I also know how much joyful moments and Joy-with-a-capital-J are an essential fuel for me and the family. Specifically, how do I reconcile joy and anger? I don’t think that joy is the opposite of anger - perhaps apathy is the opposite? - but I do feel a sense of guilt at experiencing joy in moments of societal and personal anger. “I am writing because I’m experiencing a cognitive dissonance that I think you are just the right person to help. Lately, my inbox and comment threads are full of notes from people who are grappling with the intense swirl of feelings stirred up by the prolonged Covid-19 crisis and the building anti-racism movement, and wondering how to hold on to joy (or if that’s appropriate, or even possible) in the midst of it all.įor example, this note from a friend that landed in my inbox recently: Individuals who flourish in the face of adversity are those who believe that they have control over their emotions and employ the necessary actions to alter their behavior when faced with stress or anger triggers.If you feel like you’re in a perfect storm of emotions right now, you’re in good company. “Mindfulness” creates a mental distance between one and one’s behavior which increases self-awareness and the opportunity to chooseÂ and direct our actions, rather than being on automactic pilot.

This means being mindful of the choices that we have. In our classes, we teach eight tools of anger management, one of which is the tool of learning to respond to stressful situtions instead of just reacting to them.

According to a prior president of the Amercian Psychological Association, happiness is something that we consciously choose.

It is a mental skill set that we can acquire and learn. So, theÂ discusssionÂ continued, does inner peace or happinessÂ occur naturally or do we have to do specific things to achieve these states of mind? Â Â New research sheds some light on this question and reveals that people who have happiness make conscious decisions to be happy- or not angry. In a recent anger management class, someone asked the question: “what is the opposite of anger?” If we don’t want to be angry, what emotional state do we want to be in that would be the reverse of anger? The answer, of course, is something likeÂ “inner peace”Â or maybe even “happiness.”Â

What is the opposite of angry