One of the many benefits of the work I do is connecting with an array of thought leaders and teachers in the realm of spirituality and personal development. I recently sat with the brilliant teacher and author, Ruth King. She’s an expert on a topic that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: rage. In this conversation, she shares how we can break the bonds of rage that hold us back, embrace the gifts it brings, and heal ourselves and and our relationships in the process. Listen in on the honeycast or check out the transcript, honey.

Kriste Peoples: Hi, everybody. My name is Kriste Peoples, and I’m a producer here at Sounds True. Today, it’s my pleasure to share with you a special conversation that I had with Insight meditation teacher and life coach Ruth King. Ruth is a core teacher in the dedicated practitioner program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and she’s the author of Healing Rage: Women Making Inner Peace Possible.

In this conversation, Ruth and I spoke about the differences between rage and anger, and the recurring patterns around rage which teach us about what we can shift in order to manifest what we want. Finally, Ruth looks into how we can apply these various concepts to help us heal the difficulties that can arise when discussing topics of racial difference and injustice. And now, here’s my conversation with Ruth King:

Ruth King, thank you so much for agreeing to this conversation tonight. I’m so excited to talk to you. I’d like to open it up just by talking about how this work came about. How did you become an expert in healing rage?

Ruth King: Oh, that’s a big, big question because I don’t always feel like I’m an expert even though I’ve written a book [laughs] and done any number of retreats and been on many panels. I think that’s—what I’ve learned about [rage] is that it’s an energy that is always trying to teach us how to pay attention to aspects of our emotional lives that have often been neglected or violated or what-have-you.

So, what I think I’ve developed over the years is a sensitivity to just recognizing when that energy is alive and activated. Through my own mindfulness practice and understanding of the stories and the needs, if you will, of this energy for my kind attention, I think I’ve learned how to interrupt the agitation that I often feel when I’m in the throes of it.

I think “expert” is kind of strong, but I do think there’s something to be said for attending to this energy and recognizing when it’s there, and responding to it with a sense of care…

Click here for full transcripts.

More about Ruth: Ruth King is an Insight Meditation Teacher and Emotional Wisdom author and consultant. King teaches at Insight Meditation communities nationwide. She is a guiding teacher at Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC, core teacher in the Dedicated Practitioner Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and the founder of Mindful Members Practice Community in Charlotte, NC.