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Areas › Anger › Practising under provocation
Going straight to the live version works for plenty of people and it is quicker. For someone already flinching at ordinary conversations, it can flood them and teach the wrong lesson. Imagined rehearsal lets you set the volume yourself and step it up gradually, which is worth more than being brave once and then avoiding everything for a month.
Be steadfast, like those messengers of firm resolve (Quran 46:35). Holding a picture of the steadiness you are aiming at is part of learning it.
الأحقاف
فَٱصۡبِرۡ كَمَا صَبَرَ أُوْلُواْ ٱلۡعَزۡمِ مِنَ ٱلرُّسُلِ وَلَا تَسۡتَعۡجِل لَّهُمۡۚ كَأَنَّهُمۡ يَوۡمَ يَرَوۡنَ مَا يُوعَدُونَ لَمۡ يَلۡبَثُوٓاْ إِلَّا سَاعَةࣰ مِّن نَّهَارِۭۚ بَلَٰغࣱۚ فَهَلۡ يُهۡلَكُ إِلَّا ٱلۡقَوۡمُ ٱلۡفَٰسِقُونَ
Be steadfast [Muhammad], like those messengers of firm resolve. Do not seek to hasten the punishment for the disbelievers: on the Day they see what they had been warned about, it will seem to them that they lingered no more than a single hour of a single day [in this life]. This is a warning. Shall any be destroyed except the defiant
Qur’an 46:35read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a military predeployment protocol, relaxation training assisted by heart rate variability biofeedback changed the physiological stress response, which supports the idea that staying calm under load can be trained rather than only endured. That involved specialised equipment and a very particular group. It says nothing about how far imagined practice takes you before the real thing.
Lewis GF, Hourani L, Tueller S, Kizakevich P, Bryant S, Weimer B, Strange L. (2015). Relaxation training assisted by heart rate variability biofeedback: Implication for a military predeployment stress inoculation protocol.. Psychophysiology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
You learn from a rehearsal you can stay present in, and not from one that overwhelms you.
You can be genuinely indignant and still say the thing evenly. The feeling does not have to travel in your voice.
Practice gets more useful when someone is really watching. It also gets harder, so agree that part before you begin instead of adding it once the person is already in the middle of it.
Working on anger is not meant to leave you with nothing to say. The aim is to keep the objection and let go of the force it was riding on.