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Areas › Anger › Equanimity and perspective
You do not have to import somebody else's whole worldview to get a practice of steadiness. If sitting with a breath count feels foreign, a remembrance you have said since childhood may do the same work and cost you nothing in belief. If you are helping someone else, asking what already steadies them usually beats handing over a technique from elsewhere.
who remember God standing, sitting, and lying down (Quran 3:191). Remembrance here is not a special posture or a set hour, it runs through whatever you are already doing.
آل عمران
ٱلَّذِينَ يَذۡكُرُونَ ٱللَّهَ قِيَٰمࣰ ا وَقُعُودࣰ ا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِهِمۡ وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِي خَلۡقِ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقۡتَ هَٰذَا بَٰطِلࣰ ا سُبۡحَٰنَكَ فَقِنَا عَذَابَ ٱلنَّارِ
who remember God standing, sitting, and lying down, who reflect on the creation of the heavens and earth: ‘Our Lord! You have not created all this without purpose- You are far above that!- so protect us from the torment of the Fire
Qur’an 3:191read 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 were offered a twelve week school mindfulness programme, and it improved emotion regulation outcomes for some subgroups rather than for everyone. Who benefits seems to depend on fit. It was one school programme with adolescents, so read it as a pointer about fit and not as a rule.
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.
A practice you already believe in gets done, and a foreign one gets dropped by the second week.
Focus on the person and it feels personal. Widen out to what is around them, the hour, the queue, the week they are having, and it usually stops being about you.
One bad experience with someone in a uniform, or from any group, tells you something real about that encounter. It is not a verdict on everybody who resembles them.
Holding your tongue is expensive. It is fairer to admit that than to pretend the calmer version of you comes free.