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Areas › Anger › The moment before you snap
Knowing this takes the accusation out of the word bias. You are not a suspicious person by nature, you are a person carrying a file that was built from real experience and is now being applied a little too fast. Saying that to yourself quietly is often enough to loosen the reading so it can be checked.
God does not change the condition of a people [for the worse] unless they change what is in themselves (Quran 13:11). The work runs inward, on what you carry into the room, and not only on the person standing in it.
الرعد
لَهُۥ مُعَقِّبَٰتࣱ مِّنۢ بَيۡنِ يَدَيۡهِ وَمِنۡ خَلۡفِهِۦ يَحۡفَظُونَهُۥ مِنۡ أَمۡرِ ٱللَّهِۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوۡمٍ حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُواْ مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمۡۗ وَإِذَآ أَرَادَ ٱللَّهُ بِقَوۡمࣲ سُوٓءࣰ ا فَلَا مَرَدَّ لَهُۥۚ وَمَا لَهُم مِّن دُونِهِۦ مِن وَالٍ
each person has guardian angels before him and behind, watching over him by God’s command. God does not change the condition of a people [for the worse] unless they change what is in themselves, but if He wills harm on a people, no one can ward it off–– apart from Him, they have no protector
Qur’an 13:11read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a study spanning ages 10 to 23, emotional reactivity fell as people got older while the ability to reinterpret a situation improved, and sensitivity to rejection peaked in mid adolescence. How hard a moment lands, and how easily it can be re read, shifts with what a person has already lived. These were laboratory tasks rather than real arguments, so take it as a picture of the trend and not of your kitchen.
Silvers JA, McRae K, Gabrieli JD, Gross JJ, Remy KA, Ochsner KN. (2012). Age-related differences in emotional reactivity, regulation, and rejection sensitivity in adolescence.. Emotion (Washington, D.C.) doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Treating the reaction as memory rather than a verdict on your character makes it something you can look at instead of defend.
Look inside. The moment you catch something going past, put a small dot on the paper and go back to looking. That is the whole exercise, over and over.
Slow your out breath. The threat system reads the state of your blood as well as the state of the room, so changing how you breathe changes something it is genuinely listening to.
There is a kind of mindfulness that means sinking right into a moment, and another that means stepping back from it. When you are angry, you want the second one.