Areas › Anger › Making it stick
The aim is not to stop feeling angry. It is to stretch the time between the feeling arriving and you doing anything about it, from no seconds to a few.
That target has the advantage of being honest and checkable. You can ask whether you got a moment this time that you did not get last time. The anger will still turn up and make its noise, and you can stand there while it does without joining in.
Qur’an and Sunnah
If you are steadfast and mindful of God, that is the best course (Quran 3:186). It is said about being hurt and provoked by others, which is where the extra seconds are needed.
۞لَتُبۡلَوُنَّ فِيٓ أَمۡوَٰلِكُمۡ وَأَنفُسِكُمۡ وَلَتَسۡمَعُنَّ مِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُواْ ٱلۡكِتَٰبَ مِن قَبۡلِكُمۡ وَمِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَشۡرَكُوٓاْ أَذࣰ ى كَثِيرࣰ اۚ وَإِن تَصۡبِرُواْ وَتَتَّقُواْ فَإِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ مِنۡ عَزۡمِ ٱلۡأُمُورِ
you are sure to be tested through your possessions and persons; you are sure to hear much that is hurtful from those who were given the Scripture before you and from those who associate others with God. If you are steadfast and mindful of God, that is the best course
Qur’an 3:186read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a platform trial of metacognitive therapy for treatment resistant depression, an approach that works on a person's relationship to their own thinking rather than on its content, large improvements were maintained at six and twelve months. The trial was uncontrolled, so it cannot separate the treatment from time passing. It fits the idea that changing how you stand towards an inner state, rather than removing it, can hold.
Wells A, Fisher P, Myers S, Wheatley J, Patel T, Brewin CR. (2012). Metacognitive therapy in treatment-resistant depression: a platform trial.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
You do not need the feeling to stop, only enough time to decide what to do with it.
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
This goes the way learning a bicycle went. You could not, then you could but only with all of your attention, then one day you rode without thinking about it. The middle bit is the ugly bit.
Skills bring the flare ups down in number and in heat. What they leave standing is the layer underneath: what you believe you are owed, and how you think people ought to behave.
When you offer a practice to someone, use their words for it rather than yours. Keep the fuller version ready for the day they ask where it comes from.