Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
What overpowered Darwin at that glass was not the snake. It was his picture of what the snake was about to do, and that is usually what overpowers you too.
Which is oddly hopeful. The thing driving the reaction is a reading of the situation, and readings can be slowed, questioned and sometimes corrected in a way the world itself cannot. Next time you are certain a look meant contempt, hold it as your reading rather than a fact and see whether the heat drops even slightly.
Qur’an and Sunnah
do not let hatred of others lead you away from justice (Quran 5:8). What you already feel about someone bends how you read them, and the instruction takes that bend seriously.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ كُونُواْ قَوَّٰمِينَ لِلَّهِ شُهَدَآءَ بِٱلۡقِسۡطِۖ وَلَا يَجۡرِمَنَّكُمۡ شَنَـَٔانُ قَوۡمٍ عَلَىٰٓ أَلَّا تَعۡدِلُواْۚ ٱعۡدِلُواْ هُوَ أَقۡرَبُ لِلتَّقۡوَىٰۖ وَٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ خَبِيرُۢ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُونَ
You who believe, be steadfast in your devotion to God and bear witness impartially: do not let hatred of others lead you away from justice, but adhere to justice, for that is closer to awareness of God. Be mindful of God: God is well aware of all that you do
Qur’an 5:8read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Across 306 experimental comparisons, 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 tested. The appraisal really is the workable lever. These were short laboratory manipulations rather than long-standing grievances, so the effect in a real dispute is likely smaller and harder won.
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.
Why it works
The alarm answers what you believe is happening, so changing the reading changes what the alarm does.
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
Get the shouting and the slammed doors down first. The deeper questions about where all this came from will keep, and they are hard to think about while incidents are still happening weekly.
The cooler, story-shaped anger is not the safer one. It lasts, it gets rehearsed, and it has time to make plans.
A cut heals and stops being news. An insult from years ago can still get your heart going, because the part of the brain that keeps threats on file does not heal in the same way.