Daily Meditations for Calming Your Angry Mind: Mindfulness Practices To Free Yourself From Anger

Leading mindfulness expert and author of Calming Your Anxious Mind, Jeffrey Brantley, MD, offers daily mindfulness-based meditations to help you gain control of your emotional reactions, improve your relationships, and cultivate peace, balance, and well-being in your life.

Anger is an intense emotion that everyone deals with, but when feelings of anger spiral out of control they can get in the way of living a full and happy life. If you struggle with intense irritability or angry outbursts, you may feel like your reactions are beyond your control. But this simply isn’t true—you, and only you, have the power to change your life. You just need to be shown the way.

In Daily Meditations for Calming Your Angry Mind, Brantley details three different paths—or approaches—based in mindfulness and meditative perspectives, that you can choose from to take control of your anger, and your life. First, you’ll learn to disengage from your anger by pausing to be mindful when anger is happening. Second, you’ll discover ways to cool your anger using meditative practices to nurture kindness and compassion towards yourself and others. And third, you’ll find tips for practising mindfulness to transform your understanding and realise your anger is not an identity, a defect, or a permanent condition.

These three practical and easy-to-use approaches to anger management have a strong basis in both ancient and modern traditions. With this book as your guide, you can finally overcome the tumultuous thoughts, feelings, and reactions that have been holding you back in life.

"In this book, [the authors] go beyond the usual ways we think about anger, and bring new depth to the subject. [They are] masters at providing astute and warmhearted guidance for working with this difficult emotion."
- Sasha Loring, MEd, LCSW, author of RELIEF: Release Stress and Harmful Habits and Awaken Your Best Self and Eating with Fierce Kindness

"Using personal portrayals and easy, practical exercises anyone can do anytime, this encouraging handbook teaches us how we can mindfully transform the destructive flames of anger into the alchemical fires of profound healing and liberating joy! A true gem and ‘must-read’ for those who wrestle with anger, for the professionals who offer support, and for all of us as we experience the very real and profoundly human emotion of anger."
- Maya McNeilly, PhD, licensed clinical and health psychologist, and MBSR instructor at Duke Integrative Medicine

"In their latest companion book, Jeffrey Brantley and Wendy Millstine share their personal experiences and insights about how to gain greater clarity and control over anger through mindfulness. Well organized, clear, authentic, and practical, I highly recommend this book as a skillful means to learning how to approach anger without fear, but rather with kindness, curiosity, and compassion."
- Jeffrey M. Greeson, PhD, MS, assistant professor of clinical psychology in psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine

"The authors provide a welcome addition to the emerging applications of mindfulness by offering a practical blueprint for transforming the challenging emotion of anger into greater wisdom, mercy, and well-being. Practices designed to enhance attention, compassion, and insight gently guide the reader through the ‘doorway of anger’ toward a deeper understanding of its causes and conditions. This book brings to light the power of mindfulness to move one beyond the constrictions of anger and toward greater freedom and interconnection with all of life as it is being lived, moment by moment."
- Ron Vereen, MD, psychiatrist in private practice, Durham, NC; consulting associate in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University; MBSR instructor at Duke Integrative Medicine; and cofounder of the Triangle Insight Meditation Community