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Areas › Anger › Equanimity and perspective
Take them one at a time. When something flares, the quickest of the four is usually the second: put your attention on your feet or the sound of the room and let the commentary run without you in it. The aim is not to feel peaceful. It is to be somewhere other than inside the argument you are having with yourself.
soon the plants turn to dry stubble scattered about by the wind (Quran 18:45). What looks permanent while it is green is already on its way to being scattered, this mood included.
الكهف
وَٱضۡرِبۡ لَهُم مَّثَلَ ٱلۡحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنۡيَا كَمَآءٍ أَنزَلۡنَٰهُ مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ فَٱخۡتَلَطَ بِهِۦ نَبَاتُ ٱلۡأَرۡضِ فَأَصۡبَحَ هَشِيمࣰ ا تَذۡرُوهُ ٱلرِّيَٰحُۗ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيۡءࣲ مُّقۡتَدِرًا
Tell them, too, what the life of this world is like: We send water down from the skies and the earth’s vegetation absorbs it, but soon the plants turn to dry stubble scattered about by the wind: God has power over everything
Qur’an 18:45read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a randomised laboratory experiment comparing mindful breathing with progressive muscle relaxation and loving kindness meditation, only mindful breathing produced greater decentering and less negative reaction to repetitive thoughts. That is close to a direct test of the not minding your own mind part. It was a single short session in a laboratory, so it shows the effect exists rather than how long it lasts.
Feldman G, Greeson J, Senville J. (2010). Differential effects of mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and loving-kindness meditation on decentering and negative reactions to repetitive thoughts.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Attention spent on the senses is attention not being spent rehearsing the offence.
The same cup is a drinking cup at home and contraband in a prison, because the role you are standing in has already decided what you are looking at.
You get one life, and spending the whole of it at war with how it turned out is a heavy price to pay for being right.
A raised voice at home gets heard as disrespect long before anyone checks. Sometimes the person simply cannot hear how loud they are over their headphones.