Areas › Anger › Equanimity and perspective
Have three or four openers ready before you need them. For what it is worth. Can I run something by you. You might not like this, so give me the benefit of the doubt.
When you are stirred up you will not compose diplomatic language on the spot, so the phrases have to be picked in advance and worn in. Say them aloud a few times when nothing is happening, until they sound like you rather than like a script. In the moment you are only reaching for one, not inventing it.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God is enough for us: He is the best protector (Quran 3:173). The verse records people meeting fear with words they already had, which is why a line is worth learning before the day you need it.
ٱلَّذِينَ قَالَ لَهُمُ ٱلنَّاسُ إِنَّ ٱلنَّاسَ قَدۡ جَمَعُواْ لَكُمۡ فَٱخۡشَوۡهُمۡ فَزَادَهُمۡ إِيمَٰنࣰ ا وَقَالُواْ حَسۡبُنَا ٱللَّهُ وَنِعۡمَ ٱلۡوَكِيلُ
Those whose faith only increased when people said, ‘Fear your enemy: they have amassed a great army against you,’ and who replied, ‘God is enough for us: He is the best protector,’
Qur’an 3:173read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A randomised trial with 234 adults who had problems with anger tested brief therapist supported internet treatments: mindful emotion awareness alone, reappraisal alone, and the two together. Short structured practice can shift anger. The trial tested those skills rather than prepared phrases, so it supports the general approach and not this exact wording.
Bjureberg J, Ojala O, Berg A, Edvardsson E, Kolbeinsson Ö, Molander O, Morin E, Nordgren L, Palme K, Särnholm J, Wedin L, Rück C, Gross JJ, Hesser H. (2023). Targeting maladaptive anger with brief therapist-supported internet-delivered emotion regulation treatments: A randomized controlled trial.. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A prepared opener lowers the other person's guard and buys you a second before the sharp version arrives.
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 someone has said a word, you have often already decided what they are: only here because they were made to come, not really interested, wasting your time. That decision changes how the meeting goes.
This is not a milestone you pass. The two year old's version goes, then a version comes back at twenty two, and again at fifty two, wearing whatever clothes that stage of life provides.
Their account makes sense from where they are standing. So does yours. Granting the first does not cost you the second.