Areas › Anger
Anger
Almost nobody wants to be the person who says the thing they cannot take back. The window between the surge and the words is short and it can be widened. That is most of what this area is about, along with the fear or hurt that anger is usually protecting.
What works for this
Anger control, with distress tolerance
Anger has a runway, and the earlier you step onto it the less force you need. The work is in the seconds before, not in the explosion, and it starts with the body rather than the thought.
One move, today
Name the first physical sign you get. Jaw, chest, hands, heat in the face. That sign is your only warning, and noticing it is the whole skill.
What matches
3 practicesIf the word mindfulness makes you wince, leave the word out. Paying attention to your breath, or to the sounds in the room, is the whole of it.
A lot of people turn the practice down before trying it, because the label sounds like it belongs to somebody else's religion or somebody else's sort…
One or two minutes every day will do more for you than forty minutes once a week. The long sit sounds serious and is mostly a good way to end up dreading it.
Set the price so low that skipping it would be odd: a minute, at a moment you already have. The aim is that it happens again tomorrow, not that it…
When you offer a practice to someone, use their words for it rather than yours. Keep the fuller version ready for the day they ask where it comes from.
A plain, unmystical version suits most people and costs them nothing to accept. Anyone who gets curious can have all of it, and they will take more…