Emotions are the thread that connects us with other people and saturates our lives with meaning. They are the foundation of our self-understanding and relationship with other people.

When we are aware of and in control of our emotions, we can think rationally and creatively; cope with stress and challenges; communicate well with other people; trust, empathize and exude confidence. But as soon as we lose control over our emotions, we immediately fall into confusion, withdraw into ourselves and plunge into negativity. By recognizing and mastering our emotions, we gain control over how we respond to challenges, improve our ability to communicate, and enjoy harmonious relationships. This is the benefit we get by developing emotional awareness.

What is emotional awareness?

Whether we have control over them or not, emotions are constantly present in our lives, underpinning and influencing everything we do. Emotional awareness refers to what we feel and why. It is the ability to identify and express what we feel from moment to moment and understand the connection between our feelings and actions. Emotional awareness also helps to understand how others feel and express empathy for them.
Emotional awareness consists of two main abilities:

• the ability to recognize from moment to moment their emotional state;
• the ability to cope with their emotions without feeling overwhelmed.

Why is it important to be aware of emotions?

Have you ever felt that depression, anxiety or anger control you? Do you often act impulsively, doing or saying things that you shouldn't have said or later regretted? Are you feeling disconnected from your feelings or emotionally drained? Do you feel uncomfortable communicating with other people and making important connections? Do you feel satisfied that your life in terms of emotions is like a roller coaster - a continuous extreme and no balance? All this is due to problems in understanding emotions.

Your emotions, not thoughts, control you. Without awareness of our feelings, it is impossible to fully understand our behavior, properly manage our emotions and actions, and accurately "accept" the desires of other people.

Emotional awareness will help you:

• to recognize who you really are: what you like and dislike, to understand your needs;
• understand and show empathy to other people when they need it;
• communicate clearly and effectively;
• make wise decisions that are based on things that are very important to you;
• build strong, healthy and mutual relationships.

How Developing Emotional Awareness Can Help You Gain Resilience

“My life is like an emotional roller coaster!”	Life doesn't have to be emotional peaks and valleys. Learning to manage emotions You will be able to avoid emotional peaks and valleys.
“I often regret my words and actions”	If you often have the thought of pressing the back button, you will be able to gain emotional awareness, prolonging periods of calm between stresses.
"I have no energy."	Moping? When everything is fine physically with you, but you still can’t “get up and go”, you can become depressed with a certain probability. In the case of a developed emotional awareness, You can change what you feel and change for the better.
"The people I'm interested in aren't interested in me."	Relationships are complex, however, if you develop emotional awareness, You will find it easier to meet people and make new useful connections.
"I don't feel like I'm moving forward despite hard work and mental ability."	Sometimes moving up the career ladder means more than just reading books and making the effort to get there. Education emotional awareness helps to improve communication and strengthen one's position.
"They call me a robot."	There is such a thing as excessive emotional control. If you kept yourself in check so much that you did not show emotions in general, you will only benefit from acquiring a balance of your feelings.

Developing your emotional awareness

Although emotional awareness is the key to emotional health, pleasant communication and stable relationships, most people remain completely unfamiliar with their emotional experience. It's surprising how few people can answer the question, "What are you emotionally feeling right now?"

What is your level of emotional awareness?

• Can you handle strong feelings such as anger, sadness, fear, disgust and joy?
• Do you feel emotions in your body? If you are sad or angry, do you feel it in your stomach or chest?
• Have you made decisions based on how you feel or emotions when making decisions? When your body hinted that something was wrong (squeezing in the stomach, hair standing on end, etc.) did you believe him?
• Do you feel comfortable with all your emotions? Do you allow yourself to feel anger, sadness, or fear without feeling judged for it or without trying to suppress it?
• Do you pay attention to daily emotional change? You catch a lot of changing emotions throughout the day or do you get stuck and only experience one or two of them?
• Are you comfortable talking about your emotions? Do you share your feelings frankly?
• Do you feel that, in general, most people understand and sympathize with your feelings? Are you comfortable when others know about your feelings?
• Do you listen to other people's feelings? Is it easy for you to understand what other people feel and imagine yourself in their place?

If you don't answer "usually yes" or "sometimes yes" to most of the questions, don't worry, you're not alone. Most people lack emotional awareness. It will be absent even if you try to avoid your feelings for an extended period of time.

By learning to recognize and manage your emotions, you will experience great joy and relief along with an improvement in your relationship.

When we can't handle stress, our emotions can take over.

You won't be able to handle your emotions until you learn how to deal with stress. Emotions unpredictable. We never know what emotional response will follow, and when stress strikes, we usually don't have the time or opportunity to rebalance, such as by going for a run or taking a relaxing bath. What you need is the tools to deal with it the moment it occurs.

Emotional awareness depends on your ability to quickly reduce the intensity of stress

Emotional awareness requires the ability to cope with stress as it arises. The ability to quickly deal with stress allows you to safely survive strong emotions knowing that you remain calm and in control even when something upsets you. Once you know how to relax yourself, you take control of the situation and can begin to explore. emotions that were uncomfortable for you or frightened you.

Emotion is a double-edged sword that can help or hurt

If you are a person who does not know how to deal with emotions, or live with such a person, the sensations can bring you fear or devastation. Fear and helplessness can freeze or turn off your innate ability to think rationally and can push you into words or actions that you later regret saying or doing.

Basic Ways to Control or Avoid Emotions That Bring You Discomfort

Many exciting and unacceptable behaviors are the result of an inability to control the emotional tension during a particular situation. Instead, you can try to take control or avoid difficult emotions:

• distracting yourself with intrusive thoughts, distracting fantasies, useless pastimes in order to avoid emotions that you fear or dislike. Watching TV programs, playing games on the computer and browsing the Internet are the main ways we use to avoid meeting our feelings;
• using one emotional response that is comfortable for you, regardless of the situation. For example, you constantly joke, trying to cover up self-doubt, anger, fear or sadness;
• turning off their intense emotions. If you feel overwhelmed by your emotions, You can deal with this by completely disabling your emotions. At this point, you may get the impression that you have no feelings as such.

Consider peak unpleasant emotions:

• anger can be both dangerous and beneficial. Uncontrolled anger can endanger the lives of others and our own. However, anger can also save and keep a life. Anger is an emotion, the manifestation of which is accompanied by the mobilization of a large amount of energy. This energy can be used to save life, and itself emotion enhances the craving for exploits;
• sadness can lead to depression, and can be the key to emotional healing. Sadness is designed to slow down a person, his thinking, so that he comes to terms with what he feels emotionally. Sadness pushes us to open up, trust, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable in order to heal and recover from loss;
• fear Crushing us is debilitating, but fear also triggers saving reactions that protect us from harm. Fear is deeply rooted emotion, which is often the cause of chronic anger or depression. Overwhelming fear can be a barrier that separates us from other people, but let's not forget that fear keeps us alive by signaling danger.

Why Avoiding Bad Emotions Isn't the Answer

We are all born with the ability to experience the full range of human emotions joy, anger, sadness and fear. So far, many people have been separated from a few or all of their senses.

People who have been traumatized as children are very often separated from their emotions and the physical sensations that these emotions cause. But while you are trying to avoid pain and discomfort, your emotions become distorted. You lose touch with your emotions when you try to control or avoid them instead of experiencing them.

Consequences of ignoring your emotions:

• You don't know yourself. This is one of the most serious consequences. It includes understanding one's behavior in various situations, the value of things, the difference between thoughts, desires and needs;
• You lose the good along with the bad. When you block negative feelings such as anger, fear or sadness, you also block the ability to feel positive feelings such as joy, love or happiness;
• It exhausts you. You can distort or suppress emotions but you can't get rid of them completely. Avoiding a full emotional experience requires a lot of energy and is a further cause of depression. Such efforts will stress you out and drain you.
• It damages your relationship. The more you distance yourself from your feelings, the more you distance yourself from yourself and other people. You lose the ability to build strong relationships and communicate effectively - all this is a consequence of the lack of connection between you and your emotions.

By avoiding emotions that are unpleasant to us, we distance ourselves from pleasant emotions.

When we lose touch emotions that we do not like, we automatically turn off strong positive emotions such as joy, laughter, and playfulness that keep us going through difficult times. We can only get through loss and major challenges if we retain the ability to experience joy. At the worst of times, these pleasant, encouraging emotions remind us that life can be not only hard, but also beautiful.

Become a friend to all your emotions

If you've never learned how to deal with stress, the idea of ​​bringing back unpleasant emotions may not sound good to you. But even trauma survivors can heal by learning to safely manage their emotional experience. You can change how you experience and react to your emotions.

Boosting process emotional awareness and self-healing includes reconnecting all e exercise- anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise and joy. When it starts for you, pay attention to the following:

- emotions quickly come and go if you let them go;

- You may be overwhelmed by worries about the fact that emotions, which you tried to avoid, when reconnecting, they can capture you, and you will not have the strength to cope with them, but this is not the case. When we don't give our emotions take possession of us, even the most painful and complex feelings subside and lose their ability to control our attention;

- when our feelings are free, strong emotions anger, sadness, fear and joy quickly come and go. Throughout the day, we will see, read, or hear something that instantly makes us feel that way. But if you don't focus on that feeling, it won't last long, and the other emotion will soon take its place.

Your body can connect you to your emotions

Our emotions very strongly connected to the sensations in our bodies. When you are experiencing a strong emotion, You may also feel it somewhere in your body. By paying attention to these physical sensations, you can understand your emotions it is better. For example, if you have stomach cramps every time you interact with a certain person, you may come to the conclusion that you are not entirely comfortable in his presence.

With the exception of headaches, physical sensations occur "below the level of the nose." Here are the following examples:

• sensations in the abdomen;
• muscle tension;
• subtle hints of moving parts of the body;
• flashes inside or "good feelings".

You don't have to choose between thinking and feeling

Emotional awareness operates on an instinctive level. When you train it enough, you will be aware of your feelings without having to think about it, and you will be able to use these emotional cues to understand what is happening and be able to react accordingly. The goal is a balance between your intelligence and emotions. The fact is that emotional awareness It will help you draw healthy boundaries, communicate well with other people, predict other people's actions, and make better decisions.

Emotional awareness is a skill you can learn

Emotional awareness is a skill that can be learned at any time in life with a little effort and patience. You can develop emotional awareness by learning meditation, which touches upon the short-lived physical and emotional sensations in your body. This meditation will help you connect with difficult emotions and deal with discomfort. When you know what to do, the situation does not get out of control even in the most extreme conditions.

Photo / © Efim Shevchenko

We all have to deal with toxic people at some point. We are talking about people with manipulative inclinations, making subjective judgments and inconsiderate to the feelings of other people. Communication with such representatives of society can be very uncomfortable, especially if you are forced to see each other every day.

But first, let's define who these toxic people are. Here are 9 signs of a toxic person.

1. They talk more than they listen.

Toxic people have narcissistic tendencies and are unable to focus on anything other than themselves. This is contrary to the Buddhist worldview, in which compassion and kindness to other people (and to yourself) are of paramount importance.

2. They think they are never wrong.

Everything they say is right, and everything you say is wrong. Toxic people are unwilling to learn and react very harshly to criticism.

3. Drama accompanies them everywhere.

They always experience some kind of tragedy. But if you offer advice, they'll just say it won't work.

4. They flaunt every relationship.

All their love affairs are ostentatious, as they do everything only so that other people can see it. They just don't know how to enjoy relationships.

5. Their personal experience is the standard against which they compare everything.

They evaluate all things based on their personal life experience. For example, if they hate yoga, then it is 100% a waste of time and it is useless to argue with them.

6. They often lie.

To some extent, they benefit from their lies, so they lie without a twinge of conscience.

7. They lack tact in dealing with other people.

One of the signs of toxic people is a lack of empathy and a feeling of superiority over others. They are proud of their honesty, so they never bother to choose words when they want to achieve something from others.

8. They try to control other people.

They want you to act in a certain way for their benefit.

9. They love to talk about others.

They like to make fun of others behind their backs in order to increase their own self-esteem.

“The deeper your awareness of the present moment, the more calmly you will deal with manifestations of hostility. And the longer you think about it, the more you will understand how much this person must suffer inside in order to behave in this way. This knowledge will allow you to treat these people with the necessary degree of sympathy and compassion, which will enable you to remain as calm as possible when dealing with them.

In the end, with a sufficient degree of compassion and insight, you can easily put out the fire of hostility ... When people see that they are treated well, despite the manifestation of hostility, they themselves change their behavior for the better. Helping them get rid of the poison that sits inside them, you thereby help yourself, because in the end you see another person who is tuned towards you in a positive way.

Publisher: Knarik Petrosyan- February 18, 2019

Entrepreneur and marketer Dan Waldschmidt shares provocative and sometimes sobering ideas on how to get things done on his blog. Here are 26 more such ideas. (In the original, the tips are matched to the letters of the English alphabet.)

Achieve more. Get things done. Stop starting - start finishing.

Believe in more. Remember that you have enough strength to conquer the world.

Chat more. Stop thinking that everyone understands you anyway. Share with people what drives you.

Praise more. Bring the world a sense of wonder and excitement. Be unexpected.

Influence more. Help others realize the change they want to make.

Give more. Live for the love of others. Give to others as much as you yourself would like to receive.

Help more. Lend a helping hand, even when you need both hands for your own affairs.

More innovation. Be a creator, puppeteer and artist. Design beautiful.

Unite more. Help people, ideas and opportunities find each other. Connect them.

Get on your knees. Humility will take you further than arrogance and blaming others.

Learn more. Never be satisfied with what (you think) you know. Open up your mind.

Get the most out of more. Take the resources you have and tailor them to your needs.

Cherish and nurture. Attract good people into great relationships. Make people a priority.

Be a pioneer. Leave a trace behind. Take risks and move into the unknown.

Separate more. Learn to say “NO” to good opportunities that don’t open up great prospects for you.

Repair more. Fix all the "people problems" in your life. Fix your financial problems and take care of your health.

Specialize more. Do one thing well instead of doing dozens of things haphazardly.

Experiment more. Click on all buttons. Turn all knobs. Formulate your own conclusions.

Discover more. Stop paying attention to superficial problems - look into the soul.

Win more. Stop losing. Start doing things that bring quick wins.

Analyze more. Be honest about your intentions and motives.

Shout more. Speak out loud and loudly about what matters most to you.

Expand more. See what everyone else thinks is necessary for you, and do the opposite.

Publisher: Knarik Petrosyan- February 18, 2019

When we feel unhappy, there is no need to despair. We need to gradually change our thinking and behavior, so that these changes bring us closer to happiness.

At such moments, going forward, continuing your path in life becomes difficult if there is no serious motive to do so. But such a motive is not difficult to find, it is you yourself.

When we do not care about the satisfaction of our emotional needs, when it seems to us that nothing depends on us, the world seems to be turned upside down.

You can try to cheer yourself up, you can say to yourself “time heals everything, the black streak will pass ...”, but this does not help much. You need to take fate into your own hands.

Yes, there are times when nothing makes us happy. But you can't let the bad moments turn into a bad life...

We will explain how to do it.

Strategies in a situation where nothing pleases

If nothing pleases us, if we feel that for three months we will have to live in a terrible mood, with insomnia, with apathy, with a loss of interest in everything, we should consult a doctor.

It is possible that we have depression, and we need to consult a specialist who will diagnose and tell you how to deal with the disease.

It is possible that the diagnosis of "depression" will not be confirmed. In any case, the strategies that we will talk about will be useful.

Count on your rhythm: now everything is slower

We feel bad, we cannot, and we must not hide it. Why smile and pretend that everything is fine when we are sad and we feel apathy?

Do not try to portray feelings that you do not experience.

• You have the right to be sad and sad. Negative emotions also bring certain benefits, they show us that "something in our life needs to be changed."

Consider that your mind and body now act more slowly. They kind of tell us that we don’t need to rush, but we need to go deep into our thoughts in order to understand what is happening and find a way out of this situation.

Focus not on how you feel, but on what needs to be done

In this state, you often feel anger, sadness, you want to sleep, and then talk to someone.

You need to focus your attention not on what you feel, but on what needs to be done.

• I need to look good.
• I need to be alone.
• I need to have new dreams.
• You need to start over.
• You need to stop being sad.
• I want to be needed by people.
• I want to have high self-esteem.

Do something every day to make you feel better

You cannot improve your condition instantly. You need to work on this constantly, gradually changing your thinking and behavior.

These small daily activities improve our emotional state, and we gradually begin to feel better.

To be happy, you need to be able to give up some things and even people. This is not always easy to do, it takes a certain amount of courage.

• We must learn to listen to our needs, to our conscience. Then we will be able to understand that certain things contradict our essence, they do not allow us to be happy.
• To refuse means to complete certain stages, life “cycles”. It is important to be able to identify what no longer brings us anything good, does not enrich us, what makes us feel bad.
• It is often no one's fault that we are unhappy. Rather, our fears and self-doubt are to blame, which close the door to happiness for us.

Learn to identify these internal "pests" and get rid of them. It should not be a pity for any effort.

Publisher: Knarik Petrosyan- February 18, 2019

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Some people think that you are dominant. Some people just think that you are rude. But none of them are right. These words don't really reflect your personality.

Strong people don't need to win, they just don't want to let other people get on their necks. Of course, some people may be afraid of you. But that's only because they don't understand how you can be so comfortable with yourself that you don't need anyone else.

Here are eight signs that you are a strong personality that may intimidate some people.

1. You don't like excuses.

Strong personalities do not tolerate excuses. When you're a strong person, you don't want to listen to people who miss everything. You better focus on what you can do and how you can overcome obstacles to do more.

2. You care about what you have invested in your life.

As a strong person, you do not rely on other people, you clearly understand “who” you are, “why” you are needed, or “what you can do.” You recognize that some people must do the same in order to feel better.

3. You hate talking about nothing.

Useless conversation is terrible. If you are a strong personality, you have many ideas. You don't want to waste time gossiping about people when you can change the world.

4. You cannot tolerate insensitivity, idiocy, or ignorance.

Strong personalities are the result of caring and awareness. There is a huge difference between them and dominants.

Since you've spent time and effort using your brain, you hate it when people make instant judgments about things they know nothing about. This is probably your best quality, but not because you can use your knowledge to influence people. This is because you can use it to encourage people to actually think about what they are saying before they do it.

5. You know how to listen

Strong personalities know how to listen. You would think people would appreciate it. But, in fact, being heard and encouraged is a fear for people who are not used to it.

6. You don't need attention

Strong people don't need attention. Most of the people you come across think that you excel at charisma, but that's not true. The amount of your communication goes off scale, not because you want it, but because people need people like you.

7. You are fearless

Okay, that's not true. There are probably a couple of things that you are afraid of. But the difference between you and other people is that you don't let that fear dictate how you live your life.

8. You strive for growth and development

Insecurity for you is an opportunity to do better. You know you're not perfect, but if you're trying to learn and grow despite the risk of looking stupid.

Publisher: Knarik Petrosyan- February 18, 2019

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I recently received three emails with the same tag: "I'm ready to start over." This synchronicity caught my attention, made me think. All three people described in detail situations from their lives, and all three asked the same question at the same time:

“I don’t know what to do, where to go, I only know that I want to be successful ... But what should I do?”

It is obvious that it is not so easy to find an answer to such a radical and open question. But I will try to do it - for all of us. I offer you 5 principles and strategies by which I live myself. These are 5 ways to change your life at any age.

1. Focus less on the future and more on today.

I agree, it is absolutely normal to plan your future. But not to the detriment of today. The truth is that no matter how smart you are, and no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to accurately model your Tomorrow. Even people who always have a carefully thought-out plan (for example, all the steps for mastering the profession of a doctor, running a business, etc.) cannot really predict what awaits them along the way. It would be naive to hope that everything will be exactly as you planned.

Life rarely goes according to plan. For every person who set a goal for himself and walked unhindered until he reached it, there are hundreds of those who went to the start strong and confident, but never made it to the finish line. And if this happened to you, it's okay. Unforeseen circumstances and new opportunities may spring up in front of you like mushrooms after rain.

Perhaps to correct your perspective, to strengthen your determination, or perhaps to help you understand that you are on the wrong path and should turn around. It is possible that the place where you will find yourself tomorrow does not even exist today. For example, even some 10 years ago it was impossible to imagine that you could make a career on Google, Facebook or Twitter.

So, if you can't plan for your future, what can you do? Focus less on the future. Focus on what you can do today, no matter what tomorrow brings.

Read. Write. Learn new things and practice with them. Test your new skills and ideas. Create something new. Work on your relationships. All this will help you when you meet with unforeseen circumstances in the future.

One of the best ways to start doing all this, I think, is to do or create something, even a very small one, in your spare time. Most people spend their free time on things that are completely useless for their lives - watching TV, video games, social networks, and so on. One year of such a pastime - and you will have absolutely no ideas and desires left.

But if you draw every day, or study graphic design, or write a blog, or open and maintain your own YouTube channel, or write a business project, or spend more time with people with the relevant skills… in a year you will be able to create something or do. In addition, you will get a tremendous life experience, because you can proudly say: "I created this and that, which many people cannot do."

It should be noted that this is within the reach of not only the young, easy-going, but also each of us, regardless of age. Everything is very simple: every day, take at least a small step in the right direction, day after day, and so - all your life.

2. Focus on the journey itself, not the achievement.

We gain the most valuable experience in life not in achieving something, but in finding ways and solutions. The most important thing is your very journey towards the infinite horizon, when the goals move with you, and you are calm, confident in yourself.

Why do we have to constantly move forward, move from one point to another? To understand the difference, to realize how the previous one differed from the next, to see what is between the two points of your journey. In the process, a lot of great things will happen to you: you will meet your love, become stronger, gain invaluable experience. All this without moving forward, without your journey through life - it is impossible to get.

In other words, the right journey is our destination.

3. Do difficult things.

If you want to stop growing and stop, come up with an excuse. Lots of excuses. Conversely, if you want to get out of this "trap", do things that literally push you out of your comfort zone. Do what you've never done before.

There is no plausible excuse for not doing it. Not a single one - to repeat the same mistakes with enviable persistence. Life is too short. You must finally throw off your shackles and feel free.

One of the most important skills you need to acquire in life is to learn how to calmly stay outside your comfort zone from time to time. Because truly worthwhile and magnificent things enter our lives only in this way - hard, painfully, with effort.

Acquiring each new skill is not easy. Building a business is hard. Writing books is hard. Marrying is also not easy. And also raise children. And keep in good physical shape. Everything is not easy and requires our efforts and diligence.

If you don't learn to do difficult things, you won't do or achieve anything.

How to achieve all this? Purposefully do things that are difficult for you every day. Start small and gradually increase the difficulty. Start with 10 minutes if you find it very difficult at first.

Practice every day for a month until you get to a slightly more difficult level. Try, for example, meditating or practicing writing every evening for at least 10 minutes - to start. When you feel that the level of discomfort has decreased, you can increase the time of classes.

4. Accept uncertainty.

Developing the skill of "implementation of complex things" is directly related to a sense of uncertainty. For example, if you decide to start your own business, which is commendable and wonderful. But if you are afraid of uncertainty, you can miss a lot.

You cannot know for sure how things will go, and in order to quickly respond to all challenges, you need to use new opportunities: come up with new projects, make new acquaintances. All this, of course, only adds to the uncertainty.

But if you accept uncertainty, you will discover a sea of ​​new possibilities for yourself. Of course, no one promises that it will be easy ...

Sometimes you will not even fully understand in which direction you are going. Each step will be difficult and seem impossible. But you must remember that as long as you follow your intuition and take one small step towards your goal every day, your internal GPS will guide you to your destination.

You will understand that you are a good person and do everything right. That you are in the right place at the right time. Trust your instincts (intuition). Relax. You know what you are doing. Living is learning along the way.

Don't forget: life is a pretty risky business. Every decision you make, every initiative, every step is a risk. Even in the morning, when you get out of bed, you are already quite a bit, but you are at risk. In truth, life is about being aware of this risk and taking it, and in doing so, never fool yourself. The choice is small: either do not get out of bed, comforting yourself with illusory security, or take risks and live.

If you simply ignore your feelings and let uncertainty get the better of you, that's bad. After all, you will never know for sure. And this uncertainty is even worse than finding confirmation of your worst guesses. After all, if you are wrong, you can always correct everything and continue the path forward without looking back and not being afraid of what lies ahead for us.

Afterword: when you learn to accept discomfort and uncertainty, you will be able to do absolutely anything. You will be able to do what you were afraid to even think about yesterday. For example, traveling the world and blogging about it, writing a book, starting a business, moving to another city, learning to play a musical instrument, changing a profession, sailing to the island of your dreams with your family, and much, much more. You don't have to wait years to get it done. You can do it now, but on one condition - you have to accept the discomfort and uncertainty. And remember: better late than never.

5. Work on your relationships with other people.

There are people you think are good, and there are people you don't like. There are fake and hypocritical, and there are real and sincere friends. There are people who will hurt you from the very heart, and there are people who will help heal these wounds. You decide who you spend time with.

True friends are always honest, they will always come to your aid - exactly at the moment when you will need it most. Maintain relationships with people who support you and keep their word.

In truth, if you spend your time on relationships that are bad and unnecessary for you (personal or professional), and vice versa, you will devote little time to strengthening good relationships, you will fall into the trap of fleeting romances and superficial friendships. Understanding this will still overtake you one day, so carefully analyze your relationship.

How do you build healthy, lasting personal and professional relationships? How to find friends with whom you will grow, become better? How to meet the right people?

Chat! Talk to a lot of people every day, even if it's uncomfortable for you. Bosses. Colleagues. Subordinates. Professors. Workers. Mentors. Neighbours. Friends. Friends of friends. Everything! This is how a “network” of its people is built.

I changed three jobs after graduating from college (then I started my own business), but I was only interviewed by the first employer. The other two offered me jobs without wasting time talking. At the same time, they were guided only by the recommendations of the previous employer. And this is a normal practice: to ask about a person those whom you trust.

If you start building a “network” of your people today, it will work for you for years to come. You will meet acquaintances of acquaintances, new colleagues of former colleagues, etc. This is like a snowball effect and should continue for the rest of your life.

Again, don't think this is just for young people who make new friends easily. This can be done easily at any age. There would be only desire.

The main thing is to be sincere and honest in any relationship. When someone gives you the opportunity to work for him, most of all he is afraid that you will not justify his hopes. Therefore, people who are always honest, care about their reputation - have more chances in life. Try to be always open and sincere in your dealings with everyone. If mistakes are pointed out to you, have the courage to admit them and work on them. Try to go beyond your personal or professional relationships when evaluating people - be it your boss or subordinate.

If you adhere to these principles, you will easily acquire a good reputation and build healthy and strong relationships with other people. And this is the best way to get a good job, an investment in your business, or make a good friend.

Afterword

If you adhere to the principles described in this article, your life will change dramatically. You will be able to do and achieve much more than other people. There is no point in even comparing. You will have a lot of new opportunities: build a career, create something incredible with someone, come up with a business idea, gain skills for your further growth, etc.

Of course, you can choose not to do all this and choose the easiest path in life. Thus, to continue moving along the familiar circle of old problems and despair.

Or you can start changing today and make sure that the world around you is also changing.

Awareness of one's own emotions

Despite the fact that we constantly experience certain emotions (albeit not always strongly and clearly expressed), it is far from always easy to understand our own emotional state, to correctly recognize our emotions. Not without reason, both in art and in many psychological currents, the view of emotions as the “dark” side of the personality dominates - something powerful, but unknowable, captivating a person, literally forcing him to act this way and not otherwise. The reasons why it is so difficult for us to realize our emotions, we have already, in general, considered above - they lie in the very features of this psychological phenomenon.

First, emotions rarely appear in their pure form - almost always a person experiences some more or less complex combination of different emotions.

Secondly, the physiological reactions accompanying each of the emotions have much in common: increased breathing and heart rate, muscle tension can be “symptoms” of fear, anger, and joyful anticipation. Therefore, bodily sensations, too, not only do not bring clarity to the recognition of a particular emotion, but, on the contrary, can give erroneous clues.

Thirdly, each of us from early childhood is taught to manage emotions. Unfortunately, ideas about how exactly this should be done are mainly determined by culture and traditions, but far from always correspond to the psychological well-being of each individual. One of the first to be attacked by society is the emotion of anger: in most modern cultures (and certainly in Europe!) anger is considered unacceptable, harmful, dangerous.

It is clear that limiting the free expression of anger is a measure necessary for the survival of society. On the other hand, it is impossible to destroy this emotion for good, like the bubonic plague or smallpox virus: it is technically impossible, and besides, even if such a magical remedy were found, it would still be unacceptable to use it - after all, anger is necessary for a person to survive, in order to to protect yourself or others at the right time.

The result is a very ambiguous situation: anger is familiar to each of us, but we have learned from a young age that we “should not” experience it, much less show it. A little less sharply, but also quite actively disapproved of by society, is the emotion of fear. Seemingly positive emotions such as joy and interest are also persecuted: children are constantly told that they should not show excessive curiosity, and also express their enthusiasm too violently - especially if the occasion, from the point of view of adults, does not deserve it.

As a result, we “do not recognize” many of our emotions simply because we consider them unacceptable. And it turns out a vicious circle: emotions are considered "unreasonable", difficult to control, dangerous. Therefore, they are trying with all their might to curb - to suppress or completely subordinate to conscious regulation, forbidding their free experience and expression. As a result, we increasingly lose contact with our own emotional sphere, and due to the fact that we do not understand our emotions well, we find ourselves defenseless under their onslaught.

From what has already been said, it probably becomes clear how important it is to learn to understand your emotional world, to distinguish and be aware of your emotions. Regardless of how you are going to deal with them - to put them under control of the mind or freely express - for starters, you still need to understand what exactly you feel. Psychologists are tirelessly developing methods to teach people to recognize and understand emotions. One of these methods is sensitivity training(i.e. development of sensitivity).

The famous psychologist Carl Rogers described what is happening in the framework of such training as follows.

The leader of the training invites the audience to talk about himself, his feelings, but he himself is limited to only a few remarks from time to time, in no case taking on a leadership role - which, of course, the participants of the training initially expect from him. Quite quickly, participants begin to experience confusion and irritation, since the current situation is incomprehensible to them: after all, usually people who seek psychological help expect the psychologist to “treat” them - to ask them in detail, to give recommendations. In fact, in the conditions of group training, the main healing and developing value is the relationship, the interaction that arises between people. After the situation in the group heats up to a certain high point, the participants begin to more or less openly express their emotions - even if initially negative, associated with irritation and misunderstanding of what is happening.

An increase in the overall emotional degree leads to the fact that the group members become more frank, and this allows you to create new, trusting relationships between them. Gradually, an atmosphere of sincerity and mutual interest arises, people stop hiding their true feelings.

The sensitivity of the participants really increases, they learn to recognize the emotions of the people around them, notice and criticize those participants who are trying to be hypocritical or hide behind some kind of mask. Such an intensive exchange of emotions, constant feedback between group members leads to the fact that people begin to more accurately realize and understand both the emotions of other people and their own.

It is important to note that immersion in such a boiling "emotional cauldron" for someone can be not only not useful, but also truly dangerous. We all need to be able to understand our emotions and the experiences of other people, but not everyone is ready to be in an environment of complete frankness and sometimes ruthless criticism. Sensitivity training (like any other psychological training that involves extremely close interaction with group members) can be of great benefit, but for a person who has a heightened sensitivity to criticism, who does not have more or less stable self-esteem, this method can cause painful psychological trauma.

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It is difficult to overestimate the importance of emotions in human life, they give our life meaning, unite with other people, and are also the basis for understanding ourselves and our relationship to other people. Emotions, literally, determine the image of our being, thanks to emotions, we have the opportunity to be sad and cry when we feel bad, rejoice and laugh when we are in a great mood. Without them, we would not be what we are, would not be people, in the full sense of the word. Without emotions, we would turn into some kind of robots, endowed with reason, but deprived of a soul. However, despite the great importance that we attach to emotions, we must remember that we are the masters of our emotions, and not their puppets. Man, as the "crown of creation", is one step above the entire animal kingdom. This obliges us to learn from an early age to be aware and control our emotions, to be above them and to be able to act contrary to emotional impulses when necessary.

A person who knows how to recognize and control their emotions is able to think clearly and creatively, cope with stress and anxiety more effectively, communicate with other people on an equal footing, express love, trust and empathy. Problems and troubles do not cloud his head, but are perceived by him as a challenge. He is ready to accept this challenge and easily directs his efforts to overcome the obstacles facing him. On the other hand, losing control over their emotions, a person ceases to fully manage himself and his life. He acts contrary to common sense, is quick-tempered, overly emotional, often in a bad mood and tries to isolate himself from the outside world. As a result, life just passes by. The benefits of controlling your emotions are obvious, and it is unlikely that anyone would turn down the opportunity to learn this. In this article, we will show you how to take one not very difficult, but infinitely important step to control your emotions, it will be about developing emotional awareness.

What is emotional awareness?

We all, by nature, tend to experience emotions. Good and bad, they appear in us in response to external stimuli and influence our way of thinking and acting. In fact, they guide us, especially if we are not aware of them and do not resist the influence they exert. Well, we rarely do that. We observe the appearance of this or that emotion, but do not attach any importance to it - we simply act as we have always acted. Only occasionally do we ask questions:

• “What caused this emotion to arise?”
• “Does it correspond to the real state of things or has it grown against the background of excessive impressionability?”
• “Will I do the right thing if I do what I want to do at the moment?”

In these rare moments, we may find that our behavior is dictated to us by momentary needs and differs from the main life line that we have chosen for ourselves. But, unfortunately, these glimpses of consciousness are not enough to direct your life in the right direction. Being emotionally aware, we are fully aware of our feelings and emotions, as well as the feelings of other people and the reasons for their occurrence. Thus, emotional awareness involves the ability to identify and express emerging emotions. It is an understanding of the connections between our feelings and actions and the ability to predict and prevent unwanted behavior.

Benefits of emotional awareness.

One of the main benefits of emotional awareness is that you gain more control over your own emotions, and therefore over your entire life. Anger, depression, anxiety and restlessness, excessive impulsivity, emotional instability and feelings of isolation lose their power over you. The understanding comes that it is our emotions, not thoughts, that push us and determine our behavior. Emotional awareness gives us many levers of control over ourselves and circumstances, which most of the existing self-development techniques cannot provide. Of particular note are the following benefits of emotional awareness:

• Knowing yourself, your likes and dislikes.
• Understanding and compassion for other people.
• Open and effective communication.
• Making wise decisions that contribute to the achievement of long-term goals.
• Motivation and high activity on the way to goals.
• Building strong, healthy and valuable relationships.
• Creating emotional balance, without sudden mood swings.
• The ability to give an account of one's actions and words.
• A high level of internal energy that is no longer wasted.
• Resilience to stressful situations.
• High level of personal effectiveness.
• Healthy expression of emotions.

The list can go on and on, because along with the main benefits, you get a lot of other benefits, directly or indirectly related to them. Perhaps we will devote a separate article to the benefits of emotional awareness, listing them in this article was not part of our plans. And, in the process of increasing the level of emotional awareness, you yourself will be able to discover positive changes in yourself.

What is your level of emotional awareness?

Each of us, to one degree or another, has the ability to recognize our emotions. Someone more, someone less, but you probably lack this skill if you purposefully did not develop it. Time and life experience only partially increase this ability, and not always and not for everyone. That is why it is so important to take the initiative in your own hands. But before embarking on the path of developing emotional awareness, it is advisable to determine how this skill is developed in you. For this purpose, you should take a closer look at yourself and ask yourself a few simple questions:

• Can you remain calm when experiencing strong emotions such as anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and joy?
• Do you feel the presence of emotions in your body?
• Are you able to listen to the voice of your mind, no matter how you feel?
• Do you trust your body's emotional signals?
• Do you allow yourself to experience negative emotions?
• Do you notice changes in the emotional background?
• Do your emotions change throughout the day?
• Do you think other people are generally understanding and empathetic towards your emotions?
• Are you comfortable when other people know how you feel?
• Do you feel the presence of emotions in other people and can you put yourself in the place of these people?

If you can honestly answer “yes” to all questions, your level of emotional awareness is quite high, you may well do without further development of it. If you cannot answer “yes” to all questions, or “yes” is true for all questions, but not for all situations, you should work on yourself. And finally, if you answered “no” to most of the questions, well, you are far from alone, and you should definitely consider developing your emotional awareness.

Keep in mind that the answers to these questions cannot accurately predict what your level of emotional awareness is, so it will be helpful for you to read about the existing classifications of these levels. So, Drs. Richard D. Lane and Schwartz spoke quite interestingly about the levels of emotional awareness. In their work, they reflected the range of human abilities to be aware of their emotions in six levels. Briefly, these six levels of consciousness look like this:

• 1. Lack of emotional awareness.
• 2. Awareness of bodily sensations.
• 3. Awareness of behavior.
• 4. Awareness of the current emotional state.
• 5. Differentiated emotional awareness.
• 6. Mixed emotional awareness.

There is another version of the classification of levels of emotional awareness, found on the website of one of the missionary organizations in Spain. Knowing these levels will help you decide what level you are at and will serve as a good starting point for your further development.

Development of emotional awareness.

The first thing you need to understand is that developing emotional awareness is a long process that requires a lot of time and effort. People have been taming their emotions for years, and they don't always get the job done, especially if they don't know which direction to go in. This process may take a little less time for you, but for this you need to follow the recommendations given below.

1. Learn to relieve stress.

Many people know that stress is a natural state of our body, which is in adverse conditions. It can be as harmful as it is helpful. For example, he helped people of the Stone Age and slightly later periods of history - to activate the internal reserves of the body in order to cope with enemies or run away from them, make quick decisions and catch prey. For most of us, in the civilized world, it only harms, because we have nowhere to put excess energy. Stress overshadows our consciousness and prevents us from acting adequately, and, even more so, when stress arises, we are the least able to recognize the presence of emotions in ourselves. You can learn how to properly and quickly relieve stress from the articles on our website in the "Stress" section.

2. Get knowledge about human emotions.

Study questions about what emotions exist, how they are created in our body and what effect they have on it. Find out how our environment causes certain emotions to arise, what effect they have on our perception of the surrounding reality, on our thoughts and actions. The more knowledge about your body you get, the easier it will be for you to manage yourself, and the higher your ability to realize your emotions will be. And no, you do not have to get additional education, or study a mountain of literature on human psychology and physiology, superficial knowledge will be enough - the main ideas that matter most.

3. Watch yourself.

Monitor the presence of emotions and try to determine for yourself how you feel. What is it like to be angry? How do you feel when you get angry at someone or something? What is sadness for you? How does fear affect you? How does your sadness show up? How do you rejoice and laugh? What physical sensations accompany your emotions? How productive are you when you experience certain emotions? How long can an emotion stay in you? Listen to yourself and try to develop the ability to identify the emotions you are experiencing. Find out how wide and varied the spectrum of your emotions is? How many types of emotions do you find in yourself? As you observe your emotions, you will come to understand yourself, and your level of emotional awareness will also increase.

4. Learn to accept your emotions.

It is not necessary to avoid or suppress your emotions, this can negatively affect all areas of your life. Thus, avoiding emotions deprives you of the opportunity to understand yourself. By suppressing negative emotions, you block positive emotions, and, among other things, this activity requires too much energy and prevents you from developing relationships with other people. But, allow yourself to experience emotions of any nature and the situation will change for the better. Just accept your emotions, let emotions fill your body. Do not dwell on them for too long, do not attach importance to them, so as not to prolong their existence. They will leave you as quickly as they came. Their place will soon be taken by other emotions, then another and another.

5. Follow the path of your emotions.

Having found any emotion in yourself, whether it be anger, fear or joy, try to identify the reason for its appearance, without missing a single detail. What in your environment caused this emotion to arise? What thoughts do you find in your head when you experience these emotions? In what ways do you usually express these emotions? Watch your facial expressions, gestures, voice, intonation and words. What conscious or unconscious actions can you identify? What do you usually do to get rid of or, conversely, to prolong the stay in you of any emotion. How effective are your actions in eliminating or prolonging emotions? In the early stages of developing emotional awareness, keeping notes can be helpful, allowing you to do better introspection.

Developing emotional awareness is one of the most important steps to taking control of yourself and your own life. With the improvement of this skill, you will learn to identify unwanted behavior and motives that drive you, you will come to understand yourself, get a complete picture of what in your environment causes you joy, sadness, fear, anger and other emotions. In the future, emotional awareness will allow you to correct your behavior, use your emotions and their energy as a source of strength to overcome obstacles, manage other people if necessary, and much, much more. Become the sole and full owners of your life and make it what you want to see, success to you and all the best!

(5)

Despite the fact that we constantly experience certain emotions (albeit not always strongly and clearly expressed), it is far from always easy to understand our own emotional state, to correctly recognize our emotions.

Not without reason, both in art and in many psychological currents, the view of emotions as the "dark" side dominates - something powerful, but unknowable, captivating a person, literally forcing him to act this way and not otherwise. The reasons lie in the very features of this psychological phenomenon.

First of all , emotions rarely appear in their pure form - almost always a person experiences some more or less complex combination of different emotions.

Secondly , the physiological reactions that accompany each of the emotions have much in common: increased breathing and heart rate, muscle tension can be “symptoms” of fear, anger, and joyful anticipation. Therefore, bodily sensations, too, not only do not bring clarity to the recognition of a particular emotion, but, on the contrary, can give erroneous clues.

Don't miss the article.

Thirdly , each of us from early childhood is taught to manage emotions. Unfortunately, ideas about how exactly this should be done are mainly determined by culture and traditions, but far from always correspond to the psychological well-being of each individual. One of the first to be attacked by society is the emotion of anger: in most modern cultures (and certainly in Europe!) anger is considered unacceptable, harmful, dangerous.

It is clear that limiting the free expression of anger is a measure necessary for the survival of society. On the other hand, it is impossible to destroy this emotion for good, like the bubonic plague or smallpox virus: it is technically impossible, and besides, even if such a magical remedy were found, it would still be unacceptable to use it - after all, anger is necessary for a person to survive, in order to to protect yourself or others at the right time.

The result is a very ambiguous situation: anger is familiar to each of us, but we have learned from a young age that we “should not” experience it, much less show it.

A little less sharply, but also quite actively disapproved of by society, is the emotion of fear. Seemingly positive emotions such as joy and interest are also persecuted: children are constantly told that they should not show excessive curiosity, and also express their enthusiasm too violently - especially if the occasion, from the point of view of adults, does not deserve it.

As a result, we “do not recognize” many of our emotions simply because we consider them unacceptable.

And it turns out a vicious circle: emotions are considered "unreasonable", difficult to control, dangerous. Therefore, they are trying with all their might to curb - to suppress or completely subordinate to conscious regulation, forbidding their free experience and expression. As a result, we increasingly lose contact with our own emotional sphere, and due to the fact that we do not understand our emotions well, we find ourselves defenseless under their onslaught.

From what has already been said, it probably becomes clear how important it is to learn to understand your emotional world, to distinguish and be aware of your emotions. Regardless of how you are going to deal with them - to put them under control of the mind or freely express - for starters, you still need to understand what exactly you feel. Psychologists are tirelessly developing methods to teach people to recognize and understand emotions.

One of these methods is sensitivity training (i.e. sensitivity development).

The famous psychologist Carl Rogers described what is happening in the framework of such training as follows.

The leader of the training invites the audience to talk about themselves, their feelings, but he himself is limited to only a few remarks from time to time, in no case taking on a leadership role - which, of course, the participants of the training initially expect from him. Quite quickly, the participants begin to experience confusion and irritation, since the current situation is incomprehensible to them: after all, usually people who seek psychological help expect that the psychologist will “treat” them - ask them in detail, give recommendations. In fact, in the conditions of group training, the main healing and developing value is the relationship, the interaction that arises between people. After the situation in the group heats up to a certain high point, the participants begin to more or less openly express their emotions - even if initially negative, associated with irritation and misunderstanding of what is happening.

An increase in the overall emotional degree leads to the fact that the group members become more frank, and this allows you to create new, trusting relationships between them. Gradually, an atmosphere of sincerity and mutual interest arises, people stop hiding their true feelings.

The sensitivity of the participants really increases, they learn to recognize the emotions of the people around them, notice and criticize those participants who are trying to be hypocritical or hide behind some kind of mask. Such an intensive exchange of emotions, constant feedback between group members leads to the fact that people begin to more accurately realize and understand both the emotions of other people and their own.

It is important to note: immersion in such a boiling "emotional cauldron" for someone can be not only not useful, but also truly dangerous!

We all need to be able to understand our emotions and the experiences of other people, but not everyone is ready to be in an environment of complete frankness and sometimes ruthless criticism. Sensitivity training (like any other psychological training that involves extremely close interaction with group members) can be of great benefit, but for a person who has a heightened sensitivity to criticism, who does not have more or less stable self-esteem, this method can cause painful psychological trauma.