Areas › Anger › Making it stick
You do not have to believe the calmer sentence yet. Say it anyway, on purpose, often, and belief tends to arrive behind the repetition rather than in front of it.
Pick one line you would want ready in your mouth, something like: he is not doing this at me. Repeat it in quiet moments, not only in hot ones. It will feel false for a while, which is normal and not a sign that you are lying to yourself.
Qur’an and Sunnah
So remember Me; I will remember you (Quran 2:152). The practice is answered, which is worth holding on to while it still feels one sided.
فَٱذۡكُرُونِيٓ أَذۡكُرۡكُمۡ وَٱشۡكُرُواْ لِي وَلَا تَكۡفُرُونِ
So remember Me; I will remember you. Be thankful to Me, and never ungrateful
Qur’an 2:152read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a trial comparing two ways of preventing relapse in people recovered from depression, both mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and cognitive therapy worked, and each leaves a person with a skill they carry on using themselves. That supports practised self-management holding a gain, in depression rather than anger. It does not show that rehearsing a sentence you disbelieve produces belief, only that continued practice is what the effect rests on.
Norman A. S. Farb; Adam K. Anderson; Arun Ravindran; Lance L. Hawley; Julie Irving; Enza Mancuso (2017). Prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depressive disorder with either mindfulness-based cognitive therapy or cognitive therapy.. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Saying something many times is what makes it available when you need it fast.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
A cold shower hands you a clean, timed urge to work with. You plan a minute, and four seconds in every part of you wants out: notice it, breathe, let the wave pass, then notice it come back.
Sit still, choose a position, and hold it. Within seconds your body will be asking to move the chin or scratch the neck, and each of those small urges is a free repetition of letting an impulse pass.
One or two minutes every day will do more for you than forty minutes once a week. The long sit sounds serious and is mostly a good way to end up dreading it.