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Areas › Anger › Practising under provocation
The rule that keeps this decent is deciding in advance to give way at once if anyone objects. No arguing, no standing your ground, a quick apology and out. What you are testing is your prediction of confrontation, and predictions only update when you watch them fail.
When the foolish address them, reply, 'Peace' (Quran 25:63). If someone does object, a peaceable word and giving way is the whole of the reply.
الفرقان
وَعِبَادُ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَمۡشُونَ عَلَى ٱلۡأَرۡضِ هَوۡنࣰ ا وَإِذَا خَاطَبَهُمُ ٱلۡجَٰهِلُونَ قَالُواْ سَلَٰمࣰ ا
The servants of the Lord of Mercy are those who walk humbly on the earth, and who, when the foolish address them, reply, ‘Peace’
Qur’an 25:63read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Work on what makes exposure practice succeed found that neither how far fear dropped within a session nor how calm people felt at the end predicted how they did later. What counted was what got learned about the expectation. So judge this one by what surprised you rather than by how uncomfortable it felt. The evidence comes from anxiety treatment rather than anger work.
Craske MG, Kircanski K, Zelikowsky M, Mystkowski J, Chowdhury N, Baker A. (2008). Optimizing inhibitory learning during exposure therapy.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Your expectation of how badly it will go gets corrected by seeing how it actually goes.
Give way immediately if anyone objects, do not make a habit of it, and leave this one alone if some part of you would enjoy the transgression.
Be careful with the language about growing a thicker skin. Before anyone is asked to mind less, someone has to check that what they are minding really is only a slight.
Rather than manufacturing a calm you do not feel, borrow one you have really had. Bring a settled memory to mind and hold it against the thing that usually stings.
The shape of the whole thing is simple. Find the judgement that stings, meet it, talk it through, meet it again with a different intention, talk it through, then mark that you did it.