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Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
People who do this often say honestly that they never get angry, and they believe it, because what they are picturing is shouting. The feeling is all there and the body knows it. What helps is not blocking the indirect route but building a direct one safe enough to use, since the sideways version exists because saying it straight looked too costly.
A kind word and forgiveness is better than a charitable deed followed by hurtful [words] (Quran 2:263). The favour that comes with a sting attached is named directly, and it is rated below plain kindness.
البقرة
۞قَوۡلࣱ مَّعۡرُوفࣱ وَمَغۡفِرَةٌ خَيۡرࣱ مِّن صَدَقَةࣲ يَتۡبَعُهَآ أَذࣰ ىۗ وَٱللَّهُ غَنِيٌّ حَلِيمࣱ
A kind word and forgiveness is better than a charitable deed followed by hurtful [words]: God is self-sufficient, forbearing
Qur’an 2:263read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of 306 experimental comparisons found that deliberately changing how you think about a situation reliably shifted how it felt, while simply trying to hide the feeling was among the least effective strategies. Covering anger over is well documented as a poor way of reducing it. Those were short laboratory tasks rather than years of a habit, so they show the principle rather than the whole picture.
Webb TL, Miles E, Sheeran P. (2012). Dealing with feeling: a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation.. Psychological bulletin doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
The anger did not go anywhere, it just found the exit with the lowest risk attached.
Everyone knows the line about sticks and stones. If words really could not hurt you, you would not still be turning over what he said.
You can be patient all day at work and lose it inside ten minutes at home. That is not hypocrisy, it is different situations pulling different reactions out of you.
Anger built on suspicion sits along a long line. At one end is sensible wariness that has kept people safe, and at the far end is a threat that is not there at all.