How to Let Go of Anger: A Mindfulness-Based Approach
Although some of us experience it more frequently (and perhaps more strongly) than others, anger is a universal human emotion. Anger is uncomfortable in many ways. Although it may give us some illusion of control over our emotions, it burns hot and causes discomfort both in the mind and body.
Anger is a big topic, and I will in no way touch on every aspect of it. But I hope to offer a good jumping off point when it comes to how we can begin to let go of anger. We’ll cover the nature of anger (from a mindfulness perspective, how anger is suffering, different aspects of anger worth investigating, and a few practices we can use when we notice anger arising. I will also offer a few tips to bring mindfulness to your everyday life, and continue to pay attention to anger.
The Nature of Anger
With any emotional experience or thought process, I find it helpful to understand the nature of it a bit more clearly. This gives us a deeper understanding of what’s happening, and can help us not take it so personally. After all, anger is a common experience and developed in humans for a reason.
What is Anger?
From an evolutionary perspective, anger arose as a means of protection when we feel threatened. It’s quite literally there in the name of the “fight or flight” response (which is actually more like fight, flight, or freeze). Anger helped us historically in moments of fear to defend against predators, protect limited resources, and confront threats.
In this day and age, anger is simply less useful. In Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), anger is what is known as a secondary emotion. This means that anger arises in response to a more foundational primary emotion, such as fear, sadness, or shame. When we experience anger, we often lose sight of the primary emotion lying beneath.
A Buddhist Perspective on Anger
From a Buddhist perspective, anger is often tied to one of the three poisons. Known as aversion, this is the quality of mind in which we want to avoid feeling something. When aversion is present, we want to be free from whatever the experience is. Tying this in with the idea from EFT that anger is a secondary emotion, we can see anger as an aversion to whatever difficult emotion we are faced with.
Thich Nhat Hanh points out in his book Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames that we all have the seed of anger within us. Depending on various causes and conditions, one’s seed of anger may be bigger than another’s. Causes and conditions influence how much the seed of anger is being watered, such as sleep quality, tending to old wounds, mindfulness, etc.
This is an important teaching from Buddhism when it comes to anger. Anger does not just arise out of nowhere. Like all experience, it has causes. In order to work toward letting go of anger, we must address the cuases and conditions that are causing it to arise.
The Suffering of Anger
Anger can clearly cause suffering in many ways. When we lash out, we harm others. We also suffer ourselves as we resist the uncomfortable experience. This relates to the teaching of the Two Arrows in Buddhism, or that pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
The nature of anger is that it is aversive and resistant. Rather than acknowledging the underlying emotion and discomfort, anger seeks to resist, push it away, or deny it. Resisting in this way is very much suffering. And this is a very clear example of self-inflicted suffering. This isn’t to blame you; it just is a reality from a mindfulness-based perspective that much of the suffering we experience comes from unwholesome habits of the mind.
Letting Go of Anger
So, when it comes to letting go of anger, I see this as a threefold process. These three pieces come together to give us a full practice in understanding anger, seeing it clearly, and choosing how we respond. In working with anger, we:
Know the anger - Tune into the experience of anger. It is only through awareness and presence that we begin to understand it and see it more clearly. By getting to know anger more deeply, we take the important step of changing our relationship to anger. We look at it with curiosity rather than judgement and resistance.
Know the causes and conditions - Anger doesn’t arise from nothing. We investigate the causes and conditions of anger, recognizing what gives rise to the feeling. We also take steps to not water seeds of anger, and instead to water seeds of compassion and patience.
Know how to respond - Finally, we learn how to respond with wisdom when anger is arising. We simply aren’t going to avoid every feeling of frustration or irritation in our lives. We must learn to respond in these moments with wisdom, patience, and compassion.
Knowing the Anger
First, we seek to know the anger itself. This is a bit radical. Our tendency is to turn away from uncomfortable or unpleasant emotions, not toward them. However, it is only by turning toward anger that we actually gain an understanding.
Awareness
The first piece of the puzzle here is to recognize when anger is present. The more you tune into the anger, the more easily you will notice its presence. This starts with the simple practice of noting, “Anger is present.” The idea is to recognize anger, name it, and not get hooked in. Instead of being carried off, we practice noticing it is present.
What’s Beneath?
You may do this in the moment if you’re able, or after the anger has passed (which it will). As a secondary emotion, there is generally another emotion that leads to the anger. What is it? For some, it may be fear. For others, it may be sadness.
In my personal experience, anger arises for me out of fear. It most often is a fear of not being able to control in some way. Maybe I feel sad or hurt and can’t control the sadness. Maybe someone is behaving in a way that I find harmful and cannot control. As you tune into your anger, you will get to know the habit energies of your mind and where anger comes from most often.
The Feelings and Experience
In learning to respond rather than react, we must tune into the full experience of anger. As we recognize anger is present, we can dive in a bit more deeply. What does it actually feel like? Can you notice sensations in the body that let you know you are angry? What about patterns of thinking or general mental states?
Tuning into the full experience of anger takes some compassion (more on this in a bit) and patience. We don’t see to change the experience; we seek to know it. Knowing it allows us to reocgnize it more easily in the future, see the process of experience, and break down anger to see the different components that come together to create the feeling.
Recognizing Impermanence
One aspect of all experience is impermanence. Anger arises and passes. When it is present, it changes. Tuning into impermanence (of any emotion) can help us not identify so strongly. As we grow to truly know the impermanent nature of anger, it no long consumes us in the same way.
This is a teaching that can be understood intellectually, but it also must be known experientially. Seeing the impermanent nature of anger ourselves leads to a natural letting go. We don’t identify so strongly with the emotion, and allow it to take its natural course of arising and passing without reaction.
Knowing the Causes & Conditions
The second piece of the process is to know the causes and conditions and begin to work toward watering seeds of patience and compassion rather than anger and reactivity. This is largely reflection-based. You might consider a mindfulness journal, or setting aside some time to investigate these aspects of anger.
Recognizing Triggers
First, we can benefit from recognizing the triggers. Are there any obvious and specific conditions that lead to anger in your experience? Maybe you find yourself angry frequently in traffic, or struggle to stop reacting in arguments. Whatever it may be for you, we are called to simply know where anger is arising.
With a list (either physical or mental) of where anger arises in our lives, we can be extra vigilent. Let’s say you find yourself angry quite often when your kids don’t listen to you. Watch what is happening. What is the anger in response to? Is there another emotion beneath? And what might be a wiser response?
Physical and Mental Care
Many aspects of life can play a role in anger and other emotions. A lack of sleep, poor nutrition, stress, and many other factors can contribute to difficult emotions. We can reflect on what causes and conditions may be contributing to anger so that we can make the necessary adjustments. Although it may seem like a bit of a side quest, the task here is to address all of the causes and conditions so we can stop watering seeds of anger.
Loving-Kindness
One of the greatest ways to stop watering seeds of anger is to begin practicing loving-kindness. Loving-kindness is the practice of cultivating kindness, gentleness, and friendliness toward others and ourselves. We often do this through meditation. With continued practice, loving-kindness allows us to water seeds of patience and compassion which help us let go of anger more easily when it arises.
It’s also worth mentioning that there are many forms of couples meditations that incorporate loving-kindness. If you find anger arising in your relationship with your partner, it may be worth cultivating loving-kindness together.
Cultivating Mindfulness
Finally, mindfulness meditation is a great tool in working with the causes and conditions. A regular meditation practice helps us recognize what seeds we are watering and make decisions out of wisdom rather than reactivity. In my private meditation classes, I often work with people to investigate how specific mindfulness practices can influence experience.
Mindfulness is required to some degree to know the causes and conditions of anger. As you begin to truly know the causes and conditions leading to anger in your experience, mindfulness then gives us the ability to respond with care and wisdom. I can say confidently that mindfulness practice has reduced anger for me, and the research supports this.
Knowing How to Respond
Regardless of the amount of investigation and reflection we do, anger is bound to arise. So what do we do in these moments? We respond with wisdom. Here are a few wise responses to moments of anger.
Self-Compassion
Self-compassion is the most important answer in asking how we let go of anger. With self-compassion we learn to care for the discomfort, tend to it, and stop beating ourselves up. Compassion means we turn toward the suffering or discomfort rather than averting from it. As we do so, we do it with tenderness and care.
Think of how you would respond to a loved one, child, or pet who is struggling. Would you turn away from them, berate them, or care for the pain? In these moments of anger, responding with self-compassion is one of the wisest things we can do. We stop the resistance, and deescalate the situation rather than feeding it.
Knowing the Sprouts
Part of the Buddhist teaching of Wise Effort is to know when unwholesome seeds are arisen or not. With anger, we can work toward recognizing its presence before it is a full-on plant. Can you recognize the seed of anger when it is just sprouting? Frustration or irritability is quite different than rage.
As we practice mindfulness, investigate causes and conditions, and get to know our anger we begin to see the sprouts more easily. Where we once knew we were angry when we were already yelling, we begin to know anger is arising when we feel the energy in the chest or limbs (or however anger arises for you). Recognize the sprouts, and practice seeing anger before it becomes a big, rooted plant.
Guided Meditation Practice for Anger
When it comes to moments of actual anger, it’s a lovely time to pause and meditate. Meditation can help us engage the parasympathetic nervous system, deactivating the fight, flight, or freeze response. Below is a guided meditation practice for working with anger. We look at the physical experience of anger and the thought patterns with patience and equanimity.
Making Space
Finally, we can make a direct effort to make space for the anger rather than resisting it. This doesn’t mean we endorse it, invite it back in, or enjoy it. But it does mean we allow it to be there. Acceptance when it comes to mindfulness doesn’t mean we approve, it just means we recognize the reality of what is present.
We can do this by learning to detach from negative thoughts and not buy into them. With practice, we eventually come to observe thoughts without judgement. In creating space, we decrease reactivity and cease feeding seeds of anger and tension. Instead, we are able to see the anger more clearly.
Returning to the Body
Finally, we can always return to the body with some grounding exercises. Instead of staying stuck in our thoughts, we turn our attention toward the body. This may be through a body scan meditation, a period of walking meditation, or simple open body awareness. As we get out of the head and into the body, we stop engaging with the thoughts and allow them to pass naturally.
Making Mindfulness a Part of Your Life
As I mentioned, mindfulness is a powerful way to begin working with difficult emotions like anger. I have struggled with anger for many years in my life, and it is only due to my meditation practice that I have overcome the habit of regular anger and causing harm.
If you want to bring mindfulness into your life, I recommend starting with my free Month of Mindfulness: Essential Meditations for Building a Daily Practice. This is an online program that offers 30 days of short (3-5 minute) meditations to help you build the habit of mindfulness.
You also might consider joining us for our free online sitting group that meets weekly. And if you have any questions about mindfulness, meditation, or anger, please reach out to me. I answer every question I receive, and offer one-on-one mindfulness coaching sessions to individuals around the world who want to bring mindfulness to their lives.
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Matthew Sockolov is a Buddhist meditation teacher who trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Completing the Dharma Leader training program in 2017, Matthew was given power to teach in the Insight Meditation tradition by Jack Kornfield, Kittisaro, Thanissara, and others. You can learn more about Matthew here.