Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Anger › Making it stick
That layer is slower work, closer to rebuilding a view of life than to learning a technique. What counts as fair, what can reasonably be expected of other people, how much of reality is supposed to do as it is told. It is also where the evidence thins out, so it is worth holding this part more loosely than the skills part.
God does not change the condition of a people unless they change what is in themselves (Quran 13:11). The change described sits at the level of what a person is, which is slower than any technique.
الرعد
لَهُۥ مُعَقِّبَٰتࣱ مِّنۢ بَيۡنِ يَدَيۡهِ وَمِنۡ خَلۡفِهِۦ يَحۡفَظُونَهُۥ مِنۡ أَمۡرِ ٱللَّهِۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوۡمٍ حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُواْ مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمۡۗ وَإِذَآ أَرَادَ ٱللَّهُ بِقَوۡمࣲ سُوٓءࣰ ا فَلَا مَرَدَّ لَهُۥۚ وَمَا لَهُم مِّن دُونِهِۦ مِن وَالٍ
each person has guardian angels before him and behind, watching over him by God’s command. God does not change the condition of a people [for the worse] unless they change what is in themselves, but if He wills harm on a people, no one can ward it off–– apart from Him, they have no protector
Qur’an 13:11read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
The firmer evidence sits on the structured skills side. In a randomised trial of a programme for aggressive preadolescent boys, effects were still detectable a year later, and the version that involved the parents held up best. That is children rather than adults, and a skills and parenting programme rather than a meaning centred one. There is no comparable body of trials for the deeper existential work with anger, which is a reason for care rather than a reason to drop it.
John E. Lochman; Karen C. Wells (2004). The Coping Power Program for Preadolescent Aggressive Boys and Their Parents: Outcome Effects at the 1-Year Follow-Up.. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
While the belief that something is outrageous stays intact, the anger still has somewhere to come from.
The work you are doing on anger does not stay in the anger box. Learning to hold an unanswered question, or to sit with what you cannot change, turns up in worry and in low patches too.
Notice how much of the tightness in you is the verdict you are passing. As the judging comes down, the body tends to come down with it.
One move to interrupt, one to settle. Open your hand, then take the slow breaths: the first buys you the gap and the second gives you something to do with it.