Areas › Anger › Practising under provocation
If you have someone safe to do it with, ask them to say the thing you dread being thought about you, on purpose, while you practise staying level.
Home is usually where the anger actually happens, so practice that stays in a therapy room or in your head only goes so far. Agree the words beforehand, agree how long it runs, and agree a way to stop that neither of you has to justify. Then talk kindly afterwards, because the person delivering the line needs looking after too.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Moses said, 'God willing, you will find me patient. I will not disobey you in any way' (Quran 18:69). The agreement is made before the difficult part starts, which is exactly how to set this up.
قَالَ سَتَجِدُنِيٓ إِن شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ صَابِرࣰ ا وَلَآ أَعۡصِي لَكَ أَمۡرࣰ ا
Moses said, ‘God willing, you will find me patient. I will not disobey you in any way.’
Qur’an 18:69read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a laboratory task with 69 couples, dwelling on a provocation pushed partner aggression up while reappraising it pulled aggression down, and alcohol loosened restraint on top of that. The couple setting is where these tendencies show themselves, and it is also where drink makes them worse. It was a controlled laboratory measure rather than a real argument at home.
Watkins LE, DiLillo D, Maldonado RC. (2015). The interactive effects of emotion regulation and alcohol intoxication on lab-based intimate partner aggression.. Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A response carries over best when it has been practised with the person it has to work with.
When not to
Do not use this if there has ever been fear, control or violence between you, and never with drink involved.
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
Ask yourself what you would least like the person in front of you to be thinking about you right now. Whatever surfaces is usually what your anger has been guarding.
Another one: take a couple of extra items into the express lane and see what actually happens. Almost always it is a look and nothing more, which is worth learning first hand.
A good deal of what stings in a tense moment is what you imagine the other person is thinking. Sitting inside a silence and watching your own mind fill it shows you that plainly.