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Areas › Anger › Choosing your response
Ears blocked by headphones, a phone about to die, somebody who has not eaten since breakfast. Make the alternative concrete, because a vague thought like maybe she did not mean it will not hold when your chest is tight, whereas she cannot hear how loud she is will.
Bear with them graciously (Quran 15:85). Part of grace is leaving room for the explanation you cannot see from where you are standing.
الحجر
وَمَا خَلَقۡنَا ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضَ وَمَا بَيۡنَهُمَآ إِلَّا بِٱلۡحَقِّۗ وَإِنَّ ٱلسَّاعَةَ لَأٓتِيَةࣱۖ فَٱصۡفَحِ ٱلصَّفۡحَ ٱلۡجَمِيلَ
We did not create the heavens and the earth and everything between them without a true purpose: the Hour will certainly come, so [Prophet] bear with them graciously
Qur’an 15:85read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In an experiment with 121 undergraduates recalling an anger-inducing memory, twenty minutes of reappraisal, distraction or analytical rumination left them with different levels of anger, and rumination was the least helpful of the three. Doing something with the interpretation beats chewing on the event. It was a single session with students, so do not carry the sizes too far.
Denson TF, Moulds ML, Grisham JR. (2012). The effects of analytical rumination, reappraisal, and distraction on anger experience.. Behavior therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A specific ordinary explanation can compete with the hostile one, and a vague one cannot.
Volume gets heard as aggression even when it is only urgency. Someone raising their voice is often just trying to be heard.
A routine only helps you while you still mean it. Every so often, ask whether you are keeping a habit because you chose it or because you stopped noticing it.
Having the capacity to choose and actually using it are separate questions, and only the second one changes your evening. The useful work all sits in the gap between them.