Areas › Anger › What you are actually defending
Giving up certainty is a loss, and it is fair to treat it as one. People do grieve the version of themselves who knew exactly what was going on.
The same piece of work gets called several things: getting used to uncertainty in small doses, learning to sit with confusion, or grieving the loss of knowing. The last is the most honest, because letting go of certainty takes something away before it gives anything back. Expect a flat patch. It is not a sign that the thinking has gone wrong.
Qur’an and Sunnah
After sorrow, He caused calm to descend upon you (Quran 3:154). Calm arrives after the sorrow rather than instead of it, which is the order this tends to follow too.
ثُمَّ أَنزَلَ عَلَيۡكُم مِّنۢ بَعۡدِ ٱلۡغَمِّ أَمَنَةࣰ نُّعَاسࣰ ا يَغۡشَىٰ طَآئِفَةࣰ مِّنكُمۡۖ وَطَآئِفَةࣱ قَدۡ أَهَمَّتۡهُمۡ أَنفُسُهُمۡ يَظُنُّونَ بِٱللَّهِ غَيۡرَ ٱلۡحَقِّ ظَنَّ ٱلۡجَٰهِلِيَّةِۖ يَقُولُونَ هَل لَّنَا مِنَ ٱلۡأَمۡرِ مِن شَيۡءࣲۗ قُلۡ إِنَّ ٱلۡأَمۡرَ كُلَّهُۥ لِلَّهِۗ يُخۡفُونَ فِيٓ أَنفُسِهِم مَّا لَا يُبۡدُونَ لَكَۖ يَقُولُونَ لَوۡ كَانَ لَنَا مِنَ ٱلۡأَمۡرِ شَيۡءࣱ مَّا قُتِلۡنَا هَٰهُنَاۗ قُل لَّوۡ كُنتُمۡ فِي بُيُوتِكُمۡ لَبَرَزَ ٱلَّذِينَ كُتِبَ عَلَيۡهِمُ ٱلۡقَتۡلُ إِلَىٰ مَضَاجِعِهِمۡۖ وَلِيَبۡتَلِيَ ٱللَّهُ مَا فِي صُدُورِكُمۡ وَلِيُمَحِّصَ مَا فِي قُلُوبِكُمۡۚ وَٱللَّهُ عَلِيمُۢ بِذَاتِ ٱلصُّدُورِ
After sorrow, He caused calm to descend upon you, a sleep that overtook some of you. Another group, caring only for themselves, entertained false thoughts about God, thoughts more appropriate to pagan ignorance, and said, ‘Do we get a say in any of this?’ [Prophet], tell them, ‘Everything to do with this affair is in God’s hands.’ They conceal in their hearts things they will not reveal to you. They say, ‘If we had had our say in this, none of us would have been killed here.’ Tell them, ‘Even if you had resolved to stay at home, those who were destined to be killed would still have gone out to meet their deaths.’ God did this in order to test everything within you and in order to prove what is in your hearts. God knows your innermost thoughts very well
Qur’an 3:154read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a short longitudinal study of 395 early adolescents, proneness to guilt and proneness to shame predicted different behaviours as rated by their peers, so two closely related states behaved distinctly rather than interchangeably. Closely related feelings are not the same feeling, which is a decent reason to choose your word for what you are going through with some care. The study was in young adolescents and does not speak to grief over certainty directly.
Roos S, Hodges EV, Salmivalli C. (2014). Do guilt- and shame-proneness differentially predict prosocial, aggressive, and withdrawn behaviors during early adolescence?. Developmental psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Naming it as a loss lets you mourn it, and something mourned stops needing to be defended.
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
Some situations genuinely run on how you are seen. A job interview, a court hearing, a first meeting with in-laws: the image matters there, and it is honest to say so.
Esteem shares a root with estimate, and estimating needs a measure. Look at what you are measuring yourself with and you will usually find it was handed to you: money, height, thinness, numbers on a screen.
Try saying the word until it goes silly. Respect, respect, respect: a socially agreed comment on how tall you are supposed to be.