I Was the perpetrator-Now i forge-this is how rage became my ally

I used to think rage was power.

Turned out it was just pain-wearing armor.

I grew up the youngest of seven in a house where anger was the only language everyone spoke fluently. My dad’s fury wasn’t occasional — it was the weather. You learned to read the waves or get smashed. Love and fear shared the same heartbeat. It was conditional. The fear of only being loved when I performed well was absorbed like oxygen, and it filled me in ways I didn’t understand at the time. My dad taught me that excellence can be learned and earned through an arduous work ethic but it was the attainment of perfection which was the mixed message I embedded in my anxious mind.

By my teens, I was swinging a heavy wrench. Testosterone + trauma = a cocktail that made me feel alive, even as I was destroying almost everything around me when I “lost it.” I called it “intensity.” Everyone else called it scary.

I became the man I swore I’d never be.

Married. Children. And one day I looked in the mirror and saw my father’s eyes staring back — cold, explosive, ashamed. I had been passed the poison and was passing the poison forward. The cycle didn’t just continue. In my soul, I failed. I was a different version of my dad but such a failure anyway. In my opinion, I poured gasoline on it, and the flames nearly consumed me. I had strived to extinguish something, and without help, it nearly burned out of control.

That’s when the universe forced the reckoning.

Some men get therapy. Some get mentors. Some get education.

I got all three, and they came with a price I was ready for.

The shelters I worked in later? I sat across from women whose faces I recognized — because I had been the reason for that look on my own partner’s face. The irony wasn’t lost on me. It broke something open inside, a raw tenderness I’d buried under years of hardness.

25+ years running court-ordered anger management groups taught me one brutal truth:

Most men don’t have an anger problem.They have a truth problem.

They lie to themselves so well that the rage has to scream to be heard.

I was the king of that lie.

Until the forge.

Rage to Reign wasn’t a course I created. It was the path I crawled through with blood, sweat, and tears — a mix of fury and fragility that nearly broke me.

First fire: admitting I was the perpetrator, not the victim of ignorance and circumstance. That confession cracked me wide open, letting the shame flood in. But it also let compassion follow, for myself and those I hurt. Second fire: working with victims and perpetrators of domestic violence. Many days I heard my own words echoed back from the other side, stirring a deep empathy I’d never allowed before. Third fire: looking my former wife and children in the eye and saying “I was wrong and I’m sorry,” without an excuse attached. The vulnerability in that moment — the fear of rejection, the ache of regret — it made me tremble inside.

But something happened when the old me finally burned.

The ashes weren’t empty.

They were fertile.

I stopped seeing rage as the enemy and started seeing it as raw ore — unrefined power that needed heat, pressure, and a gentle hand to guide it. It was noise that is the signal to approach and be resolved to take action.

That’s when Purpose Over Pain stopped being a cute phrase and became my operating system — a blend of fierce determination and soft-hearted openness.

The echoes from childhood still show up. They always will.

When that familiar tension rises in my head and bellows in my gut, I don’t deny it. I utilize it, with a tenderness I learned the hard way.

I ask three questions the forge taught me:

What emotions are beneath this anger? How do these emotions resonate in my body? Who do I become if I let it serve instead of rule?

Almost all the time, the answer is: Unsafe-protect the little boy who rarely felt comforted, even in my mother's arms. Threatened-defend the man I’m becoming even if at times I doubt I know. Compassion-become the person I want to be and lead by example.

Every time, I eat humble pie. Because the journey isn’t about arriving at perfection — it’s about staying open to the lessons, even when they sting.

The greatest lie men believe is that we’ve “arrived.”

The truth is the forge never closes; the work is never finished.

Every day is a practice in balance for the soul — strength wrapped in sensitivity.

Some days I add plates, pushing my limits with raw grit. Some days the bar bends me, forcing me to feel the weight of my vulnerabilities.

But I never skip.

Because I know what happens when you stop showing up to the fire — the emotional numbness creeps back, relationships suffer, and the cycle restarts.

I’ve lived it.

And I refuse to go back.

If you’re reading this and something in your chest just tightened — that’s the ore recognizing the hammer. It’s not just anger stirring; it’s the part of you that’s ready to feel again, to connect without walls.

You’re not broken. You're unrefined, with layers of pain waiting to be felt and transformed.

The difference is everything.

Rage to Reign is where we separate the slag from the steel, honoring the emotions underneath with honesty and care. Forged is where we shape the blade, blending hardness with the flexibility that comes from self-compassion. Forged King is where you learn to wield it without cutting the people you love — turning power into presence, rage into relational strength.

I don’t teach theory. I teach the path I bled on — a path that’s as much about feeling deeply as it is about forging ahead.

The same path that’s produced:

Iron workers who rebuilt marriages they almost demolished, rediscovering tenderness in the process. Wealthy businessmen who finally sleep without hiding behind their resources, allowing vulnerability to heal their hidden wounds. Fathers whose kids now run toward them instead of away, fostering emotional bonds that last. Men who looked in the mirror and saw a sovereign instead of a perpetrator, embracing the full spectrum of their feelings

The forge is hot. The hammer is heavy. The crown is waiting — not as a symbol of conquest, but of compassionate leadership.

But it’s not free.

It costs the old you — the guarded, disconnected version.

Everything.

If you’re ready to pay that price, the gate is open.

Step in.

Or stay in chains.

Your call.

Ransom Kong. Former perpetrator. Current Forge Master. Forever student of the fire, with an intense bias towards action and an open heart for the journey.

P.S. If this post made you uncomfortable — that's good. Discomfort is the first sign the forge is working, stirring the feelings you’ve kept buried.

Now decide: Will you let it shape you, with all the emotions that come with it? Or will you stay numb?

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