It was very interesting because of the way people see yoga as a peaceful journey through breath and movement. And it really is quite more than that. I will quote the article, with a bit of my own words.... so its less confusing what an "inner Kali" is....

"You need to find your inner Kali side." I told a friend of mine. You may know someone like my friend. Very busy but also very nice. She values yoga as I do and takes seriously than most. And take life just as seriously juggling work, studies and family trying to balance it all without feeling guilty about spending more time on one or the other. Her approach to yoga is like most people that go into yoga and it is the same as her approach to life. She is so conflict averse that it's hard for her even to admit she has negative feelings. She rarely uses her voice, and she once told me that she can't remember the last time she felt anger. But at this moment, mired in a life conflict that adds more stress than she is use to she is beginning to feel like she needs to find a way to approach this in a "yoga" sort of way. In other words she wants me to give her a prescription for solving her conflict in a nice, nonviolent yogic way. Instead, what popped out of my mouth was "You need to find your Kali side." I suppose I could have put it differently, I could have told her about the moment Bhagavard Gita when the god Krishna tells the warrior Arjuna to so his duty and stand up and fight. Or, I could have said that yoga isn't just about being peaceful its also about being strong and wild and forceful. Yoga, I could have reminded her includes Warrior II, which is basically the posture you take when you're aiming an arrow at someone 's heart. But my intuition was that she needed not so much a rational argument as an image, something to by pass the cultural conditioning of her left-brain dominated mind. Like so many other people who practice yoga had a half-conscious tendency to confuse being yoga with being nice. True, kindness and equanimity are essential yogic qualities, but people can use this as a mask that cover difficult emotions for one to expose. Anger is a gift. And it can be the destroyer of all your inner demons. The simplest way to become familiar with the energy of Kali is to put an image of her where you can see it and look at it from time to time. She is beautiful, but also fierce. Let Kali's blessings purify your heart of fear and anger. Let her draw those negative emotions out of you and dissolve them like smoke." Take this with what you will. You can read it again and understand it or you can just forget it and feel what you like....Namaste!