Know how to control your feelings. Emotional intelligence, or how to learn to manage your emotions

Instruction

To contain your emotions in a particular situation, use the old method: count to 10. When you are calm, you tend to make reasonable decisions, it's not for nothing that anger is bad. Under the influence of stress, we perceive the world around us painfully and at these moments we are very vulnerable.

Aspiration and uniqueness will help you. This is what you need to constantly grow above yourself, strive for. Develop your best qualities as much as possible. Self-improvement is a long and painstaking work. You must become spiritually richer, become more interesting not only for yourself, but also for you. It will come in very handy in times of need.

Do self-analysis. This means that you need to objectively yourself and your actions. Be as honest as possible with yourself. start small. If you have conflicts with others, then soberly assess the degree of your guilt and the guilt of your opponent. This will allow you to look as deeply as possible inside yourself and your own from different angles of perception of reality.

Helpful advice

Take a good look at your strengths and weaknesses.

Sources:

  • 37 laws of self-control

The art of self-management will allow you to become a balanced and whole person who boldly goes through life and enjoys every day. To master this art, you need to observe your behavior in a given situation.

Instruction

Get positive emotions. Perhaps you like to watch chilling movies. But after several viewings in a row, you will start to flinch at any unexpected sound, such as a phone call. Therefore, try to focus on pleasant impressions, smiles and a positive mood. Communicate more with cheerful people and soon you will notice that you yourself become a cheerful person.

Of course, something can happen in life that overflows the cup of patience and makes you very upset or angry. At such moments, stay away from loved ones whom you may offend. Otherwise, all the anger will pour out on innocent heads, because no matter how you restrain emotions, they will still make themselves felt sooner or later. To prevent this from happening suddenly, allow yourself an emotional release: regularly go in for sports or any physical labor, go to a football match, where you can “cheer” for your favorite team to your heart's content, and at the same time relieve stress.

It is very difficult to control yourself during conflict situations or when you are provoked into aggressive behavior. In order not to turn the dispute into a bazaar, try to argue your answers and demand the same from the interlocutor. If you feel that you are starting to lose your temper, take a break, for example, take a sip of coffee. Speak firmly and decisively, but do not break into a cry, even if they shout at you. In this case, it is better to use a defensive reaction and, while such a loud monologue continues, imagine a noisy interlocutor with big ears or a clown nose. This will inevitably make you smile, which means it will help you relax.

Do something daily to improve yourself. The motto of all people who have achieved a lot in life was formulated a very long time ago and is quite simple: "Do not put off until tomorrow what you can do today." This life principle will teach you to be in time everywhere, to be, and it will also help you to see the results of your own work very quickly. Make plans and follow them, remembering to leave a place for a well-deserved rest.

Ecology of life. Psychology: Remember, have you met people who fill any space, wherever they appear? People who charge with their energy.

Remember, have you met people who fill any space, wherever they appear? People who charge with their energy. At one glance, they give the impression that they are not familiar with such phenomena as "problems at work" or "troubles in their personal lives."

Then you remember that next to them the world is seen from a different angle. Miraculously, you begin to evaluate life situations from different angles, not fitting into the standard criteria of "good-bad" or "white-black".

"What's the secret?" You must have wondered.

Maybe they do not let in the negativity, from which none of us is immune? Maybe they just have some other - magical life? Or do they know something about which you have no idea?

Secret knowledge really exists. It's called "emotional intelligence".

What it is?

Let's drop a few options. This is not the suppression of emotions, because this process cannot be called reasonable - sooner or later, suppressed emotions will manifest themselves in the form of illnesses and nervous breakdowns.

EQ is not ignoring emotions. This is another road to nowhere, because it reduces the quality of life. Each of us came into this world to know it in all its manifestations. Ignoring emotions is like having lungs but not breathing them.

The most understandable definition of "Emotional Intelligence" is the ability to manage your emotions.. Even more accurate is the ability to create the mood that you need.

A well-developed emotional intelligence means freedom from the emotions around you of loved ones, colleagues, acquaintances and just random people. Whatever happens around, you have your own mood. The problems of the world, as it were, do not invade your inner world.


But such immunity is not available to everyone. Usually, on the contrary, we are too exposed to the world. And this means that the level of development of our emotional intelligence is far from desirable.

Each of us has heard the phrase "think carefully before making an important decision." But how many of us have heard "feel right"? The formation of the EQ of most people begins in early childhood.

Growing up, we faced different situations. Looking at our parents and the people around us, we learned how to behave correctly. We watched how the near and far environment reacted to them, and sincerely considered such a model to be the only correct one. Step by step, and by the age of ten, we have mastered the basic skills of emotional response. And entering into adulthood, they continued to behave in exactly the same way as our parents, neighbors or friends.

Usually we receive this knowledge unconsciously. Please note: at school, cheating was strictly prohibited, but "writing off" other people's emotions was considered the norm. Wise adults even called this process "experience." In fact, from an emotional intelligence perspective, this process is deeply unconscious. As well as during the control in mathematics, "writing off" other people's emotions does not give development. It says that the emotional reactions of a person are not conscious and not controlled.

This, in turn, is a sign that emotional intelligence is not evolving. Simply put, you live "like everyone else", "stably" marking time in one place, do not develop, chewing on the grievances of bygone days. Your mind and your heart, as the artists say, works "at full speed". On the basis of constant negativity, diseases and dislike for yourself come into your life.

Those children who were lucky enough to grow up surrounded by people with higher EQ behave differently. From early childhood, they were taught to bring positivity into their lives and find beauty in every moment.

If you were not lucky enough to grow up in such a family, do not despair. Emotional intelligence is effectively brought up at any age.


The first step on the path to raising him is the ability to transform the negative into a positive. It is known that poison in small doses is a medicine. Similarly, negative emotions can become not grounds for self-flagellation, but an impetus for activating the thought process and launching new neural connections in the brain. Bringing positivity into your life helps maintain a healthy mind in a healthy body, and promotes your health better than any medication.

Over time, the skill of managing emotional intelligence will be able to completely eliminate negative emotions from your life. You will learn how to transform them into energy for your development, recognize them at the stage of formation and transform them into a positive resource.

Often, along with the development of emotional intelligence, a person is cured of serious illnesses, moves up the career ladder, or achieves the goal of his life. So mastering EQ is incredibly profitable. Indeed, in recent decades, most of the diseases that humanity suffers from are caused precisely by an imbalance of emotions.

Therefore, emotional intelligence is not just another trending concept with nothing behind it. This is your chance to maintain mental and physical health. Raise your EQ and you will become a role model in your royal equanimity and ability to ride any stress.

Emotion management skills allow us to deal effectively with our emotional reactions. Although we cannot always control our feelings, we can control what we do in response to those feelings. The first step to becoming better in control of your emotions starts with learning to recognize emotions and how they affect your life.

Without the ability to notice the emotional reaction, recognize it and give it its due, we will not perceive ourselves as a source of action in our environment. This can lead to other people influencing your emotions without your consent. Thus, one can become like a person who found himself in a raging ocean with only one oar in his hands, and experience a feeling of powerlessness.

How can we overcome this illogical belief that other people have the power to evoke an emotional response in us? It all starts with learning to manage emotions. Below are excellent methods for managing emotions. These methods have been reviewed by Dr. Marsha Linehan, Director of the Behavior Research and Treatment Clinic, author of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Starting with the seventh method, all other methods were taken and processed from the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Manual (McKay, Wood, & Brantley, 2007).

1. Identification and designation of emotional reaction

The first step to managing emotions is learning to recognize and label current emotions. The complexity inherent in emotional processes makes this step deceptively difficult. The process of identifying emotions requires you to be able to notice/observe your reactions as much as it is to be able to describe emotional manifestations.

Try to focus on observation and description:

1) the event that gave rise to the emotion;
2) the meaning attached to this event;
3) sensations from this emotion - bodily sensations, etc.;
4) the behavior expressed in movements that arose due to this emotion;
5) the impact of this emotion on your personal functional status.

2. Identifying barriers to changing emotions

It can be very difficult to change our deeply rooted emotional reactions, as we have become accustomed to responding to certain events in certain predictable ways over time. It can be especially difficult to change emotional responses that do not benefit us, but for which there are always arguments to justify (for example, “I know that I should not take tranquilizers, but when I take them, I feel better”).

Emotions usually have two functions: to alert others and to justify one's own behavior. We often use emotional responses to try (even unconsciously) to influence or control other people's behavior, and also to explain our perception/interpretation of certain events. To manage emotions, it is extremely important to be able to recognize the function of a particular emotional reaction and understand why you express these emotions in this way.

3. Decreased sensitivity to the level of "emotional intelligence"

If we are under stress from physical activity or stress under the influence of external factors, therefore, on such days we are more vulnerable to emotional reactivity. The key to regulating emotions is maintaining a healthy balance in various areas of daily activities. Thus, we prevent our physical, mental and emotional overstrain.

To reduce emotional sensitivity, you need to develop the habit of eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, exercising appropriately for you, abstaining from psychotropic substances unless they have been prescribed for you by a doctor, and increasing the self-confidence that comes in action when you see your performance. and begin to realize your competence.

4. Increasing the number of events that bring positive emotions

Dialectical behavior therapy is based on the assumption that people "feel bad for good reasons." The perception of events that cause strong emotions can be changed, but the emotions still remain. An important way to manage emotions is to exercise control over the events that trigger those emotions.

What can be done right away is to increase the number of positive events in your life. The long term is a fundamental lifestyle change that will increase the frequency of positive events. AT this case It's important to remember to pay attention to the positive things happening in your life.

5. Increased psychological involvement in currently available emotions

Dr. Linehan (1993) explains that "by showing one's pain and anguish, but not attributing this display to negative emotions, one ceases to induce secondary negative emotions." When we actively reason that this or that emotion is “bad”, as a result we fall into a “bad” emotional state and feel guilt, sadness, sadness, or anger. By adding these harmful feelings to an already negative situation, we only amplify the harm and make and complicate the situation that the negative event caused.

By learning to understand your emotional state (for example, without trying to change or block your emotions), you will be able to endure a stressful situation without adding fuel to the fire (i.e., without increasing the number of negative emotions). This does not mean that you should not perceive the event as one that hurts and treat it accordingly, it just means that you should remember not to let the emotions you express interfere with your ability to respond to the world around you properly. .

Consider how you can apply these emotion management techniques to your daily life. The process of learning to manage emotions takes practice. This new skill must be recognized, it must be learned to apply and practice all the time. Whenever you encounter a situation that you know will be a source of intense emotion, try to take it as an opportunity to practice these emotion management techniques. Have you noticed that when you pay more attention to your emotions and are aware of them, your feelings change?

6. Using the opposite action

An important method of dialectical behavior therapy for modifying or managing strong emotions is to change the "behavioural-expressive component through actions that are contrary to the emotions" (Linehan, 1993, p. 151). The use of the opposite action does not imply inhibition of the expression of an emotion, but rather simply the expression of another emotion.

An example would be the subjective feeling of being overwhelmed when a person does not want to get up in bed and interact with other people, and the opposing decision to get up and walk around the neighborhood, which does not prohibit the existence of the first feeling, but is opposed to it. Most likely, it is impossible to immediately get rid of the state of depression, but this state can be countered by positive changes in your feelings.

7. Applying Suffering Techniques

When you feel anger, sadness, or anxiety, you feel like you need to do something urgently to stop or dull those unbearable negative emotions. In fact, states with strong negative emotions can be tolerated. Taking impulsive actions, from overwhelming negative emotions, you only worsen the situation.

8. Decreasing physical sensitivity as a way to deal with emotions

This method is similar to the method of desensitization to the level of "emotional intelligence". In order to deal with unwanted emotions, as well as identifying and understanding how thoughts and behaviors affect your emotions, it is important to recognize the physical condition that makes you more or less susceptible to these emotions.

You can determine the extent to which your physical condition affects your emotions by asking yourself the following questions:

  1. How does my diet affect my well-being?
  2. How does overeating or undereating immediately affect me, and what are the long-term consequences of these actions?
  3. How does alcohol and pills affect me immediately, and what are the long-term consequences of taking them?
  4. How does my sleep (or lack thereof) affect my well-being?

9. Revealing emotions

The main goal of dialectical behavior therapy is to learn to see your emotions, not avoid them. When we are aware of our emotional state, we have a choice of how we react to the situation and how we will feel. Emotion detection begins with keeping a record of the events that affected your emotions and extracting specific emotions for later management or elimination of those emotions. By writing down the events that influenced your emotional state, you will learn to identify your typical reaction to certain emotions.

If you know that, for example, you need to make a great effort to extinguish a fit of anger, you must learn (slowly at first) to observe this negative emotion, how the body reacts to it and the impulses that arise, and try to avoid judgment, that may arise in connection with this emotion. This process of gradually revealing emotions must be accompanied by an attentive attitude to everything that you experience.

10. Mindfulness of your emotions without making judgments

If you are attentive to your emotions, but do not judge them, then you reduce the likelihood of their increase in intensity. This mindful recognition especially helps you deal with unwanted emotions. Concentrate on your breathing, observe the emotions that you are experiencing at the moment.

Try to look at your emotional state through the eyes of an outside observer. Just notice everything that happens - do not divide what is happening into “bad” or “good”. Getting your emotions under control can be very difficult. Pay attention to all your thoughts and judgments about the emotions you are experiencing (or even your intentions stemming from the emotions) and let them run their course. What will you get in the end if you do all this?

Try to find ways to apply these emotion management techniques in your daily life. How you work to become more aware of your ability to consciously observe your emotions and how you express those emotions.

  • Psychology: personality and business

You can not hold back emotions, get angry, scream, laugh, cry out loud and resent loudly. Do you think anyone likes such sincerity? Only your enemies enjoy watching this spectacle. Learning to manage emotions!

Sometimes, succumbing to emotions or allowing ourselves to be led by false feelings, we do things that we later regret. At the same time, we make excuses that we have lost control of ourselves, so emotions have taken over the mind. That is, we did not control emotions, but they controlled us.

Is it really that bad? Perhaps there is nothing good in the absence of self-control. People who do not know how to control themselves, maintain self-control and subordinate feelings to their will, as a rule, do not achieve success either in their personal lives or in the professional sphere.

They are not thinking about tomorrow, and their expenses often far exceed their income.

Unrestrained people flare up like a match in any quarrel, unable to stop in time and compromise, which deserves a reputation as a conflict person. At the same time, they also destroy their health: doctors say that many diseases are directly related to such negative emotions as anger, etc. People who value their own peace and nerves prefer to avoid them.

People who are not used to limiting themselves spend too much of their free time in empty entertainment and useless conversations. If they make promises, they themselves are not sure whether they can keep them. It is not surprising that in whatever area they work, they are rarely professionals in their field. And the reason for everything is the lack of self-control.

A developed sense of self-control allows you to keep a cool head in any situation, sober thoughts and an understanding that feelings can turn out to be false and lead to a dead end.

There are situations when we need to hide our emotions in our own interests. “Sometimes I am a fox, sometimes I am a lion,” said the French commander. “The secret… is to know when to be one, when to be different!”

Self-controlled people deserve respect and enjoy authority. On the other hand, they seem to many to be callous, heartless, "insensitive chumps" and ... incomprehensible. Much clearer to us are those who from time to time "indulge in all serious", "breaks down", loses control over themselves and commits unpredictable acts! Looking at them, and we seem to ourselves not so weak. Moreover, it is not so easy to become restrained and strong-willed. So we reassure ourselves that the life of people who are guided by reason, and not by feelings, is bleak, and therefore unhappy.

The fact that this is not so is evidenced by an experiment conducted by psychologists, as a result of which they came to the conclusion: people who can overcome themselves and resist momentary temptation are more successful and happy than those who are not able to cope with emotions.

The experiment is named after Michel Walter, a psychologist at Stanford University. He is also known as the "marshmallow test" because one of his main "heroes" is an ordinary marshmallow.

In an experiment conducted in the 60s of the last century, 653 children of 4 years of age participated. They were led in turn into a room where one marshmallow lay on the table in a plate. Each child was told that he could eat it right now, but if he waited 15 minutes, he would get another one, and then he could eat both. Michelle Walter left the child alone for a few minutes and then returned. 70% of children ate one marshmallow before his return, and only 30 waited for him and got the second one. It is curious that the same percentage was observed during a similar experiment in two other countries where it was conducted.

Michel Walter followed the fate of his wards and after 15 years came to the conclusion that those who at one time did not succumb to the temptation to get “everything and now”, but were able to control themselves, turned out to be more teachable and successful in their chosen areas of knowledge and interests. Thus, it was concluded that the ability to self-control significantly improves the quality of human life.

Itzhak Pintosevich, who is called the "coach of success", argues that those who are not in control of themselves and their actions should forever forget about efficiency.

How to learn to manage yourself

1. Recall the “marshmallow test”

30% of 4-year-olds already knew how. This trait of character was inherited by them "by nature" or this skill was brought up in them by their parents.

Someone said: “Don't raise your children, they will still look like you. Educate yourself." Indeed, we want to see our children restrained, but we ourselves arrange tantrums in front of their eyes. We tell them that they must cultivate willpower in themselves, but we ourselves show weakness of character. We remind you that they must be punctual, and every morning we are late for work.

Therefore, we begin to learn to control ourselves by carefully analyzing our behavior and identifying "weak spots" - where exactly we allow ourselves to "bloom".

2. Components of control

The aforementioned Yitzhak Pintosevich believes that in order for control to be effective, it must include 3 components:

  1. Be honest with yourself and have no illusions about yourself;
  2. You should control yourself systematically, and not from case to case;
  3. Control should be not only internal (when we control ourselves), but also external. For example, we promised to solve the problem in such and such a time. And, in order not to leave ourselves a loophole for retreat, we announce this in the circle of colleagues. If we do not meet the announced time, we pay them a fine. The danger of losing a decent amount will serve as a good incentive in order not to be distracted by extraneous matters.

3. We write down on the sheet the main goals facing us, and put (or hang) it in a prominent place

Every day we monitor how we managed to move towards their implementation.

4. Get your finances in order

We keep loans under control, remember if we have debts that urgently need to be paid off, and reduce the debit to the loan. Our emotional state is quite dependent on the state of our finances. Therefore, the less confusion and problems in this area, the less we will have reasons to "lose our temper."

5. We observe our reaction to events that cause strong emotions in us, and analyze whether they are worth our experiences

We imagine the worst option and understand that it is not as terrible as the consequences of our inadequate and thoughtless behavior.

6. Doing the opposite

We are angry with a colleague, and we are tempted to say “a couple of kind words” to him. Instead, we smile affably and say a compliment. If we felt offended that another employee was sent to the conference instead of us, we don’t get angry, but we rejoice for him and wish him a happy journey.

From the very morning we were overcome by laziness, and - turn on the music, and take up some business. In a word, we act contrary to what our emotions tell us.

7. A famous phrase says: we cannot change circumstances, but we can change our attitude towards them.

We are surrounded by different people, and not all of them are friendly and fair to us. We cannot be upset and indignant every time we meet someone else's envy, anger, rudeness. We must come to terms with what we cannot influence.

8. The best assistant in mastering the science of self-control is meditation

As physical exercise develops the body, so meditation trains the mind. Through daily meditation sessions, one can learn to avoid negative emotions, not to succumb to passions that interfere with a sober look at circumstances and can destroy life. With the help of meditation, a person plunges into a state of calm and achieves harmony with himself.

We all know from experience that when it comes to making decisions and setting a course of action, feeling takes into account every little thing no less, and often more than thinking. That is why in the late 90s. psychologists increasingly began to say that for the successful realization of a personality in life and activity, the most important thing is to have the ability to effectively interact with other people, be able to navigate in various situations, correctly determine the personal and emotional characteristics of others, and find adequate ways to communicate with them.

Today, in order for you to be a whole person, you need, in addition to a high intelligence quotient (IQ), also a high emotionality score (EQ). These two indicators are inextricably linked. Emotional intelligence (EI) is a person's abilities that are involved in the awareness and management of their own emotions and the emotions of others.

American scientists "invented" emotional intelligence Peter Salovey and Jack Meyer in 1990. Then together with David Caruso the researchers proposed their own model of emotional intelligence, a model of new abilities. What? First of all, these are the abilities of perception, insofar as emotions contain information about us, about other people and about the world around us. Emotions are a kind of data, which is why it is so important to accurately determine what we experience and what people experience. Our emotions (mood) determine our thought processes. In a bad mood, we think and behave in a completely different way than in a good one. Simple manifestations of emotional intelligence are the key to health, gaining leadership, and also increase vision, ambition, self-esteem and promote better mutual understanding.

American psychologist Daniel Goleman developed the ideas of his predecessors and proposed a model of emotional intelligence, which is based on five core competencies. It is not necessary that all five points be explicitly expressed, it will be enough if they are emotional knowledge of oneself and correct self-esteem.

1. Knowing yourself


The more we learn about ourselves, the better we can control ourselves and choose the line of behavior necessary in a given situation. It aims to make us strive for change. Without self-knowledge, our emotions could direct us to do what we don't want to, turn us into people that are not at all what we would like to be.

How to develop?


Understand the difference between: "I think" and "I feel." Ask yourself how you feel throughout the day, but be honest. If your heart is beating fast or you are short of breath, then this is a normal subconscious reaction. Ask the question: “How does it make her feel?” Name this feeling - fear, excitement, calmness, etc. Talk about your feelings more often with friends and family. Over time, you will become more accurate in determining exactly which feeling / emotion you have at this particular moment.

2. Self-control


As we listen and explore our inner feelings, taking a step-by-step path towards self-discovery, self-control regulates and coordinates these same feelings for a positive, not a negative result. Self-control gives the rational side time to sort out feelings when necessary. It also helps us act thoughtfully and responsibly in doing what we say.

How to develop?


Watch what you say to yourself mentally. Recognize the fact that you are human and can experience any emotion. Be prepared for emotional outbursts caused by repetitive situations and learn to manage them. Turn an unpleasant and annoying situation into a problem-solving exercise. When you encounter something that requires an unwanted emotional response, contain your anger by focusing on your behavior. Change the situation in such a way that the behavior becomes problematic, and not the person at whom your anger is directed. Use humor to see new facets of the situation.

3. Self-motivation


Self-motivation is directing the power of our emotions to something that can inspire us to do different things. It allows you to clearly see the goals and the steps needed to achieve them.

How to develop?


Be aware that you can control and choose what you feel or think about. Put in more effort and visualize your desired future as often as possible. Communicate with people who share your values ​​and principles and follow their dreams. Keep learning, because the pursuit of knowledge will strengthen your character strengths and provide the necessary information that may be useful to you now or in the future.

4. Empathy


Emotional intelligence helps to treat others in a dignified manner, with compassion and empathy. It is good when a person knows how to separate the emotions of other people from their own. Empathy begins with the ability to listen, which means connecting with a person. People who do not know how to empathize are more focused on their own needs and pay little attention to the problems of others.

How to develop?


Try to listen more to the interlocutor and "feel into" his experiences. Studies show that in communication, the interlocutor perceives only about 7% of words, intonation accounts for 38%, and 55% - for facial expressions, gestures and eye contact. What you say out loud and what you convey to others without words should not differ from each other. This serves as proof of your honesty and builds trust. Try to see the situation from the other person's point of view in order to better understand them.

5. Effective relationships


This competency concerns making successful contacts and the ability to manage the emotions of others. If a person has a variety of social communication skills, then he is better placed to establish cooperation.

How to develop?


Talk to your friends and colleagues about your ideas and interests because it's infectious as hell! Organize a creative exchange of views - this builds trust and promotes an atmosphere of interaction. Be willing to pass on experience and knowledge to others or become a mentor, and be open to other people's knowledge and experience. This is very important, especially in a work team. By sharing your own experience and knowledge with others, you show your ability to perceive other people's ideas and thoughts, and that you do not consider yourself a know-it-all.

In this way, emotional intelligence expands our understanding of what it means to be smart. Often people with a high IQ but a low EQ do not reach their full potential and lose their chances of success because they think, interact and communicate in an unconstructive way. The ability to create a certain atmosphere of communication is one of the most important skills that determine communicative competence. Skillful management of emotions makes it easier to cope with difficult life situations. Emotional intelligence helps maintain self-confidence and determination to achieve a goal, adapt to change.