Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Anger › What you are actually defending
People with a temper are rarely persuaded by being told to calm down, and are often genuinely interested in how the machinery works. Knowing what happens in your body, what the anger is guarding and what it costs makes the whole thing less mysterious. Less mysterious means less frightening, and less frightening means there is less to defend.
He teaches you, so that you may take heed (Quran 16:90). Teaching is given a purpose there, which is that something changes afterwards.
النحل
۞إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَأۡمُرُ بِٱلۡعَدۡلِ وَٱلۡإِحۡسَٰنِ وَإِيتَآيِٕ ذِي ٱلۡقُرۡبَىٰ وَيَنۡهَىٰ عَنِ ٱلۡفَحۡشَآءِ وَٱلۡمُنكَرِ وَٱلۡبَغۡيِۚ يَعِظُكُمۡ لَعَلَّكُمۡ تَذَكَّرُونَ
God commands justice, doing good, and generosity towards relatives and He forbids what is shameful, blameworthy, and oppressive. He teaches you, so that you may take heed
Qur’an 16:90read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A longitudinal study following 380 children from age ten into young adulthood found that proneness to shame predicted later risky and illegal behaviour, while proneness to guilt was protective. Two feelings that look alike from outside led somewhere quite different, which is a decent argument that understanding what is actually driving you is not an idle exercise. It is one cohort followed over time, so it shows a pattern rather than fixing anybody's course.
Stuewig J, Tangney JP, Kendall S, Folk JB, Meyer CR, Dearing RL. (2015). Children's proneness to shame and guilt predict risky and illegal behaviors in young adulthood.. Child psychiatry and human development doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
What you understand you can be less afraid of, and what you fear less you defend less fiercely.
Anger and doubt cannot really occupy the same moment. Anger sharpens everything to a point, and a genuine maybe blunts it.
Righteous anger pays you something. It burns off doubt, hands back a sense of being in charge, and can feel very close to intoxicating.
Some situations genuinely run on how you are seen. A job interview, a court hearing, a first meeting with in-laws: the image matters there, and it is honest to say so.