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Areas › Anger › Practising under provocation
In practice that means choosing something that stings a little and staying with it rather than swerving: the colleague whose tone you brace against, a message you would rather not open, a conversation you keep putting off. Too small and nothing shifts. Too big and you spend the whole time flooded, which mostly teaches your body that you were right to dread it.
Only those who are steadfast in patience, only those who are blessed with great righteousness, will attain to such goodness (Quran 41:35). The better response is described as something attained over time, not something you happen to have on the day.
فصلت
وَمَا يُلَقَّىٰهَآ إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ صَبَرُواْ وَمَا يُلَقَّىٰهَآ إِلَّا ذُو حَظٍّ عَظِيمࣲ
but only those who are steadfast in patience, only those who are blessed with great righteousness, will attain to such goodness
Qur’an 41:35read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In 107 distressed employees, stress inoculation training given as two half day workshops improved distress compared with a waitlist, and acceptance and commitment training did about as well. So brief skills training of this kind does something, though the trial gives no reason to believe this style is the only one that works. These were workplace volunteers rather than people in treatment for anger.
Flaxman PE, Bond FW. (2010). A randomised worksite comparison of acceptance and commitment therapy and stress inoculation training.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Your reaction settles when you meet the thing at a size you can still think inside.
If a chosen dose leaves you shaking or unable to settle afterwards, it was too big, so go smaller next time or do it with support.
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.
A good deal of what stings in a tense moment is what you imagine the other person is thinking. Sitting inside a silence and watching your own mind fill it shows you that plainly.
Call the practice whatever fits you. Stress inoculation, rolling with the punches, a Teflon mind, the art of not giving a damn: the name changes nothing about what you do, and a name you can stand makes you likelier to do it.