Meditation

[Inner Beauty]

I understand that meditation can help clear the mind and help relieve emotions...Lately I have been feeling a bit angry and easy to kind of set off. I was wondering, if I meditated, would that help? Is there a set way to meditate? What other thngs can meditation do for you?

[RedRonin]

A really broad question.....

Meditation can take any number of forms.  The basic idea is to use the practice for purposes of focus and relaxation. The number of additional benefits vary depending on who you ask.

Relaxation breathing techniques can indeed help with cooling off emotions.  This is going to be a gradual process, though.  Like anything else, you need to practice and find your way around.

Do you know what it is that's causing you to be angry?  That will go a long way toward helping as well.

[Inner Beauty]

Yes I know why I am angry, people drive me crazy sometimes...Dunno if you know the feeling. I find some people can just be impossible, but find I might need a new perspective, but need to kind of get rid of my anger to do that. Thats where medicattion comes in to it...

[Labrys]

I tend to do poorly at both medication and still meditation for anger issues. 

I am more kinetic minded.  I dance or work out while reciting a mantra to myself....the physical work actually burns off some of the "fired up" and enables the mantra to better do its work upon me.

[Brijrian]

A great primer on meditation is "The Miracle of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hanh. It is a short and easy read, 108 pages. It also covers many different kinds of meditation from still to moving.

He describes meditation as the practice of keeping your consciousness "in the moment"--not racing ahead to what happens next, mulling over what happed before, or otherwise being distracted from your life in the now. I think that this particular definition of "mindfulness" is something that pagans often call "centeredness".

My most common method of determining whether or not I am actually "in" and living my life is how often I misplace objects like keys. If I don't remember where I put something (or remember that it is in my hand), then I wasn't actually living my life at that moment--I was somewhere lost in my mind--and I remind myself to "snap to"!

[Zenon]

being angry at things, people, thoughts that bother you is completely normal and healthy, avoiding or trying to suppress anger is something I would not recommend, you must however learn anger management techniques if your anger becomes a problem in your life.

you should try to channel this energy into something else, into some activity, etc.  meditation could be useful, but you should experiment, if it does not help try different anger management techniques or seek help.  99% of the time, anger is caused by our own false perceptions and judgements about the world.  try to investigate about this, read books, seek counseling.  no therapy works better than truly understanding what makes you feel a certain way.