Areas › Anger › Equanimity and perspective
Look back at a fight you went out of your way to have and pride is often what was driving. Being right and being respected feel like needs in the moment, and they cost far more than they return.
This changes what there is to work on. Breathing exercises will not touch a fight you are having in order to prove you are somebody. The question underneath is what you would still be if you let the comment pass, and that one is worth sitting with rather than answering quickly.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Everything will perish except His Face (Quran 28:88). Standing that has to be defended in a stairwell was never going to be the lasting kind.
وَلَا تَدۡعُ مَعَ ٱللَّهِ إِلَٰهًا ءَاخَرَۘ لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَۚ كُلُّ شَيۡءٍ هَالِكٌ إِلَّا وَجۡهَهُۥۚ لَهُ ٱلۡحُكۡمُ وَإِلَيۡهِ تُرۡجَعُونَ
Do not call out to any other god beside God, for there is no god but Him. Everything will perish except His Face. His is the Judgement and to Him you shall all be brought back
Qur’an 28:88read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Across twenty three studies, loving kindness and compassion meditation produced small improvements in life satisfaction. Small is the honest word for it, and it points at a broader base for feeling all right about yourself than winning the next exchange. The studies pooled were varied, so the estimate is rough.
Gu X, Luo W, Zhao X, Chen Y, Zheng Y, Zhou J, Zeng X, Yan L, Chen Y, Zhang X, Lv J, Lang Y, Wang Z, Gao C, Jiang Y, Li R. (2022). The effects of loving-kindness and compassion meditation on life satisfaction: A systematic review and meta-analysis.. Applied psychology. Health and well-being doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Anger that is defending your standing keeps coming back until your standing feels less fragile.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
You cannot check whether your own view is fair while standing entirely inside it. Being certain you are right is a feeling, and feelings are not evidence.
Not knowing what to make of something does not have to be an emergency. See if you can find it interesting instead, even for a moment.
Put four dots on a page, one at a time, and by the fourth you will see a square. Now try to point at the square. Your mind supplied it in under a second and never asked you first.