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Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
Which is a reason to have something prepared rather than something clever. A short sentence you have used before, a move you have made before, an exit you already know. Reasoning has its place once the wave has passed, and it is remarkably poor at stopping the wave itself.
when the foolish address them, reply, Peace (Quran 25:63). A short response prepared in advance is the kind that survives the moment.
الفرقان
وَعِبَادُ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَمۡشُونَ عَلَى ٱلۡأَرۡضِ هَوۡنࣰ ا وَإِذَا خَاطَبَهُمُ ٱلۡجَٰهِلُونَ قَالُواْ سَلَٰمࣰ ا
The servants of the Lord of Mercy are those who walk humbly on the earth, and who, when the foolish address them, reply, ‘Peace’
Qur’an 25:63read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Across 51 samples and more than 21,000 people, reinterpreting situations correlated modestly with better mental health, at around .26, while habitually hiding feelings correlated with worse. Even the strategy that does best has a modest relationship at this level. Everything was measured at a single point in time, so read it as a pattern rather than a guarantee about any technique.
Hu T, Zhang D, Wang J, Mistry R, Ran G, Wang X. (2014). Relation between emotion regulation and mental health: a meta-analysis review.. Psychological reports doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A body already moving takes time to settle, whatever you have concluded about it.
Letting it all out does not drain the anger off. Every rehearsal of the row, out loud or in your head, is practice, and practice makes the response easier to reach next time.
The years you spent angry are not written off. The drive that wrecked things is the same drive available now for putting things right.
When anger comes it takes the whole body with it: heart, hands, voice, attention. The system would rather do too much than too little.