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Areas › Anger › Equanimity and perspective
Cost that goes unacknowledged turns into resentment, and resentment leaks out later in a shape you did not choose. Say it plainly to yourself instead: this is costing me and I am choosing it. Then make sure something in the day gives back a little of what it took.
Whoever does good does it for his own soul (Quran 41:46). What you hold back is not a favour you are doing the person in front of you.
فصلت
مَّنۡ عَمِلَ صَٰلِحࣰ ا فَلِنَفۡسِهِۦۖ وَمَنۡ أَسَآءَ فَعَلَيۡهَاۗ وَمَا رَبُّكَ بِظَلَّٰمࣲ لِّلۡعَبِيدِ
Whoever does good does it for his own soul and whoever does evil does it against his own soul: your Lord is never unjust to His creatures
Qur’an 41:46read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of randomised trials found that even self guided smartphone programmes can teach acceptance, mindfulness and self compassion, with small effects against control conditions. Sitting with a feeling instead of acting on it behaves like a skill: teachable, and modest in what it returns per session. Nothing in that literature suggests it ever becomes effortless.
Linardon J. (2020). Can Acceptance, Mindfulness, and Self-Compassion Be Learned by Smartphone Apps? A Systematic and Meta-Analytic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.. Behavior therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Restraint you have chosen with your eyes open lasts longer than restraint that feels forced on you.
Old traditions worked this out a long time ago: someone who cannot be certain they are right cannot be righteously cruel. Doubt is not weakness here, it is what keeps the hand down.
There are two different jobs here. One is getting through the flare when it is on you. The other is quietly changing, over months, what counts as a flare in the first place.
The hand you put up to fend someone off is already halfway to a fist. There is no clean place to stop once the movement is underway, which is why the early moment is the one worth having.