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Areas › Anger › Practising under provocation
Pick the alternative first and keep it small: a slow breath, one fixed phrase, a decision to say nothing until your hands unclench. Then you can let yourself sit with something mildly provoking, knowing there is somewhere for the moment to go. The order matters more than people expect, because under heat you will only reach for what is already worn in.
Moses said, 'God willing, you will find me patient. I will not disobey you in any way' (Quran 18:69). The intention is named before the difficulty starts, which is the order this asks of you too.
الكهف
قَالَ سَتَجِدُنِيٓ إِن شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ صَابِرࣰ ا وَلَآ أَعۡصِي لَكَ أَمۡرࣰ ا
Moses said, ‘God willing, you will find me patient. I will not disobey you in any way.’
Qur’an 18:69read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A pilot programme built for soldiers before deployment put education first, then coping skills, then rehearsal under pressure, and it proved workable and acceptable to the people in it. What it cannot tell you is whether that order prevents anything, since it was small and was never designed to test prevention. Take it as a sensible shape for practice rather than proof.
Hourani L, Tueller S, Kizakevich P, Lewis G, Strange L, Weimer B, Bryant S, Bishop E, Hubal R, Spira J. (2016). Toward Preventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Development and Testing of a Pilot Predeployment Stress Inoculation Training Program.. Military medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A practice session teaches you something new only if you have a new thing to do in it.
If your anger has ever ended in violence, build this with a professional rather than testing yourself alone.
Another one: take a couple of extra items into the express lane and see what actually happens. Almost always it is a look and nothing more, which is worth learning first hand.
When you catch yourself dodging, just note it. Telling yourself off adds shame to a moment that already had plenty going on.
Run the same moment twice. The second time, change nothing except what you do with it, and let yourself not mind what the other person might be thinking.