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Areas › Anger › Choosing your response
That takes some of the weight off a single bad moment and puts it on the pattern instead. One shouted sentence does not undo a month of catching yourself, and one good week does not settle anything either. What counts is which of the two responses has had more repetitions from you lately.
They will be given their rewards twice over because they are steadfast, repel evil with good (Quran 28:54). Steadfastness is spoken of as a character built up, which is what repetition quietly does.
القصص
أُوْلَٰٓئِكَ يُؤۡتَوۡنَ أَجۡرَهُم مَّرَّتَيۡنِ بِمَا صَبَرُواْ وَيَدۡرَءُونَ بِٱلۡحَسَنَةِ ٱلسَّيِّئَةَ وَمِمَّا رَزَقۡنَٰهُمۡ يُنفِقُونَ
They will be given their rewards twice over because they are steadfast, repel evil with good, give to others out of what We have provided for them
Qur’an 28:54read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a multilevel study, both people's general mindfulness and their moment to moment shifts in it predicted lower aggressiveness, with less anger rumination as the path between them. The design is observational, so it cannot show that practising causes the change. What it does show is that the passing state matters and not only the settled trait.
Eisenlohr-Moul TA, Peters JR, Pond RS, DeWall CN. (2016). Both trait and state mindfulness predict lower aggressiveness via anger rumination: A multilevel mediation analysis.. Mindfulness doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Repeating a response makes it easier to reach for next time, whichever response it happens to be.
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.
Open with the difficulty instead of the accusation. "This is hard for me to say" and "I am worried you will not like this" buy you a hearing that "you always" never will.
There is no point reasoning with yourself while you are still lit up. Wake the part of you that does the reasoning first, then hand it the problem.