1When you are already angry, imagining your way into someone else's head asks the tired part of you to do the heavy lifting. Start with your body instead: look at their face, let your breathing and your shoulders come closer to theirs.
Perspective taking is a fine skill on a calm day. In the middle of a row it tends to slide into arguing with a version of the other person you have built in your head. Watching what is actually in front of you, their hands, their face, the pace of their breath, gives you something real to be moved by, and it costs almost nothing to try.
Islamic evidence
Your suffering distresses him: he is deeply concerned for you and full of kindness and mercy (Quran 9:128). The Prophet is described as feeling people's difficulty rather than working it out, and that is the kind of empathy that survives a hard moment.
“A Messenger has come to you from among yourselves. Your suffering distresses him: he is deeply concerned for you and full of kindness and mercy towards the believers”
Qur'an 9:128
Psychological evidence
In a laboratory perspective-taking task, people made to feel guilty became more other-centred while people made to feel angry tended to become more self-centred. That is one small experiment on visual perspective taking rather than a study of real arguments. It does fit the everyday experience that anger is exactly the moment when imagining someone else's view gets hardest.
Bukowski H, Samson D. (2016). Cognitive neuroscience · doi
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Why it works. Anger narrows you to your own point of view, so a route that runs through the body is easier to walk than one that runs through reasoning.
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none yet2If you are around people constantly and falling out with them constantly, a quiet weekend on your own may do more for your temper than any conversation will.
Company loses its flavour when there is never a break in it, and irritation fills the gap. A deliberate stretch alone, a day or a weekend, lets you miss people again. Come back on purpose rather than drifting back, and notice how much more room you have for the person you were snapping at on Friday.
Islamic evidence
He watered their flocks for them, withdrew into the shade, and prayed (Quran 28:24). Moses helps and then steps back into the shade, so the stepping back belongs to the pattern rather than breaking it.
“He watered their flocks for them, withdrew into the shade, and prayed, ‘My Lord, I am in dire need of whatever good thing You may send me,’”
Qur'an 28:24
Psychological evidence
The research here is about the practice rather than the solitude. A wait-list randomised trial found that a loving-kindness programme reduced self-criticism in 38 highly self-critical people, so time set aside deliberately for a warmth practice has some support. That was a small trial in a particular group, and nothing in it says that being alone helps by itself.
Shahar B, Szsepsenwol O, Zilcha-Mano S, Haim N, Zamir O, Levi-Yeshuvi S, Levit-Binnun N. (2015). Clinical psychology & psychotherapy · doi
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Why it works. Time apart restores the appetite for company that constant contact wears down.
When not to. If you already tend to withdraw when things get hard, or you are low and avoiding people, this one is not for you: reach for company instead.
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none yet3Time alone can be a good idea or a dangerous one, and the difference is what sits underneath it. If you are already low, already dodging people, or drinking on your own, a plan to see fewer people is the wrong plan.
Ask honestly which one this is. Stepping back from a crowded, quarrelsome week is one thing. Disappearing because you cannot face anybody is another, and it gets heavier the longer it runs. Tell one person what you are doing and when you will surface, so somebody knows to come looking.
Islamic evidence
and do not chide the one who asks for help (Quran 93:10). Asking is treated as ordinary and worth answering gently, which is worth remembering when you are deciding to go quiet instead.
“and do not chide the one who asks for help”
Qur'an 93:10
Psychological evidence
An open pilot of loving-kindness meditation in veterans with post-traumatic stress found improvements in symptoms, in depression, in self-compassion and in mindfulness, though with no control group the results only point a direction. What was tested there is a practice of turning towards warmth. That is worth holding in mind before anyone prescribes themselves solitude.
Kearney DJ, Malte CA, McManus C, Martinez ME, Felleman B, Simpson TL. (2013). Journal of traumatic stress · doi
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Why it works. Being cut off is one of the things that makes a bad patch worse, so nobody should walk into it without noticing.
When not to. If you are having thoughts of ending your life, contact your doctor or a crisis line today rather than making any plan alone.
Feedback
none yet4Underneath both versions sits the same small dread: somebody being displeased with you. That is the thing to practise surviving, and it does get easier.
Start where it is cheap. Send back the wrong order. Say you would rather not, once, to a person who will be mildly annoyed and nothing worse. Sit with the discomfort for the two or three minutes it lasts instead of rushing to fix it. You are not learning to stop caring what people think, only learning that their frown does not finish you.
Islamic evidence
My mercy encompasses all things (Quran 7:156). The approval that actually holds you up is not the one being withdrawn across the table.
“Grant us good things in this world and in the life to come. We turn to You.’ God said, ‘I bring My punishment on whoever I will, but My mercy encompasses all things. ‘I shall ordain My mercy for those who are conscious of God and pay the prescribed alms; who…”
Qur'an 7:156
Psychological evidence
Women given brief self-compassion training showed different alpha-amylase, heart rate variability and subjective responses to a socially evaluative stress task than controls did. So how you meet the moment of being judged is not fixed, and it responds to short training. It was a laboratory stressor with women only, so it indicates a direction rather than describing ordinary life.
Arch JJ, Brown KW, Dean DJ, Landy LN, Brown KD, Laudenslager ML. (2014). Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi
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Why it works. Discomfort you have sat through a few times loses its power to decide things for you.