Inshirahone small thing, well groundedRight now

Areas › Anger

Anger

Almost nobody wants to be the person who says the thing they cannot take back. The window between the surge and the words is short and it can be widened. That is most of what this area is about, along with the fear or hurt that anger is usually protecting.

Narrowed down

25 practices
Cool the body first remove filterAny ordinary day remove filterClear all
Theme · Cool the body first
What anger actually is 58The moment before you snap 49Choosing your response 45Equanimity and perspective 37The fear underneath anger 31Practising under provocation 30Growing empathy 29Cool the body first 25Making it stick 24What you are actually defending 14Righteous anger and perfectionism 13When anger turns to harm 6Anger, alcohol and the body 6
How long you have
A minute 8Five minutes 13Twenty minutes 2Longer 2
Approach
Body based 19Core 3Mindfulness 3
When · Any ordinary day
Under stress 31Any ordinary day 25After a row 9

Open gazing and long unfocused staring do not suit everyone. If things start to feel unreal or far away, stop and look at something you can name.

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…

Five minutesCool the body firstMindfulnessQur’an 16:80

Anger numbs. If it is doing the work of a painkiller for you, it will be hard to put down while the pain underneath is still untreated.

Ask what tends to be there in the half hour before you flare: a bit of shame, feeling small, an old fear about being left. The anger often arrives to…

Twenty minutesCool the body firstCoreQur’an 94:1

If the irritability came in alongside a low patch, or a spell of racing thoughts and hardly any sleep, have the mood looked at rather than treating the temper on its own.

Irritability is part of depression, and it belongs to the mixed and elevated states of bipolar disorder too. Anger skills are still worth having, and…

Twenty minutesCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 78:9

Automatic is not the enemy. An out of date automatic is. The aim is to practise the calmer response until it runs on its own, the way the old one already does.

At the start it feels artificial, and it should. You are choosing deliberately what the other response does for free. Give it enough repetitions and…

LongerCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 33:42

People who train regularly seem to be set off less easily, not because they care less but because a fitter body reads fewer situations as emergencies.

This one works on the scale of weeks, so it belongs in the ordinary part of your life rather than in the middle of a flare. Two or three sessions a…

LongerCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 33:42