Areas › Anger › Equanimity and perspective
Ask the question twice. What do you see, and what else do you see. What do you think, and what else do you think. The second one does all the work.
The second question takes for granted that another answer exists, so instead of defending the first you go looking. Used on yourself it works just as well, and it is best learned on small things: the parking space, the unanswered message, the look on the face at the till.
Qur’an and Sunnah
This is the way We explain the revelations for those who reflect (Quran 10:24). The picture is given, and the reflecting is left to the person looking at it.
إِنَّمَا مَثَلُ ٱلۡحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنۡيَا كَمَآءٍ أَنزَلۡنَٰهُ مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ فَٱخۡتَلَطَ بِهِۦ نَبَاتُ ٱلۡأَرۡضِ مِمَّا يَأۡكُلُ ٱلنَّاسُ وَٱلۡأَنۡعَٰمُ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَآ أَخَذَتِ ٱلۡأَرۡضُ زُخۡرُفَهَا وَٱزَّيَّنَتۡ وَظَنَّ أَهۡلُهَآ أَنَّهُمۡ قَٰدِرُونَ عَلَيۡهَآ أَتَىٰهَآ أَمۡرُنَا لَيۡلًا أَوۡ نَهَارࣰ ا فَجَعَلۡنَٰهَا حَصِيدࣰ ا كَأَن لَّمۡ تَغۡنَ بِٱلۡأَمۡسِۚ كَذَٰلِكَ نُفَصِّلُ ٱلۡأٓيَٰتِ لِقَوۡمࣲ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ
The life of this world is like this: rain that We send down from the sky is absorbed by the plants of the earth, from which humans and animals eat. But when the earth has taken on its finest appearance, and adorns itself, and its people think they have power over it, then the fate We commanded comes to it, by night or by day, and We reduce it to stubble, as if it had not flourished just the day before. This is the way We explain the revelations for those who reflect
Qur’an 10:24read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A brief attention training exercise improved children's ability to hold out for a bigger reward, evidence that attentional flexibility can be trained rather than only possessed. Asking a second question is a small drill of the same kind. The study was a controlled experiment with children on a laboratory task, so applying it to arguments at home is an extension rather than a finding.
Murray J, Theakston A, Wells A. (2016). Can the attention training technique turn one marshmallow into two? Improving children's ability to delay gratification.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Asking what else assumes there is more to find, which sends you searching instead of defending.
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
Practising the perfect reply in your head feels like letting off steam. It works more like rehearsal, and what you rehearse gets easier to perform.
Try putting a qualifier on the front of your strongest claims. In some ways this is true. In some ways it is not. In some ways I cannot tell from here.
Faces in the curtains, a figure in the dark: the part of you that spots danger would rather be wrong ten times than miss once. It reads people the same way.