Areas › Anger › Practising under provocation
Rather than manufacturing a calm you do not feel, borrow one you have really had. Bring a settled memory to mind and hold it against the thing that usually stings.
Actors do this instead of faking a feeling: they call up a real moment and attach it to the cue until it starts arriving on its own. The same works here. Choose one clear memory of being at ease, get the details close enough that you feel a little of it, then hold it while you picture the provocation. After a few rounds the memory begins to come with the cue.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Keep up the prayer at both ends of the day, and during parts of the night, for good things drive bad away (Quran 11:114). Something good, brought in deliberately and often, displaces what would otherwise fill the space.
وَأَقِمِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ طَرَفَيِ ٱلنَّهَارِ وَزُلَفࣰ ا مِّنَ ٱلَّيۡلِۚ إِنَّ ٱلۡحَسَنَٰتِ يُذۡهِبۡنَ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِۚ ذَٰلِكَ ذِكۡرَىٰ لِلذَّٰكِرِينَ
[Prophet], keep up the prayer at both ends of the day, and during parts of the night, for good things drive bad away- this is a reminder for those who are aware
Qur’an 11:114read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a laboratory study, going over an anger provoking memory repeatedly built up cardiovascular arousal, and giving people a demanding visual task to hold during the episode reduced that build up. Occupying the mind with something else changes what the anger does in the body. That study used a laboratory task rather than a personal memory of calm, so this is a related idea rather than the same one tested.
McClelland AB, Jones KV, Douglas Gregg ME. (2009). Psychological and cumulative cardiovascular effects of repeated angry rumination and visuospatial suppression.. International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A calm you have actually felt is far easier to call up than one described to you.
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
Before you go looking for practice at staying steady, make sure you already have something to do instead of your usual reaction. Practising with nothing to put in its place mostly rehearses the old response.
Going silent and hard is not a neutral act. A fixed stare and a set brow land on the other person's body as threat, even though you have not said a word.
The shape of the whole thing is simple. Find the judgement that stings, meet it, talk it through, meet it again with a different intention, talk it through, then mark that you did it.