Anger: Meditation To Prevent Emotional Overwhelm (The STILL Technique)

Anger is a part of life. We can’t avoid it, but we can choose how to respond to it. The STILL Technique (Stop, Take a breath, Investigate, Listen, Learn) was developed by Chibs Okereke to help his clients deal with situations when they get emotionally triggered. It helps to turn off your fight or flight response and get your mind & body back into a calm and relaxed state. STILL can be used in the moment, in the midst of our anger, but you can also use it as a tool to reflect on a past situation.

Transcript

Welcome to the STILL series.

Today we're going to work with a technique called the STILL technique.

STILL or S-T-I-L-L is an acronym for stop,

Take a breath,

Investigate,

Listen and learn.

This technique helps us deal with situations when we get emotionally triggered and it helps to turn off the fight or flight response and get your body back into a calm and a relaxed state.

The STILL technique helps us pause for a moment and consider different ways of responding,

Making us more likely to respond in a calmer,

More rational way,

Rather than reacting in a way that we might regret or reacting in a way that might cause us more suffering.

It's a way of acknowledging our negative emotions rather than avoiding or pushing away our emotions.

It can be used in the moment,

In the midst of our anger,

But it can also be used as a tool to reflect on a past situation.

Let's begin today by getting into a comfortable position.

So sitting in an alert and a relaxed posture,

Knowing as always that it's okay to move at any time.

Just make sure that you're comfortable.

And I invite you now to close your eyes.

But as always,

You can leave your eyes open with a soft gaze.

Some of you may be coming to this meditation with feelings of anger right now in this moment.

So for you,

This next meditation will help you with those feelings.

If you're not feeling particularly triggered by anger at the moment,

We can work with feelings of anger that we've had in the past.

If that's you,

Then I'd like you to bring to mind the situation in the past where you felt angry.

A memory that you can easily bring to mind.

Please don't bring to mind anything too traumatic.

So if 10 out of 10 is the most anger provoking thing you can bring to mind,

Then let's just go for a five or a six out of 10.

We don't want to cause ourselves any stress today.

Perhaps it was an argument with a family member that made you angry.

Maybe someone cut you up in traffic.

Perhaps it was an email or a text message from a co-worker that triggered you.

Or maybe it was just a time when you had a general feeling of anger and there didn't appear to be any reason for it.

Whatever it is,

I'll give you a few moments so that you can really bring this angry memory to mind.

Now that this angry memory is in your mind,

I'd invite you to allow yourself to feel it as best as you can.

Try not to push the angry feeling away or ignore it.

I want you really to feel that sensation of anger inside the body and inside the mind.

So when you have this memory,

When you have this memory of this anger provoking moment,

What did you see at the time?

What did you hear?

What thoughts were running around your head?

What were you doing?

If other people were involved,

Who was there?

What did they say to you?

Where were you when this happened?

What could you see around you?

What could you hear around you?

So really allow your body and your mind to be there in that moment.

And then we're going to practice.

Whenever we notice that we've been triggered by anger,

We can feel those angry feelings inside the body.

The most important first step is to stop.

We make the decision in that moment not to react.

Once we've stopped,

The next step is to take a breath.

And so I invite you now to take a few deliberate deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.

In through the nose.

And out through the mouth.

Really feeling into the breath,

Really focusing on the feeling of the breath going in and out of the body.

As we focus on the breath,

We're allowing our bodies to become still.

We're paying very,

Very close attention to the breath.

So the cool air coming in through the nostrils on the in breath as the lungs and the chest and the stomach expand and then the warm air leaving the nostrils on the out breath as we feel the body relaxing and softening.

Taking one more full breath in and a full breath out.

Now allowing the breath to return to its natural rhythm.

As we do this,

We notice that we don't have to do anything or make any special effort to breathe.

The body knows exactly what to do.

So just allow the body to do the breathing itself.

Let go of any need to control the breath.

Now that we've stopped and taken a breath,

The next step is to investigate.

So we release our attention from the breath and we move our attention now to the sensations inside the body.

Now emotions are always felt somewhere inside the body.

There's always a location of an emotion.

So where is this feeling of anger in your body located?

Perhaps it's located in the stomach or the chest or the temples or the back of the neck and the shoulders or maybe it can be felt across several different parts of the body.

As best as you can,

Try not to have any judgments about these feelings.

So I don't want you to label these feelings as uncomfortable or unpleasant or good or bad.

I want you to take your opinions out of it.

Instead,

We want to be investigating the raw sensation of this feeling of anger.

So for example,

Is it a sensation of heat or tingling or pulsing,

Coolness,

Throbbing,

Vibrating?

Is the sensation strong?

Is it subtle?

Are the sensations getting stronger as you bring attention to them or are they getting weaker?

Perhaps they're changing into different types of sensation as we bring awareness to these sensations or are they maybe stopping altogether?

So we're just going to stay with these sensations and just take out any judgment.

There's no good,

There's no bad,

They're just sensations.

And as you investigate the sensations,

Just notice if there are any thoughts or judgments popping into your mind as you investigate these sensations.

You don't need to do anything with these thoughts,

We're just noticing them.

Now that we've investigated the feelings,

The next stage is to listen.

We sit with the sensations and we listen to the sensations.

Try not to avoid the sensations or push them away.

We're not trying to change them in any way.

We're just sitting here and we're listening to them just as they are.

And remember,

If at any time the sensations are too unpleasant or uncomfortable,

Then we always have the breath to come back to.

The breath is always there,

It's always our constant companion,

It's our anchor that brings us back into the present moment whenever we need it.

So we're not trying to put ourselves through any stress or trauma here.

So whenever it's too uncomfortable,

If it is too uncomfortable,

Just come back to the breath.

The breath can roll in and the breath can roll out.

We also listen to our thoughts.

Our intention today and through meditation is to remain calmly present without reacting to any thoughts that might be with us.

So as we sit here and we listen to our thoughts,

We understand that thoughts are just thoughts,

They're not always true.

We can,

However,

Be curious about what thoughts are present in the mind.

So we can just continue to listen.

We listen to the sensations,

We listen to the thoughts.

We're letting go of any need to control the situation,

Any need to control our sensations,

Our feelings or our thoughts.

We're allowing them all to be,

Listening to them just as they are.

The final stage of the process is to learn.

Is there anything we can learn from this experience?

We could perhaps consider why this feeling of anger is being triggered in us.

Where is the anger coming from?

Is there a history behind it?

Often negative emotions such as anger are a result of us feeling inadequate or disrespected or disliked in some way.

So perhaps you could ask yourself that question now.

Am I feeling inadequate or disrespected or disliked in any way?

We're not judging whether our feelings about this are right or wrong,

We're simply bringing a new perspective into this situation.

Another way of us learning from this exercise is to perhaps think about ways in which we could have dealt with this triggering situation in ways that might not have created such discomfort for us.

Could we have responded differently in any way?

Could we have perhaps responded in a way that might have had a more positive outcome for us?

We don't actually have to do anything here,

We're just using our imagination and imagining a different,

More positive way of responding to the situation.

Thankfully through mindfulness and through using the still technique we can tune into the body and we can break the vicious cycle of anger.

As soon as we notice that we're in an angry state we can stop,

We can take a breath and investigate the feelings and sensations inside the body.

When we tune into the breath,

When we tune into the body we become grounded into the present moment.

And when we're in the present moment we're better able to calmly and passively observe our emotions and thoughts and then we can see how these thoughts and emotions manifest inside the body as physical sensations.

So like buzzing in the brain and tension in the hands,

Pounding in the heart,

Heat in the back of the head and the neck,

Tightness in the jaw,

These are all physical manifestations.

And when we sit back and observe them as sensations and not threats to our safety,

It gives us the opportunity to work with our feelings of anger in a more grounded and calm way when those angry thoughts arise.

And as we approach the end of our practice let's take a couple of breaths,

Feeling the body once again connected to the ground or to the chair and just noticing how the body's feeling right now.

Are we feeling any less angry?

There's no right or wrong,

We're just noticing how we're feeling.

Keeping the eyes closed you can now relax your attention and we'll recap on what we've just learned.

When we find ourselves triggered by anger we can employ the still technique.

We can stop,

Take a breath,

Investigate,

Listen and learn.

When we find ourselves in a live in the moment situation where our anger has been triggered by someone or something,

Often going through the first three steps is enough to interrupt that vicious cycle of anger.

When we notice we're triggered in the moment we can use the first three steps.

We can stop,

Take a breath and investigate the sensations of anger in our bodies and that's often enough.

So you can use the first three stages in a public setting,

So say if you're with work or with family or out and about.

But if you're alone and you get triggered then the last two stages,

Listening and learning,

Can provide some really good insights and can help you to respond in a much more positive way.

The still technique isn't just useful for anger,

It can be used whenever you get triggered by anxiety,

Sadness,

Guilt or any other negative emotion.

So feel free to check out the rest of the still series.

There are more meditations to deal with these other emotions.

I'm bringing your attention now to sounds inside the room and to sounds outside the room.

And you can gently wiggle your fingers and toes and maybe have a little stretch.

And when you're ready,

If you haven't already done so,

Feel free to slowly open the eyes in your own time and congratulate yourself for having taken time to investigate a new skill.

I hope you found this technique useful and I encourage you to use it the next time you find yourself triggered by a negative emotion.

Have a great day.

Reviews

Excellent helpful advice

This was very helpful and helped me process through some angry feelings that had been really effecting my overall energy and well-being.

Soothing, supportive voice. Practical, useful instruction.

I was triggered yestered by something said to me by a family member, comparing me in a negative way to another person. Characterising both of us as having a victim mentality. I didn't dare to defend myself because the ties between us are already tentative, but I felt ashamed and defensive. I wanted to say 'stop'; you've got me wrong. Look at my life; I'm a survivor! But I didn't and this morning the sense of injustice was still bubbling in the heart and throat chakras. Then this lesson popped up in IT suggestions for me. I know intellectually that defensive feelings go back to being falsely accused by my mother who exercised power over me, sometimes cruelly. The incident yesterday was benign by comparison but it stung. My takeaway from today's practice is that someone else's words cannot overpower me, even though the feeling is that someone ele's displeasure will deprive me of something important to me. Love, affection, validation, freedom. I once read in an article, If you are a target, be a target out of range.
Thank you for your good work 🙏🏻💞

Great voice and technique. I appreciate the direct approach without distracting music.

How can I get my angry obstinate partner to open to these techniques?

STILL is a wonderful approach to mindfulness of difficult emotions.

Wonderful and effective technique!

Thank you

Very helpful
Needs to be used regularly to instill one’s habit forming

Much needed. Thanks!

Wow, that was powerful. Learning the STILL technique is a game changer for helping me work through angry emotions. Thank you Chibs.

Thank you 🙏🏾 1/14/22

Great topic!

Good reminder

Thank you🙏

Great technique

Helpful technique - thanks very much!

Powerful technique. Insightful and very helpful. Thank you. Namaste🙏🏾

Thank you. Really needed this right now. Brought me back to a state of peace and serenity. Will definitely be using this meditation and tools again

This was very helpful, thank you. Perhaps having a little more silent time at each step to really practice in the moment would make it even more so. But lovely as is. 🙏