a meditation for anger
See it. Name it. Own it. Experience it. Let it go. Let it float.
Lama Rod Owens’ SNOELL meditation from his book Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger remains one of my favorites. If you don’t know Lama Rod, “a Black Buddhist and Southern Queen” as he identifies himself on his website, you can get to know him here.
SNOELL transformed how I work with anger in meditation. Instead of trying to let the “negativity” go or get over my anger, it reminds me of the essential process before the letting go that actually makes it possible.
Understanding our anger, bearing it witness, and owning it is just as important as letting it go. I’ve spent decades of my life trying to skip to the letting it go part and often got even more frustrated with myself when I couldn’t seem to get there.
We let things go by first allowing them to exist and breathe, just like our breath or the cycle of life. Naming and owning our emotion as our own unique experience, identifying the thoughts that come with it, where it lives in our bodies, exploring the sensation of it (if we have the neurological capacity to do so—some neurodivergent folks have limited access to sensations and that’s ok!), and generally allowing anger to be a part of our human experience (or insert intense emotion here) is the only way letting go is possible.
An emotion wants to be heard and validated or else it gets louder, just like a child. And like a child, taking care of our emotion doesn’t mean we have to do what the child says, but we have to listen and empathize. Our anger has so much good information! Bearing witness is one of the most powerful gifts we can give ourselves and others.
In the words of Lama Rod, “When we can observe our emotions, name it, understand this is happening in our experience, experience it, and then let it go and float. We can remind ourselves, over and over again, that there’s an incredible amount of space that can hold everything. And the space will be present as long as we’re choosing not to react, but to stay within a practice of responsiveness.”
If you’d like to try SNOELL, you can listen to Lama Rod Owens guide you through it here.
Yours truly and happy spring,
Katie