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Areas › Anger › The moment before you snap
People take the quiet as proof they have finally cleared their mind, then feel cheated when the noise comes back. It never left. Attention was resting on something plain, so there was less to react to. Expecting that, rather than a blank mind, saves you a good deal of disappointment later on.
celebrate His praise during the night, and at the beginning and end of the day, so that you may find contentment (Quran 20:130). Contentment is tied here to something repeated and ordinary, not to a mind swept clean.
طه
فَٱصۡبِرۡ عَلَىٰ مَا يَقُولُونَ وَسَبِّحۡ بِحَمۡدِ رَبِّكَ قَبۡلَ طُلُوعِ ٱلشَّمۡسِ وَقَبۡلَ غُرُوبِهَاۖ وَمِنۡ ءَانَآيِٕ ٱلَّيۡلِ فَسَبِّحۡ وَأَطۡرَافَ ٱلنَّهَارِ لَعَلَّكَ تَرۡضَىٰ
so [Prophet] be patient with what they say- celebrate the praise of your Lord, before the rising and setting of the sun, celebrate His praise during the night, and at the beginning and end of the day, so that you may find contentment
Qur’an 20:130read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a controlled comparison, children who practised a short attention training exercise then waited longer for a bigger reward than children who did progressive muscle relaxation or nothing at all. Where attention is put seems to matter, and not only how relaxed someone feels. This was children on a waiting task, so applying it to adult anger is an inference rather than a finding.
Murray J, Scott H, Connolly C, Wells A. (2018). The Attention Training Technique improves Children's ability to delay gratification: A controlled comparison with progressive relaxation.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Attention is always occupied by something, so the useful move is choosing what occupies it.
It helps to get one real taste of this early, in a single sitting, rather than waiting weeks to find out whether any of it is for you.
Awareness runs a step behind the feeling. The work is not to stop anger arriving, it is to widen the gap between noticing it and acting on it.
Most of us think there are two things to do with anger: hold it in or let it out. There is a third, which is to stop, stay still, and watch it without doing either.