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Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
Ask it plainly. What was about to be lost, what was being said about you, what you were protecting. The answer is usually smaller and more reasonable than the volume suggested, and once you have it you can deal with the actual thing rather than the noise around it.
My people, did your Lord not make you a gracious promise? Was my absence too long for you? (Quran 20:86). Underneath the anger is a promise that was broken, which is what it was shouting about.
طه
فَرَجَعَ مُوسَىٰٓ إِلَىٰ قَوۡمِهِۦ غَضۡبَٰنَ أَسِفࣰ اۚ قَالَ يَٰقَوۡمِ أَلَمۡ يَعِدۡكُمۡ رَبُّكُمۡ وَعۡدًا حَسَنًاۚ أَفَطَالَ عَلَيۡكُمُ ٱلۡعَهۡدُ أَمۡ أَرَدتُّمۡ أَن يَحِلَّ عَلَيۡكُمۡ غَضَبࣱ مِّن رَّبِّكُمۡ فَأَخۡلَفۡتُم مَّوۡعِدِي
Moses returned to his people, angry and aggrieved. He said, ‘My people, did your Lord not make you a gracious promise? Was my absence too long for you? Did you want anger to fall on you from your Lord and so broke your word to me?’
Qur’an 20:86read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A validation study of an anger scale separated what people do when angry from what they are trying to achieve by it, supporting the view that anger is aimed at something rather than purely reactive. Asking what it is aimed at is a fair question to put to it. It was a questionnaire validation, so it shows the two can be measured apart and not what your own anger is after.
Recchia S, Steffgen G, Weber H, Kubiak T. (2010). [French validation of the anger reactions and goals scale (RBC)].. L'Encephale doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Strength of feeling marks importance, so it points you at what to look at rather than telling you what to do.
What overpowered Darwin at that glass was not the snake. It was his picture of what the snake was about to do, and that is usually what overpowers you too.
Here is an odd one: anger is often a way of avoiding conflict. Saying what you actually need is exposing, negotiating is hard work, and losing your temper ends the conversation.
Anger that is still with you the next morning has changed shape. It is less an event by then and more a mood you are living inside.