Reviews

Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger by Lama Rod Owens

alysereadsbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

3.0

I listened to this on audiobook and found it insightful and beneficial, despite that it leaned a little hard into spirituality for me. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Racial slurs, and Racism

Minor: Sexual assault

noblescavenger's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

3.75

jrayereads's review against another edition

I was listening to this as an audiobook and it really should be read - there are embodiment exercises that would be easier to follow from a physical book. It had great information, I just need to get a physical copy.

dashtaisen's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

5.0

The book is explicitly not about suppressing anger, or overcoming anger, or transforming anger into something else. Instead, it's about creating emotional space that allows us to engage with anger rather than simply reacting to it. In many ways this is a book about mindfulness, but not the trendy insipid "mindfulness" we often get in professional development workshops. Lama Rod takes an approach rooted in Buddhist meditation practice, and includes wisdom from many other practices and teachers, including James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and RuPaul ("my goal is to always come from a place of love ...but sometimes you just have to break it down for a motherfucker"). He originally came across Buddhism and meditation through his experiences with the Catholic Worker Movement, and I appreciate his antiracist and anticapitalist approach to practice. I especially reading this book along with Emily Nietfeld's "Acceptance: A Memoir", where the author talks about her experience of radical acceptance being perverted in support of a "grit" mentality.

veganninja's review against another edition

All this revolutionary crap is such a waste of time! 

cynstagraphy's review against another edition

Too many cliché culty words and too "cult of personality". I still have a lot of respect and solidarity and believe he has his heart in the right place, but the message would reach so many more hearts if it didn't read like a CIIS PhD dissertation.

Also, an interview with yourself? Really? 

arussell77's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.25

lsparrow's review against another edition

5.0

The book I needed to read right now about how we can love our feelings and listen to what they have to teach us.

amandadevoursbooks's review against another edition

4.0

This is a really interesting read. It is written by Lama Rod Owens, and in it Owen shares how he created space for his anger and teaches how to create space for your own anger. In between the chapters and in the middle of the chapters there are invitations to practice meditation and exercises that help you practice what you are learning.

I listened and read to this and I know I'll be going back to the meditation practices on my audiobook on a regular basis. My only concern or question that I'm still wrestling with is the chapter entitled "me too." In it Owens wrestles with the impact of a teacher who harmed women in his community. It was thought provoking. I struggled with some of the messaging.

alicia_ann_reads's review against another edition

hopeful informative inspiring relaxing slow-paced

This book was a good read, slow paced and containing a number of breath and meditation practices to bring yourself back into your body. 

It's definitely a book you read once, and then come back to and read again.