Areas › Anger › Equanimity and perspective
Think about the last person who shouted at you. Were they angry with you, or were they afraid? The honest answer is usually both, and both is allowed.
This is not about excusing anyone. Fear and anger arrive together so often that reading only the anger leaves half of it out. Seeing the frightened part of a person takes the personal sting out of what they said, which leaves you free to answer the situation rather than the insult.
Qur’an and Sunnah
We shall certainly test you with fear and hunger (Quran 2:155). Fear is named as something everybody is tested with, including the person raising their voice at you.
وَلَنَبۡلُوَنَّكُم بِشَيۡءࣲ مِّنَ ٱلۡخَوۡفِ وَٱلۡجُوعِ وَنَقۡصࣲ مِّنَ ٱلۡأَمۡوَٰلِ وَٱلۡأَنفُسِ وَٱلثَّمَرَٰتِۗ وَبَشِّرِ ٱلصَّٰبِرِينَ
We shall certainly test you with fear and hunger, and loss of property, lives, and crops. But [Prophet], give good news to those who are steadfast
Qur’an 2:155read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A systematic review of loving kindness and compassion meditation across twenty three studies found small improvements in life satisfaction. Practising a warmer reading of other people is a modest general good rather than a dramatic intervention. The studies pooled were varied, so the estimate is rough.
Gu X, Luo W, Zhao X, Chen Y, Zheng Y, Zhou J, Zeng X, Yan L, Chen Y, Zhang X, Lv J, Lang Y, Wang Z, Gao C, Jiang Y, Li R. (2022). The effects of loving-kindness and compassion meditation on life satisfaction: A systematic review and meta-analysis.. Applied psychology. Health and well-being doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Fear underneath somebody's anger makes their behaviour about their state rather than about your worth.
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 cannot check whether your own view is fair while standing entirely inside it. Being certain you are right is a feeling, and feelings are not evidence.
You cannot argue anybody out of certainty, yourself included. What loosens a grip is play: a puzzle, a small experiment, a question where nobody has to lose.
There is a way of meeting a charge that does not involve charging back. You let it arrive, you move, and the force goes past you.