Abdurraheem Green – SIMPLY RED ANGER MANAGEMENT A Peace of Cake Podcast & Abdul Haqq Baker
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the negative impact of anger management on black people, including violence and negative behavior. They stress the need for legalization of actions and acknowledging one's anger. The speakers also emphasize the importance of learning to be in control and finding a homeowner's attention when dealing with their children and spouse. The speakers stress the need for training and controlling anger in men to avoid harming their partner and avoid harming their spouse.
AI: Summary ©
Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. And welcome back to another edition of a piece of cake. We went away last week due to my absence, and it's good to be back. It's good to see my colleague over there with the red mic in the very nice, soft colors. And please introduce yourself young man. Well, I am Yes, I am Mr. abdur-rahim Green.
Yes,
I am. How have you seen me before? Yeah, I'm good. I don't have that. Nice. I'm looking quite orange today, isn't it? Looking Trump ish? You got a tan in the winter? Now? I don't know what's going on to pre like all the vitamin D I'm taking
have some weird effect?
Or whatever. So yeah, so we got an interesting topic today, haven't we, bro? We have now I want to ask you because you, you profit this subject? What what was behind your thoughts in jusy? Simply read, anger management.
Nothing, I had no idea. Just totally random. I was just thinking sitting there. And this popped into my head. There's so there's no, there was no particular reason there was nothing except I thought I because I thought a lot of our topics or discussions around, you know, relationships, men, you know, what it means to be a man. And so I thought that, you know, anger, and also also race as well. Right. And so I thought that this topic of anger, right, because they're one of the things I thought was really interesting, a stereotypes about men in general. Right, it was interesting, like, you know, men stereotypically, you know, get more angry.
And although you definitely have angry white men, certainly, you know, white people tend to have this stereotype, you know, of black people, as you know, ones who get angry really quickly, you know, they're just walking around permanently angry, which, of course, they might,
suddenly looking at what's happening in America and the way people are treated, you probably would walk around angry most of the time. But yeah, all these sort of stereotypes that just may or may not be true, I have no idea. But, but I don't know why I just thought in the whole range of, you know, our discussions that seem to sort of fit really nicely with all the stuff that we're talking about. And obviously, again,
you know, Inshallah, with whatever capacity we can, we can talk about, you know, we can offer hopefully, some spiritual and mental guidance from our experience. And I thought it'd be really great for us to share, you know, maybe some angry moments, maybe not our worst angry moment, as you said that you may not be able to talk about your worst angry moment.
You know, but, yes, and also some moments where we control that anger, right. So I think those you know, maybe that's a good place to start, bro, by Why don't you tell me your most angry moment that you are actually allowed to tell us about without getting into some sort of trouble.
And I will, I will do before going into that I want to say while they come salaam to those who have joined us two brothers and sisters and non Muslim guests are there. We've got an individual from the North Pole is joining us and so welcome to you. Eighth, I think you've added the lever, Sister Shareen, up to San apex. I think it's one of you said this is a subject for you. I think it's a subject for all of us while we can salaam sister Xena. So now after him. You raised some really important points there, which I think is very good in that. Yes, there are some stereotypes that are placed upon particular ethnicities. Nilofer. Yes, some of your angry moments from extreme hurts that
was built up yet. I think a number of us are going to resonate with that today. And this stick while Lincoln slam Yes COVID got everyone angry. There's so many reasons for for anger. But it's not only about us getting angry. That's something that all of us possess. We have a character that correct characteristic or that trait to varying degrees. But when it's placed upon an a whole people as a stereotype to introduce actions legislation behavior towards them as though there's a defense. We see that
played out generationally, like, as you know, we have the Karen's now. Yeah, well, that's an angry white, angry white woman using trigger language that can potentially get us black people arrested and it was killed. Okay, we can go back to a Karen moment when we look at some of the lynchings and killings that took place in the States, many, many years ago. So it's really important to know that anger, not only when it's emanating from an individual is dangerous. But when a society brings a perception against an ethnicity, that that can be devastating. And I've been recipt recipient to that while you can slam reactionary, so I want to say with regards to angry moments as well, yes,
I'm one who is who has a temper, as you know, as many people note me, I've got a temper and and when I was younger, it got me in a lot of trouble in school. Okay, I should have been expelled from school because of the level of anger that I had that translated into violence. And I'm going to explain that though. So for example, when authority figures would, under the guise of using discipline towards a black young man like me, they will their discipline, often resorted to force. And my mother raised me that no one should put their hand on me. Okay, no one, only my parents were allowed to do that intimately, or otherwise, no one should touch you in that way. So whenever I was,
in primary school, a teacher or someone was like, right, we're going to take you to the headmaster or physically tried to control me.
I responded very angrily, and my anger transferred into violence, and that that is a familiar scenario for many black young men. But I want to hasten to add here, that cannot then transfer to justification that black people are angry, know, when you are being suppressed. When you are being targeted. Often, there is fear, just at the beneath the surface, just beneath the surface. And for black people, when we've shown fear. We've been taken advantage of even more this happened during slavery. This happened during the Jim Crow era.
They were humiliated more. So the opposite to that is to show anger, as a God as a defense toward off what is coming towards you. And as a result of that fear this line underneath. There's another way as well, which is to take take on that guise of passivity.
But passivity and fear when being displayed to the dominant force, the dominant race to dominant society often leads to further subjugation and oppression. So what what stops that
in some of our experiences is that display of anger, but beneath that is the fear Beneath that is the insecurity. Okay? So, as I said, for me, I had those issues in school, my mother had to come a few times, and speak with the head teacher, and then read it in the context of in the context of the advice of the prophets, Allah, Allahu Allah He was, you know, when a man came to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the Prophet said, you know the prophets, he's the man asked the Prophet advise me, and the Prophet said, Don't get angry, and the man and then the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Then he said to the Prophet, advise me again, and the Prophet said, again, don't get angry, and demand sell, advise me again, and again, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Don't get angry, right, and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam like, you know, he really strongly advised against allowing yourself to get angry to the extent that you know, he said, If you get angry, if you're standing, then sit and if you're sitting and you're angry, they lie down. Or, you know, go and make will do because anger is from fire, you know, and, you know, it cools you down. It's interesting, because what you were saying, I was just checking the,
you know, the, what you call it the psychology or the neuro science of,
of anger, what is it? And it's exactly what you said, it's actually fear. It's seems to be very, very closely connected to a fear response. So it really seems to fire up the hippocampus in the middle
multigo, Amalga Imelda. And the problem with that is that because they are the most primitive, supposedly super primitive parts of our brain, it literally bypasses our prefrontal cortex, we are not able to think clearly. And the reasons for that are very good reasons, you know, because it triggers our fight or flight response. So that's the choice. You can either run or you're going to fight. Why you're like, what's the difference between anger and fear? I don't, this is a really interesting question like, What is it? Because there's something different isn't there? I guess, maybe anger is the fact that you're deciding to fight? Yeah, anger is the response that when you've
decided to fight, maybe that's it. But the problem is, when you're angry, you don't think straight, right? You can't think straight actually. Because literally, your access to your thinking and planning part of your brain cuts off it actually the you know, that's what it is, it doesn't allow you to access your prefrontal cortex. And then of course, you can do all sorts of really silly things like divorcing your wife, or killing people or like all sorts of, you know, madness, that a person would never really do and the right mind.
So obviously, it's something you know, it's something that we as human beings, it seems Muslims, you know, from the prophetic guidance, it's something that we have really been taught to get a grip of not to let overtake us. But then I was thinking I was wondering what your insights might be into, is there such thing as a righteous anger? Is it? Is there a time when it's right to be angry? Is it Is there a time when it may even be justified to let your anger overtake you? Can you think of any examples, bro? I can. I love it a profit.
Yeah, there is a time we know that the promises Salam never got angry, except when it was for the rights of the Dean the rights of alarm panel to Isla. And that's the that's the epitome in that instance. And that occasion, when anger should be, can be shown. I would go beyond that not contradicting the Sunnah in any way or the prophetic guidance. But there should be anger when there is injustice. When there's oppression that's been witnessed, we must be angry at witnessing that oppression. And witnessing that, that injustice. That doesn't mean that the anger means that we lead to
let's say exaggerated actions, overreacting, but there should be an anger when there's been as Nilofer as highlighted when there's a rot when there's a wronging when there's an injustice that has actually been done. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't there a difference though, between, I guess, the feeling of anger, and acting out that feeling of anger? Like, I guess there's like, what would it's more than semantics here? I guess we're talking about the difference between that feeling of outrage, the feeling of wrong, the feeling like yeah, we describe it as anger, as opposed to that state of anger where, you know, like, your veins are popping out and you just can't think straight anymore because,
like, even even in the face of an injustice and a wrongdoing, right, acting on anger is probably, you know, not going to help, right? Because you're not going to think things through carefully. So if you remember, you know, you remember back in the days, bro, this is a subject that we talked about a lot, is the dealings we had with our brothers who are very much on the side of, you know, tuck fear, you know, and accusing Muslim in many people accusing Muslims and rulers and of being Kuffar. And if you remember that famous incident from one of the great self
hate Hassan Al bacillary, when those youth came to him to complain to him about hijab, you know, hijab been usurped because he was oppressing people so much, and they wanted to fight him and you know, and Hassanal bursary said don't do it, you know, don't go and fight him, you know, you know, they were youth, right? These angry youth, I guess. Yeah. And, you know, he said, Don't do it. Because, you know, I'm used to just advising them don't because if he's a punish from punished, if he's a punishment from Allah, you can't lift Allah's punishment with your right and you know, and if it's a test from Allah, then be patient because whoever is patient with Allah's test, Allah will
find a way out for them. And then, you know, they went and they fought him. And of course, he was a great general powerful army. He just slaughtered them all. And has no bacillary said, they ran to their swords and Allah let them to the swords, right. He said, By Allah, they did not bring one day of good to this ummah. Subhan Allah I think that's something else he said, but that's why I remember. So you know,
Even in the face of injustice and oppression, getting angry in a way that you can't think straight, you can't listen to advice, you don't listen to the guidance of scholars anymore, right? You just act on, you know, these impulses that this is the problem because it, like I said, you can allow that anger to fester. And the more it festers, the less clearly you're going to be able to think about stuff. So I agree even then we have to be cautious. Right. Right. Right. I agree with you to a greater extent, but as Octavia has mentioned, that, internalizing that anger, okay, can be damaging. And I know I've experienced that. I've, I've had four or five operations, okay, kidney stone
operations, and the doctors have said, what's going on with you, this is over the last 18 or so 2030 years. And a lot of that was the stress and anger that I've internalized my background, you know, what my background is, we didn't have to hold things down, we just we just let it explode. And that's one aspect. But also, I would say this now, for example, I can give this example because it was dealt with, it's gone. I'm not gonna go into too much detail. But what if you see that a member of your family, someone tries to harm them? Okay. You're going to react in anger? And I'll be honest with you, I'll be frank, yeah, I have a recourse to the authorities that I that's not the background
I come from, even now. It's like, I will deal with it myself. And I remember one occasion, it happened
about 810, eight to 10 years ago. Now, should I say that I had to deal with someone who tried to harm one of my family, okay. And the angle was such that after what had happened, you was taken to hospital, the police had to come. And then I realized afterwards, because the adrenaline was going, I actually had to have four screws and a metal plate put in my hand and taken out of my hand because of what I did to him. Now, I'm not saying to scare anyone, I'm just showing you the level of anger I got to and when I went and spoke to the judges, they said to me, they fought they wanted to take in some others. They said no one person couldn't have done this. I said no, this is the individual, the
victim. He was the perpetrator. But he became the victim. He said not only one person did this. So he they said to me, what made you get that angry? And I said in Islam, you have a term called Lyra. And they said you had the lira? I said yes, I said and before Islam, we had that. Okay, so I said for me, anyone crosses the path of my family, my children, the women in my family, even my brother, he knows how I've been there, even those older than me, you are going to face my anger. And for me, that's a righteous Justified Anger. Not to an extent, as I said, I've learned that lesson, you can't lose it that much that I broke my hand and screws to my that shows the extreme anger that I went to.
And you could say, Did you oppress the individual? Yes, a lot of things happened. I'm not gonna describe what happened to him, but he was in hospital for a long time. But the point is, there is a time where you can say, Do I regret what happened there? With regard to the anger and how I lost it? When I think about why I lost it, why I became so angry. I don't have regrets. I don't have regrets. Had I killed him? I would have had regrets. Because then it would say, Well, okay, you shouldn't you've left into the law in that particular occasion. Now, again, for those who are watching, I'm talking about personal experience and how I felt personally, that doesn't mean it's right. Let's be
clear on that. Now, I'm saying how I feel. But when we put it into skills of things, if someone says Will the law, this this Sharia everything like that? I'm not contract saying I'm going to contravene the law, I'm saying these are the feelings of anger that we have. And some of us might feel that I wouldn't say righteous anger, let me correct myself a Justified Anger.
So it's subjective. You can say it's subjective. And we are not the ones living in any society to institute laws of
retaliation or vengeance, or, or what what's the other word I'm looking for? It's not for us to take it upon ourselves, in the civil civilized societies we're living in today. So I'm actually speaking against myself by speaking about what I was feeling, why I felt it and why I don't feel remorse for it because of what sparked that anger. Still, for me, if that happened again, I would record records to be similar because Nope, you can't do this to people. You might ask if it was done with somebody else. Yes, I'm doing you know, the community. I came from Brixton when we saw others husbands, harming their wives or individuals trying to harm the Muslims. That anger was in defense of them.
And the reaction in the behavior was the same when the police stepped into Brixton police
into the mosque. On that occasion, when we're just about to pray, as I was chairman, they they stormed into the mosque, grabbed one of the Algerian individuals took him out to the backyard, we came down from from upstairs, surrounded him. I said, Don't call the karma. We're not going to pray yet. We're going to deal with this. And then they took him over, you know, the police station was across the road from us, they took him out. We stormed the station. We stopped we took we took over the foyer and we said we are not moving and others will come in. We are not moving until you release this individual because one, you violated our prayer and space. Secondly, you've not explained why
you've arrested him. The duty commander came downstairs and he released him immediately. So come down, please see we haven't harmed him. We want you to see that you safe. We've never released someone this quickly before. Please, can you ask your congregation to leave the police station if we show you that he's safe, and he came back up safe? That was a collective anger, again, justified because sometimes the police and others use their authority and I'm gonna stop at this point. They use their authority
and overstretch that authority. And sometimes when you see a resistance and an anger from a people saying, Enough is enough, in those circumstances, I think it's justified. Yeah, I mean, like, again, it goes back to the it goes back to the, I guess, the delineation between, you know, a sort of justified righteous anger or even I guess, you know, like,
some, you could even say, if you're not angry about something, you might even have to question your Eman. How could you not be angry about someone insulting Allah and His messenger? How could you not be angry about that? I mean, my angriest moment that I can think of when I was really, really angry was when my mum insulted the Prophet sallallahu and even said, I fell in. And, you know, subhanAllah I guess it was just from Allah and my love for my mom that I didn't actually sort of actually attack her physically, but I was just so angry, I was smashing stuff up in the house, you know, like, just I had to vent my anger somewhere, and I didn't want it to be on my mum. But you know, like, that
was, I can't remember. I mean, I, I wanted the I think I take a real long time to get angry, you know, I know it takes I know, it's gonna be angry. But when I do, I can flip in explained, then I calm down really quickly. And like, you know, like, 10 minutes later, I forgotten. I mean, I don't know. So occasionally, I'm, I, you know, but I, the things that really get me angry are injustices and wrongdoing, and lies and deception. I remember once, when I was playing, right, you know, I'm such a, I'm a typical, a typical sort of, you know, I guess, a proper Englishman in the sense that, you know, I believe in, you know, sticking to the rules, not like our prime minister, for example,
and, you know, following the rules, and like, you know, and so I remember once I was playing rugby, so like, if one of the rules in rugby, is that you're not allowed to tackle someone or hold someone who doesn't have the ball, right, the only time you're allowed to hold someone is if that person's got the ball, and you can tackle them, right?
This time when, you know, like, this guy was holding on to my leg, and I kept saying, I don't have the ball, I don't have the ball. And I was so angry that this guy was like, Man handling me and like, you know, this is against the rules. Yeah, that's, I don't know why that stuff just like really ticks me off. And I guess these days, I guess it's more about breaking, you know, the rules that are lost, but I'll tell us given us and you know, especially injustice and wrongdoing and stuff like that stuff, like that really upsets me. I mean, this is why this whole stuff, you know, this black lives matter. And I mean, obviously, I know what you think about the movement, but everything
that sparked it, right. All that type of stuff, it doesn't matter where it is, to be honest, whether it's, you know, whoever's oppressing anybody if I see a Muslim oppressing among Muslim that upsets me like, oppression, just really, really, it makes sometimes I'm shaking, you know, right. Just with just anger. But I guess the thing is, you know, when what do you do with that anger? I see, I would posit that possibly.
Your feeling of anger in that situation that you mentioned was absolutely justified. But in you know, if you go back and analyze it,
acting on the anger, right, led you to a situation where you were out of control. Right. And you did things that in retrospect, you probably think, no, that wasn't proportionate, and maybe what if he killed the guy right? What if you had killed him? It doesn't take much or you can just push someone like you don't have to
You know, it doesn't take much as you know, to kill someone, like you just push them when they hit their head in an unfortunate way. And that's it. So, the point being is that I think even in terms of like, when you want to execute, you know, when you want to execute your anger, right, you understand, even then you have to have a process of training yourself, to calm yourself down to make sure that whatever you're doing is proportionate. Right? And that there is some, you know, reconnection with your prefrontal cortex, like, you know, I guess, classically, you know, in these martial arts movies, and always, you know, like, that's the dark side, isn't it? It's the dark side,
when you fight out of anger. And like, a lot of it is learning to be in control and learning to make sure that you don't fight out of anger that you fight out of understanding that, yes, this is the time to fight, this is the right thing to do. And I don't know, Allahu Allah. And I think some good, very, very pertinent points have been splits with that situation that you're speaking about. And one of the blessings was that I was in a Muslim country, because when we went my colleagues, three of my friends came to us, they rang each other, and one of them came up with a shovel and duct tape and wrote thinking, whatever the heck's done, we're gonna need to do some, but it was that bad. They
knew of me from my party, like, I bought the shovel, I bought the rope what's happening? And I thought, Whoa, I'd have I'd lost it that much. But when we went to the police station, now, the captain there different experience to the British police. He just kept saying to me, the same thing that hadith. He said, Don't get angry, you know, the Hadith of the Prophet sola. So we were saying it in Arabic, and the brothers were translating it for me, because he said, Now, we're waiting to see when the guy come through that it wasn't the four of you did this, because we don't believe you did it alone, your colleagues, your colleagues must have been involved. They ended up having to
disappear because of that this is really bad. And they're going to rest all of us. And we're trying to convince them, it wasn't us. I said, No, I will stand up for it. I'm the one who was responsible. But the advice that I was getting at the time from the police.
And they're saying to me, Look, this is serious. We've got to see there's internal bleeding, there's this, there's that, why did you do this, you're in the Muslim country, you could have come to us, we take these matters seriously. And I suppose it's because I didn't think like that. At that time, I thought, how I thought in the West, we don't go to the police, they don't do justice.
They attack us instead. So I'm going to take this all into my own hands. And if it means I get the ultimate sentence, I'm prepared for it. But being being spoken to by the police commander, meeting, the two judges who were fluent in English the next day, and then speaking and everything like that, that helped me to see well, okay, you took it into your own hands, but you're not in a society where you have to do that. Okay. And some will say in the UK, you're not in a society where you have to do that as well. And if you're white and fairly privileged, you
can understand that
there was that there was that I was using a construct of one society, in another society that deals with things totally different. And Hamdulillah, I'd say now, one of the lessons, I've got scars with metal plates being removed, the screws have dissolved in my hand and that but that's a reminder to me that you can't keep losing or getting that angry, like I used to before I still do. So now. Now another question, bro. Like, can you tell us a moment where you got really angry, and then you implemented what the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam said, you know, you sat down when you were standing up, or you lay down or you went, you went and may will do or you know, you whatever it is
you manage, or whatever it is, like someone was saying one of the sisters was saying breathing techniques, which is one of the things that is really good as well just to take deep, deep, deep breaths and calm yourself down, like whatever it is. I mean, the point is, psychologically, what you try to do is have a change of state. That's it. So the Prophet is teaching us change your state, if you're standing, sit down, right? If you're sitting down, lie down, because that change of state sometimes is all you need to have that little break to reengage your prefrontal cortex. So, I'll tell you, where, you know, you managed to really control your anger
that you just like, yeah, on a micro microcosmic sense, I think, the Hadith of the man who killed 99 and 100.
It killed so and they got the advice from the monk to go to a different land, you want it to repent, you want to amend these ways. So I find myself that when in that extreme anger, if there are no colleagues around who were helping us
We'll calm it down because you've got colleagues who push you on. But if they're THOSE WHO and they're not scared of you, or they're not apprehensive to take yourself out of that environment, so sometimes I've just removed myself from the situation, literally, you'll see, I'll go quiet. And then I'm gone. Yeah, I've got and for me, in that sense, they're taking myself out of the situation away from or what's happening to me? Or what's there, then I can start reflecting, then I can start bringing things down in that way. I think sitting down. Yes, there's been situations where it's just, you know, I think that's really good advice. I mean, even in the family situation, you know,
when you're having a RAO of the life, and you, you know, like when I when I feel myself getting angry, yeah.
I just feel that I'm getting angry, I just say, you know, I'm not having this conversation anymore. And not because I don't want to communicate with my wife. It's because there's no point me getting more and more angry, because what's the point? I'm just getting angry. And if I'm getting angry, I'm not going to be able to, you know, behave in the right way. And who wants to be in that situation? You know, we can pick this conversation up another time, but I'm not. I'm not engaging in a state of anger. Right. So and this sort of brings us on to another topic, bro. Do you think I mean, it'd be great to hear from the sisters who are listening D? I mean, what, what's your opinion about men and
women? Do you think they process anger in a different way? Do you think they, you know, obviously, stereotypically men are more violent, they're more physical? Because they generally, you know, on average, they are stronger.
So what's your feeling about that I'm not so different.
I'm not sure there's a difference from Islamically. The advice of the prominent
what I what I my personal belief, in experience, I think that our anger is a lot more visible, and we vocalize it more. But I think that women's anger is a very, it's one to pay attention to, because it's one that runs deep one that they are able to control a lot more. Okay, and they have to control it a lot more from the physiological construct that they have makeup they have with regards to children with regards to the compassion. I don't that's not my experience at all. Like, I see that I've seen the opposite. I well, I mean, look, my my experience is limited, but from my experience.
And sisters, please do not say I mainly just Allah has put me in a very unique situation. But I mean, I'm talking about my mother and my, you know, the, the women I've been married to, and whatever my experiences, they tend to get angry with the children, they tend to get angry very quickly and quite consistently, and they don't have a lot of patience with them. And I'm constantly told it's because you don't have to deal with them all the time. And it's almost like why don't you get you know, like, and when, but I what I find is constant anger with the kids just doesn't work. Like if you're showing the kids the whole time. It's just their normal, right? Why would they pay
you just shouting the whole time? So what else are you going to do now? Right, you got to get violent? Yeah. So okay, off the violence? What then what, what are you going to do to show that you're really, really this is not the right way to behave? Whereas myself, I get angry very, very rarely, but when I do, it's like, you can tell everyone's terrified and it's not because I shout any louder. I mean, okay, maybe I look more intimidating, and I'm bigger, that's for sure.
No doubt, maybe the, the fear is just like it's way more terrifying. But it's not the you know, my wife, for example, is not or even my mum is not capable of delivering some flippin nasty piece of lacquer. ruzi Yeah.
They can't if they wanted to.
But so I don't know, bro. I mean, I'm not sure I hate
I suppose I suppose it swings and roundabouts. Not in the other way. Um, my wife is very calm. And if she loses the temperature is very, very, very rare. Then the boys and everyone else is like, whoa, because it's not. It's not an explosive anger. But she's very articulate, she will articulate, she's angry. You're like, wow, those words are enough. We don't want to hear that anymore. That's it. But I hear what you're saying. And I think that I suppose this is not something that we can conclude. And I don't know anything prophetic in that sense that we have in the ayat where Allah says about the woman in times of anger doesn't make herself clear. Yeah, that way, but neither do
we. Neither do we have the Raheem Sterling against the Quranic I have the I'm saying with regards to us. We vocalize a lot more. The women sometimes will take a backseat when we've vocalizing our anger and I think we need to learn how to take it back.
See when they're vocalizing their anger, because, as I mentioned, they hold it down a lot of the time, I think with the children, I couldn't do what my ex wife or my wife have done with the children, I couldn't I get very angry with my children, I get very angry with my children out of frustration, saying, Look, you know, what you're doing is wrong. I have my expectations. Are they too high? I don't know. But I have expectations of my children. And that balls out frustration leads to anger. So between women and men, I don't know. But one thing I think that we do need to learn
are the push and pull factors between our spouses. I think that, and that's when you've advised I know, You've advised back in the day with brothers and sisters genuinely and specifically, that when we see that the husband is angry, and he comes into the home angry one, the husband, we and we've done it many times shouldn't take our anger from whatever's happened outside, out on the family when we come in. And sometimes subconsciously, we do that we see in the police, for example, domestic abuse is very high. Yeah, what should happen is that the wife, seeing that, even if she's angry, should give that space for the husband. But in Conversely, the husband, when seeing his wife is
angry, he should be able to say sometimes I need to hold this down and let her vent or share what that anger actually is. And listen, because what we don't do, and I don't mean, listen to the anger that's been articulated, we need to read between the lines, we need to be saying, Why is he Why is she angry? Angry? Is it to do with with this ABCD? is, does that include me, whatever, we need to work that out and wait for that anger to start subsiding? In order to address it, we don't do that. when the wife is angry, we get angry. Why is she angry? that her husband is angry, she gets angry? Why is it and he doesn't know what I've been doing. And then there's the clashes that start taking
place there. And I think that that's a problem not just within Muslim households. That's something they're societally and I don't believe that.
handled it even have counseling, everything doesn't handle it properly. Islam, there's a big cultural issue to play, isn't it? Like, I think I know, this is gonna make us sound like cavemen in the eyes of some people. Yeah. But you know, if you go back to those old, not even that old, right, the gender role models, the gender, sorry, the gender roles, that were the model of behavior, say in the 1940s, and 50s. And look, to be honest, right, in many societies, for 1000s of years, where men are essentially, you know, the hunter gatherers, they go out, they earn the living women, you know, they care for that household and a part of her job. And like, you've probably seen those old, you
know, those old movies, those old TV shows where your husband is coming home, make sure you have some warm slippers for him in a nice cup of coffee, take the briefcase from him when he comes in the room and sit him down and massage his feet, massage your shoulders, right. And there's that whole sort of thing that every man is going Wow. Was there a time when that happened? Right. And but, you know, the reasoning was, is that look, there is a real thing is that when, okay? So the woman is in the home, and it's essentially a protected environment, even when she's with the kids that the kids, right? The man is out there in the world, okay, he may not be facing, you know, the saber toothed
Tiger, but he's the fate he's facing the psychological equivalent, because we talked about that, right? When some your egos under a threat, you take it like a threat to your real, actual physical self, right? And that's happening all the time in the workplace. Like, okay, I know, men and women both have to face this now the right back in the 40s. Generally, that's how it was. Right. So the point was, is that the man, you know, the last thing he needs, and he, it's very hard for anyone to disengage that quickly, if you've been exposed to all that trauma. And it's a sort of trauma, I don't mean it in a sort of, you know, like, sort of * type of way, but it is a type of trauma,
right? So when you've been exposed to that type of trauma all day long, and you step through the door, and you feel that you're going to I mean, I talk about this, because I've this, some subjects have studied a lot. And I do a course on it online about willpower, and you know, and so willpower is basically quickly as your ability to delay gratification or just not to act on your impulses. Willpower is your strength, that you have not to act on your impulses. And one of those impulses is anger, right? The problem is after a whole long day, what they believe is that Your Will your ability to control your impulses depletes it gets weaker and weaker and weaker. And then when you
step through the door, and you find that in your heart
Which you're hoping is going to be this safe environment, you are confronted with more of this trauma, right? That's when you snap, that's when it just you can't take it anymore. You've got nothing left to give, right?
Right, the family deserves it more, but you don't because you're exhausted. Right? And that's what I'm saying is that I don't think anyone should look down on the ability of a woman of a wife to, you know, to make her husband feel really, and we used to talk about that bro up to hot remember, yeah, they look beautiful. If your husband when he walks through the door, don't have your head disheveled. And so we break and give those talks these days.
We can cancel.
We definitely know what you said, so important, because I can say, and I'm going to talk from my experience, being a black man, micro aggressions that we deal with every day. And so my son's for example, my children when I come in the home, and I face what I perceive to be disrespectful behavior, inconsiderate behavior. And then if I flip, and sometimes I say to my speaking to my 17 year old, we were going out the other day. And I said, You got understand one thing, the background, I come from not only the microaggressions at work and everything, but in the streets, we had to watch, is someone going to jump off? Is there a rivalry? Is it something that you said? So when I
come home? I am coming that statement that the home is a man's castle? Yeah, you understand when I come in? I expect that I don't have to deal with anything that I've had to deal with outside. Yep. So when I've got to see that with the behavior of the children, even if it's not towards me, or it's towards them, the mother or whatever, I said, what you've just explained, it explains how I respond, because I will react and blow up when I come home. But like, I'm just like, I've got more of the same, but this time, it's closer to me, because it's my family, it hurts even more my tolerance level is even lower, because my expectations are higher.
But I think at the same time, what we need to look at, conversely, from the woman's perspective,
and I've seen this, if you've got if the if the sister is a housewife, and she's at home, and every single day, she's a home builder. She's had the children, especially if they're young, around her all day. No, no respite. Yeah. And one light and solace and comfort that she's looking forward to? Is the husband coming into the home? Yeah. And that's when she's going to expect or she can expect, okay, once he's relaxed, he will be paying attention to me, because I've not had anyone pay attention except the children's paying attention, which they've needed me. And I need his attention. And also, I need his attention to let go of some of my frustrations. And that's very difficult
because he comes in on the basis of what we've discussed. Yeah, she absolutely hates her. And he hasn't got his mind is not attuned to her, which it should be after once he comes in. Yep. And then you just have like, either confrontational, or there's a toxic atmosphere or negative atmosphere if it's not toxic, or there but both ends of the room or the house or the apartment, because they're not fulfilling that need they have from each other and not appreciating what the other has gone through outside of the home inside the home. And I think that that that's problematical. And maybe we should have done some discourses on on how to deal with that upbringing. Because it is it is a
serious problem. But what you've said is so important for the audience to be listened to. Because this takes place. It does happen. Yeah, absolutely. And I, you know, very much appreciated. What you said, is that, I mean, obviously that, you know, there's, you know, from the point of view of the mother, being at home with the kids, there's the other point of view is that, you know, she wants some relief as well. It's like, oh my god, I just can't wait for him to get home. So he can, you know, but you know it, to be honest, really, it should work beautifully in the sense that what better for a man to do the walk through the door and to be able to play with his kids. What a great
way to unwind, you know, like, I mean, to be honest, hamdulillah Allah bless me in the sense that you know, like, that's how it was like, if I walked through the door, my kids would be all over me about ABA. It's like a wholly different like, it's completely the opposite of the big bad world out there. Right? The kids are all over you so happy to see you. Late and that's it and the kids are off mums hand for a bit and that's it was guys guess what a man should do is just go and play with his kids for an hour and a half. You're nothing
An excellent example from you. But then there are others. I think I'm like that you're come home. Your fam wife knows the type of work and what you're dealing with. And she doesn't hide the children away. But she makes sure as I come through the home or the husband comes through the home, into the door, how is he made sure the children giving them space? Because that is stressful, and then gradually let them stop. Yeah, I guess like everyone's different, right? So
the kids, some men like to chill for a little bit and write a one line.
One thing we can all do, husband and wife and and it's a beautiful thing. I know you do it, I do it. When coming into the home, and I say this to sisters, and I say this to husbands. If you've got that anger, do you know what breaks that? If the wife is there, the husband comes in Salaam Alaikum. And we should do it in a good way not coming in like a big bad wolf. And we find we seek with a wife might be in the kitchen, she might be attending to the children, whatever. And we have that physical contact, there's that peck on the cheek that kiss him and there's that hug. Or if the husband comes in and he's exhausted and he sits down, the wife comes and even just touches him on the shoulder or
touches him on. Do you notice? Do you know how much not all men, but most men will just you'll see their shoulders drop. You'll see them just like that the touch of the wife. Okay, you can put Kashmir so whatever the touch of the wife is unparalleled of the Rahim, that simple touch and for the wife, that husband even giving her a look giving her gloves giving her a little pitch okay to say he's home and like, yeah, Daddy's home, when in that sort of way that showing that wanting that connection? Okay, if angles there that will dissipate to an extent you give a cheeky little wink and the wider lashes, or to see me by that or just to bring that down that softness. If we were to do
that, and having the love with my wife, it's 40 years this year that we've known each other and they're still those things taking place. Not you come into the home, why don't even look forward two years from our Thank you. Thank you for that.
So that that those things there. Do you know what Abdur Rahim if I was mentioned earlier by one of the sisters, if angry, and a partner is near as well, a walk is highlighting again, to be hugged. And just like you might be, and this has happened, I remember I've been really tense, and I'm losing it. And my wife of one, my ex wife would just hug. Yeah. And the anger starts. It's the same thing. It's the it's the state.
Anything that can help change your state is going to help you disengage from that. Like, again, if you go back to the neurobiology of what's happening, you know, anger and tension and all that type of stuff. It's just triggering your Amalga in your hippocampus, which is like, you know, like, it's a very strong control Mecca, anything that can break that and like help you reengage your sort of normal pattern of thinking like it could be your right, a hug is, of course, a great, you know, physical manifestation of love and affection. Yeah, that's a great thing to do that, you know, we've got to be, we've got to acknowledge that we're talking from within the context of Islam, which is
the overarching context for all mankind, that the Prophet salallahu Salam said to us about the strong man is not the one who overthrows and can defeat his opponent in time. The strong man is the one who controls his anger. And go, I'm glad you mentioned that.
Don't get me wrong. In the world that we live in today. Some of the descriptions I've given losing it dealing with someone harming them and whatever to to make your point. No, I would admit, I'll be the first to admit that, in that regard, I'm very weak. Yeah, and I want to be stronger in line of that hadith. I want to be able to say, right, I'm angry, and I'm controlling this anger.
Succeeding that I I think more so than more often than not, I am succeeding, but not all the time. So honestly, the you know, for everyone listening today it honestly it my advice is about training. It really is. Just like you train your muscles to make them big and strong, just like you trained martial arts to be a proficient fighter. Right, you know, or whatever you may do, right? It's the same thing with anger management, with emotional management with controlling your impulses. It really is about training. That's what it is. It's about training yourself. And like, the more you the more you train yourself, you know, the better you get at it. It's that's really it's like, it's
hard but simple at the same time, you know, bro, listen, my battery's running out on my lap.
Well, it's probably a good time to end there was a really good joke, bro, I thought that we might mention someone said that someone brought my glasses and anger and then I could never really look at them at the same way again.
i That's a terrible joke
next week, isn't it bro like it's sort of continuing this but on a different theme, what are we going to be talking about? If Allah gives us life, and we, he allows us to have the podcast next week, what's our topic for next week for everyone to look forward to? I think we should continue to but look how is a passive aggressive
behavior that we display, and that they have, there's the opposite to that, and how that plays out in gender politics as well. Because I feel that I feel that men behave in particular ways that really angers women. And there's ways that women behave that really angles meant but and we do it deliberately knowing that we're going to have support from particularly from our own gender or society, because we see that sometimes the females will say, right, if I use these trigger words and phrases that I will get the support of my community and of course, we should look at that and more. So the whole the whole subject of passive aggressive and what is it and you know, and how does it
manifest itself very interesting. I'm going to do a bit of reading about it because then I sort of had an idea what it was but you know, I got to do a little bit more reading around it, bro. It's been a pleasure as always, bro after goals so it's been a real pleasure. Again, once again, having this amazing podcast with you, bro.
Over there in the in the other box, which is
and my brother in this other corner here was in green and this was a piece of cake. See you next week everyone