How Anger Fueled a Nobel Peace Prize

Sunday was a momentous day in Venezuela. Maria Corina Machado returned to her country after nearly a year in exile. Her journey back had been thwarted no fewer than seven times.

I write about her today for a number of reasons. Firstly, as the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, she exemplifies some of humanity’s greatest qualities and sense of purpose. Secondly, she is the perfect role model for wise anger in action, and we need to talk more about anger. And finally, while admiration for her is nearly universal for Venezuelans (I am one, in case you didn’t know) she is also my cousin, and I could not be prouder.

Maria Corina embodies tenacious, wise anger because she refuses to relent in the face of odds that have deflated countless other political leaders in Venezuela. 

Imagine the following and let yourself connect with what you would feel if all this happened to you over the course of a quarter century:

• Imagine a company your family started being expropriated by the government and subsequently run into the ground
• Imagine receiving death threats (for yourself and your children) 
• Imagine needing to send your children abroad because of the threats
• Imagine being prevented from leaving your country because of trumped up charges against you, and therefore missing your kid’s big life milestones, graduations, etc.
• Imagine your whole team being politically persecuted and illegally incarcerated
• Imagine being forced to live in hiding because of the threat of incarceration (on further fabricated charges)
• Imagine having to escape your country via a marine-style extraction operation
• Imagine after nearly a year away from home having powerful people block your return, again and again.

How would you feel if all this was done to you?

Add to that, the rage you would feel to see your country destroyed, thousands of young people imprisoned and tortured, and millions of your people being forced to flee their homes… 

The above is just a short list of a lifetime of obstacles, violations, attacks, and systemic attempts at crushing Maria Corina personally and the Venezuelan people collectively. What she has lived, very few people on the planet ever come to experience. And while Maria Corina is undeniably unique, what makes her a powerful role model is that she is the embodiment of the righteous fight. She exemplifies wise anger in action.

Fighting and anger are often intermingled and conflated with aggression. But Maria Corina shows us the magnitude of results that come from directing the torrent of anger (and rage) towards a single-minded ethical objective through non-violent action.

Indeed, what fuels someone who continues to stand up when the odds are stacked against her? It is anger. It is rage. Anger and rage turned into an unstoppable force.  

It’s taking the fire inside you and instead of using it for attack, it’s channeling it into a movement that says, “watch me!”

You want to prevent me from running for president? 

Watch me!

You want to prevent me from leaving the country in order to receive the Nobel Peace Prize?

Watch me!

You want to prevent me from returning to my country? 

Watch me!

You want to prevent us from claiming our sovereignty as a people?

Watch us!

Maria Corina has anger and courage in spades and she inspires us, not just as a leader, but as the living definition of feminism that I want to be a part of. 

The crowning achievement that likely led to being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was her ability to lead the Venezuelan people in channeling our collective anger towards proving –with voter tally sheets in hand– that we won the 2024 presidential election by a landslide. A feat achieved by no other people, especially not under a totalitarian regime. That is the righteous fight: the power of anger channeled towards non-violent, wise action. 

We all have the fire of anger inside of us. It is our ally. It is our power to set things right. But the challenge to wield that power resides in several other realities.

Our anger feels UNCOMFORTABLE.

Our rage feels SCARY.

We feel scared and uncomfortable with our anger and rage because not only have we had very few role models of healthy anger, we also were rarely (if ever) allowed to be angry. We experienced punishment and suppression when we got angry as kids. We witnessed the shaming of the shadow expressions of anger. The end result is that we fear the consequences of allowing ourselves to express our anger… so we swallow it. We question it. We get so stuck in our anger that it festers into deep resentments and turns into physical ailments.

Anger wants us to speak. To push back. To reset the boundary. But it also takes courage…

Maria Corina had the courage to name what is wrong in the face of misogyny, political persecution, and physical assault. In 2012, she said to Chavez (to his face) that expropriation was stealing. To which he famously replied that she was “out of ranking” to debate him and that  “eagles don’t hunt flies”... meaning he was the eagle and she was the fly. (A year later, a group of National Representatives loyal to Chavez, physically assaulted her and dragged across the National Assembly floor resulting in a broken nose that required surgery.)

So yes, you get scared to express your anger even when you take righteous action. Because those who have been trespassing your rights will not like it when you try to restore the boundary they’ve crossed. Their response might be one of aggression, but that doesn’t mean that your anger is wrong. 

Once you let yourself tap into it, you cannot stop the determination that is driven by the quiet, wise power inside your anger

The anger that says no. 

The anger that tells the truth.

The anger that creates change. 

The anger that joins with others and mobilizes a whole country to claim their civil rights and to restore democracy in our nations.

It is time for humanity to release anger from the shadows and begin bringing its power into the light. We are awakening to this, and it will be essential not only for our personal healing, but also for the collective healing of the centuries of wounds caused by wars.

Are you ready to join us?

We’re talking about anger and rage again on November 18th at 7:00 pm. 

The Power of Anger

Let’s talk about how we go from being scared and lost with our anger to channeling it into wise action. You can sign up through the button below.

And if you came to the first call, this one will be slightly different. We're going to do some energy clearing work and we're going to talk about collective rage.

I hope to see you there.