InInshirahislamically integrated self-help
ThemeMaking it stick
ApproachMindfulness
MomentAfter conflict
1If you held back at four o'clock and then snapped at seven, the holding back still happened. A later slip does not reach backwards and cancel it.
MindfulnessMaking it stick60 secondsQur'an 18:24

All or nothing scoring is the quickest route from one lapse to giving the whole thing up: I lost it, so none of it was working, so why bother. Count the other way instead, and treat each success as a precedent that stands on its own. You now have proof you can do it, which you did not have yesterday.

Islamic evidence

Whenever you forget, remember your Lord and say, 'May my Lord guide me closer to what is right' (Quran 18:24). Forgetting is assumed, and the way back is written into the instruction.

without adding, ‘God willing,’ and, whenever you forget, remember your Lord and say, ‘May my Lord guide me closer to what is right.’

Qur'an 18:24

Psychological evidence

Cochrane reviewers have looked repeatedly at programmes designed to stop people returning to smoking after they quit, and the most recent update still found limited evidence that these specific additions help. Slipping and starting again is the ordinary picture, even with support in place. That is smoking rather than anger, and it argues for expecting lapses rather than for any particular way of handling them.

Livingstone-Banks J, Norris E, Hartmann-Boyce J, West R, Jarvis M, Hajek P. (2019). The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · doi

Review detail

Why it works. A slip only becomes a collapse if you decide it wiped out everything before it.

angerAfter conflictscholar review pendinganger-0442-count-the-first-refusal

Feedback

none yet
On: