Areas › Anger › Choosing your response
You cannot talk yourself out of a state you are not in yet. Anything you want to have available when you are angry has to be practised, not merely understood.
Reading about a technique and having it in your hands with a hot face are two different things. So rehearse while you are calm and it feels a bit silly: say the line out loud, walk to the door, breathe the way you intend to breathe. The reason to practise early is that later there is no time to work anything out.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Prayer restrains outrageous and unacceptable behaviour (Quran 29:45). What restrains is named as a practice you keep up, not an argument you accept.
ٱتۡلُ مَآ أُوحِيَ إِلَيۡكَ مِنَ ٱلۡكِتَٰبِ وَأَقِمِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَۖ إِنَّ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ تَنۡهَىٰ عَنِ ٱلۡفَحۡشَآءِ وَٱلۡمُنكَرِۗ وَلَذِكۡرُ ٱللَّهِ أَكۡبَرُۗ وَٱللَّهُ يَعۡلَمُ مَا تَصۡنَعُونَ
[Prophet], recite what has been revealed to you of the Scripture; keep up the prayer: prayer restrains outrageous and unacceptable behaviour. Remembering God is greater: God knows everything you are doing
Qur’an 29:45read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a randomised brain stimulation experiment, increasing relative right frontal activity led people to brood more about anger, which suggests the state that comes with anger shapes the thinking rather than the reverse. If the state leads, working only on ideas is working from the wrong end. It was a small laboratory manipulation, so hold the mechanism loosely.
Kelley NJ, Hortensius R, Harmon-Jones E. (2013). When anger leads to rumination: induction of relative right frontal cortical activity with transcranial direct current stimulation increases anger-related rumination.. Psychological science doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Understanding lives in words, and the part of you that moves first does not use them.
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
Open with the difficulty instead of the accusation. "This is hard for me to say" and "I am worried you will not like this" buy you a hearing that "you always" never will.
Your body gets up in the morning and your mind often does not. Half a day can go by in a sort of waking dream, and whatever meets you in it gets the sleepwalker's answer.
Not taking things personally is a question rather than a personality. The question is short: was that aimed at me, or was I simply standing there?