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Areas › Anger › Equanimity and perspective
That single instruction covers a lot of ground: it works on a picture, on a rude reply, and on your own attention when it has narrowed to one face. When you notice yourself locked on, name three things in the background on purpose. It is a small move and it changes what the moment is about.
do not gaze longingly at what We have given some of them to enjoy, the finery of this present life (Quran 20:131). Where you rest your gaze is treated as something you choose, and it decides a good deal of what you end up feeling.
طه
وَلَا تَمُدَّنَّ عَيۡنَيۡكَ إِلَىٰ مَا مَتَّعۡنَا بِهِۦٓ أَزۡوَٰجࣰ ا مِّنۡهُمۡ زَهۡرَةَ ٱلۡحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنۡيَا لِنَفۡتِنَهُمۡ فِيهِۚ وَرِزۡقُ رَبِّكَ خَيۡرࣱ وَأَبۡقَىٰ
and do not gaze longingly at what We have given some of them to enjoy, the finery of this present life: We test them through this, but the provision of your Lord is better and more lasting
Qur’an 20:131read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a randomised waitlist controlled trial, 145 ninth grade students with raised mood symptoms took a twelve week school programme teaching attention to present experience, and emotion regulation outcomes improved for some subgroups. Directing attention deliberately is teachable, with benefits that were uneven across the groups studied. Subgroup findings deserve caution.
Fung J, Kim JJ, Jin J, Chen G, Bear L, Lau AS. (2019). A Randomized Trial Evaluating School-Based Mindfulness Intervention for Ethnic Minority Youth: Exploring Mediators and Moderators of Intervention Effects.. Journal of abnormal child psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Attention narrowed onto a person makes their behaviour about you, and widening it puts the behaviour back into its circumstances.
Loosening your grip on who you take yourself to be can go further than you meant it to. Go a little way, then come back to something solid.
Nobody arrives with restraint already fitted. If holding your tongue feels like unnatural work, that is what it is for everyone, and it says nothing about what you are underneath.
After you lose it, the sentence you say to yourself matters. I have no self control leads somewhere much worse than I have not drilled that one yet.