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Areas › Anger › Choosing your response
On a good day you catch the heat rising and that alone gives you room. On a bad day you will catch nothing at all, and what saves you then is a response you settled on in advance and can run without thinking. Learn both, and do not read a failure of the first as proof that none of it works.
When the foolish address them, reply, 'Peace' (Quran 25:63). A short reply settled on beforehand is precisely the kind of thing that still works on the day you notice nothing.
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.
In a randomised controlled trial with 234 adults whose anger was causing them trouble, short therapist supported internet programmes teaching mindful awareness of emotion, cognitive reappraisal, or both reduced anger, with baseline severity examined as a moderator. Two different routes each helped, and combining them was not clearly better than either alone. The programmes were brief and delivered online, so this says more about direction than about size.
Bjureberg J, Ojala O, Berg A, Edvardsson E, Kolbeinsson Ö, Molander O, Morin E, Nordgren L, Palme K, Särnholm J, Wedin L, Rück C, Gross JJ, Hesser H. (2023). Targeting maladaptive anger with brief therapist-supported internet-delivered emotion regulation treatments: A randomized controlled trial.. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Two routes to the same gap means one of them failing does not leave you with nothing.
You are free while you are still deciding. The moment the words leave your mouth you are carrying out an order you gave, and stopping mid sentence is much harder than not starting.
Set the terms of a break while nobody is angry: what you will say, how long you will take, where you will go, and that you will not drive. Then it is a shared arrangement rather than something you do to the other person.
Picture a machine set to strike at anything that even slightly resembles a threat. It would hit the postman, the neighbour's dog and, sooner or later, a child in a muddy coat.