Areas › Anger › Righteous anger and perfectionism
Anger runs on the word should, and should is a word about debt. Write out what you believe this person owes you, then mark which of those they ever actually agreed to.
Most lists come out in two parts. There are the real agreements, said out loud and accepted, and there are the ones you assumed any decent person would keep. The second sort are worth either saying aloud, so they can be agreed or refused, or letting go of, because at present you are collecting on a debt the other person does not know exists.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God commands you [people] to return things entrusted to you to their rightful owners, and, if you judge between people, to do so with justice (Quran 4:58). The instruction reaches the judgements you make privately about what people owe you.
۞إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَأۡمُرُكُمۡ أَن تُؤَدُّواْ ٱلۡأَمَٰنَٰتِ إِلَىٰٓ أَهۡلِهَا وَإِذَا حَكَمۡتُم بَيۡنَ ٱلنَّاسِ أَن تَحۡكُمُواْ بِٱلۡعَدۡلِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ نِعِمَّا يَعِظُكُم بِهِۦٓۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ سَمِيعَۢا بَصِيرࣰ ا
God commands you [people] to return things entrusted to you to their rightful owners, and, if you judge between people, to do so with justice: God’s instructions to you are excellent, for He hears and sees everything
Qur’an 4:58read 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 259 adults still troubled by something someone had done to them, a six week group programme aimed at forgiveness increased forgiveness and lowered both perceived stress and trait anger. Going at a specific grievance deliberately, over weeks, did more than waiting for it to fade. That was a structured group format, so the result belongs to the format rather than to one sitting with a pen.
Harris AH, Luskin F, Norman SB, Standard S, Bruning J, Evans S, Thoresen CE. (2006). Effects of a group forgiveness intervention on forgiveness, perceived stress, and trait-anger.. Journal of clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
An expectation nobody ever agreed to cannot be met, so it produces grievance instead.
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
Certainty feels good. That sudden clean sense of knowing exactly who is in the wrong is part of what keeps anger coming back, so it is worth noticing as a pleasure rather than as proof.
There is a steadiness worth aiming for: hearing someone disagree with you without either going off at them or going quiet and small.
Anger that your friends, your feed or your workplace rewards is the hardest kind to put down, because letting it go costs you something socially.