Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
Take it as information without treating it as a verdict. A tightening gut might mean real danger, or an old pattern recognised, or that you have not eaten since breakfast. Noticing it and then checking is the right order, and it beats either ignoring it or acting on it straight away.
and inspired it to know its own rebellion and piety (Quran 91:8). Some knowledge of your own state is described as built in, which is roughly what a gut feeling is.
الشمس
فَأَلۡهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقۡوَىٰهَا
and inspired it [to know] its own rebellion and piety
Qur’an 91:8read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In laboratory experiments, dwelling on an anger-provoking memory kept the anger going and raised blood pressure, while reinterpreting the same event brought both down. The state runs in the body and not only in what you are thinking. These were controlled tasks lasting minutes with volunteers, so the numbers do not transfer straight to a bad week.
Ray RD, Wilhelm FH, Gross JJ. (2008). All in the mind's eye? Anger rumination and reappraisal.. Journal of personality and social psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A signal that arrives early buys you time, but only if you check it before acting.
Some anger fires when your image takes a knock: your child playing up in a shop, your name left off something, a correction in front of other people. What got punctured was the picture of yourself.
Not everyone who never gets angry is at peace. Some learned very early that showing it was dangerous, and the stillness you are admiring cost them something.
When somebody says they were not scared, they just do not like being disrespected, take the dislike seriously. We dislike what threatens us, and that is why we avoid it.