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Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
This caution is usually left out, and it should not be. Practices that are open, unguided and without an anchor are the ones most often followed by feeling detached from yourself or from the room. Before offering this to someone, ask whether they ever feel unreal or outside themselves, and if they do, give them an anchored practice instead. Name three things you can see, feel your feet on the floor, hold something solid.
It is God who has given you a place of rest in your homes (Quran 16:80). Somewhere solid and known to come back to is treated as a real provision, and that is what an anchor is doing here.
النحل
وَٱللَّهُ جَعَلَ لَكُم مِّنۢ بُيُوتِكُمۡ سَكَنࣰ ا وَجَعَلَ لَكُم مِّن جُلُودِ ٱلۡأَنۡعَٰمِ بُيُوتࣰ ا تَسۡتَخِفُّونَهَا يَوۡمَ ظَعۡنِكُمۡ وَيَوۡمَ إِقَامَتِكُمۡ وَمِنۡ أَصۡوَافِهَا وَأَوۡبَارِهَا وَأَشۡعَارِهَآ أَثَٰثࣰ ا وَمَتَٰعًا إِلَىٰ حِينࣲ
It is God who has given you a place of rest in your homes and from the skins of animals made you homes that you find light [to handle] when you travel and when you set up camp; furnishings and comfort for a while from their wool, fur, and hair
Qur’an 16:80read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A small controlled study of depersonalisation found blunted physical arousal in those affected, and that deliberately raising arousal through biofeedback reduced feelings of disembodiment and numbness. The direction of travel for these people is towards the body and towards more arousal, not away from it. The sample was small, and the practical point still stands: not everyone needs quietening, and open practices can take someone further out.
Schoenberg PL, Sierra M, David AS. (2012). Psychophysiological investigations in depersonalization disorder and effects of electrodermal biofeedback.. Journal of trauma & dissociation : the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD) doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Attention with nothing to rest on can drift away from the body altogether, which is the opposite of what you were after.
Screen for feeling unreal or detached before offering open gazing, and stop the practice if it appears during it.
You already own this one. Let out a sigh of relief right now, on purpose, and notice that your body knew exactly what to do.
Anger has a shape you can learn: jaw tightening, breathing heavier, heat in the face, and often a strange busyness in the hands. Find your own two or three.
Squeeze the hand, hold it for a few seconds, then let it go slowly. The letting go is where the calm is, and it works better once you have practised the long version.