Areas › Anger › Equanimity and perspective
If you are still polishing the reply weeks afterwards, the argument is not still running. The injury is, and that needs a different kind of care.
There is some relief in seeing it that way. You are not petty for still thinking about it, you are carrying something that has not healed while the other person forgot the afternoon entirely. Tending the sore place, by saying it out loud to someone or by being less harsh with yourself about it, does more than getting the wording right ever will.
Qur’an and Sunnah
I plead my grief and sorrow before God (Quran 12:86). The hurt goes somewhere it can be held, rather than back to the person who caused it.
قَالَ إِنَّمَآ أَشۡكُواْ بَثِّي وَحُزۡنِيٓ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ وَأَعۡلَمُ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ مَا لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ
He said, ‘I plead my grief and sorrow before God. I have knowledge from God that you do not have
Qur’an 12:86read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a randomised trial with students, three sessions of mindful self compassion reduced depression and anxiety symptoms about as much as three sessions of attention training, with neither clearly ahead. Turning towards a sore place kindly is a treatable route rather than an indulgence. The course was brief and the sample was students.
Haukaas RB, Gjerde IB, Varting G, Hallan HE, Solem S. (2018). A Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing the Attention Training Technique and Mindful Self-Compassion for Students With Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety.. Frontiers in psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Preoccupation that outlives the event points to a wound rather than to unfinished business with the person.
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 do not have to jump straight to understanding. Try the step before it: hands open, honestly puzzled, help me see what just happened here.
Ask the question twice. What do you see, and what else do you see. What do you think, and what else do you think. The second one does all the work.
Anger has a shape before it has words. The body turns half away, a hand comes up, and the whole posture is saying no to something that has already happened.