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Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
Nobody makes that move in one go. It tends to arrive in stages: first you only see it afterwards, then you catch it as it happens, then you catch it early enough to do something else. Working out which stage you are at is more useful than measuring yourself against never feeling it.
man's very soul incites him to evil unless my Lord shows mercy (Quran 12:53). The pull is acknowledged as real, and so is the help that comes alongside it.
يوسف
۞وَمَآ أُبَرِّئُ نَفۡسِيٓۚ إِنَّ ٱلنَّفۡسَ لَأَمَّارَةُۢ بِٱلسُّوٓءِ إِلَّا مَا رَحِمَ رَبِّيٓۚ إِنَّ رَبِّي غَفُورࣱ رَّحِيمࣱ
I do not pretend to be blameless, for man’s very soul incites him to evil unless my Lord shows mercy: He is most forgiving, most merciful.’
Qur’an 12:53read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a randomised controlled trial of skills training for borderline personality disorder, the benefit ran partly through a shift from destructive or suppressed anger towards assertive anger, meaning anger that states a need rather than attacks. What moved was how people handled it, not whether they had it. One trial in one clinical group, so a promising line rather than a settled one.
Kramer U, Pascual-Leone A, Berthoud L, de Roten Y, Marquet P, Kolly S, Despland JN, Page D. (2016). Assertive Anger Mediates Effects of Dialectical Behaviour-informed Skills Training for Borderline Personality Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial.. Clinical psychology & psychotherapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Each stage of noticing lands a little earlier than the last, and earlier is where the choices live.
If you catch yourself saying you were teaching someone a lesson, ask what the lesson cost. Were you paid for the teaching, or are you the one still paying?
This is just how I am ends more attempts at change than anything else. It is also less true than it feels.
Some reactions are pure reflex, some are feelings, and some are really stories about yourself. What helps differs for each, so it is worth knowing which you are dealing with.