What is the ability to control your feelings. Emotion management techniques

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.

Useful 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, 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.

Emotions are processes that, in the form of experiences, reflect personal significance and assessment of external and internal situations that affect a person’s life. These experiences express a person's subjective attitude to reality and manifest themselves in the form of joy, sadness, indignation, anger, fear, etc. The diverse manifestation of a person's emotional life can be expressed in the following states: affect; own emotions; feelings; moods, stress.

Affects. This is the most powerful emotional reaction. It manifests itself as a strong, stormy, short-term emotional experience that completely captures the human psyche. The affect comes as a result of any strong shock: fear; anger - as a reaction to ridicule and bullying; stupor when reporting the death of a loved one; euphoria after release from danger, etc. In a state of passion, a person, as a rule, forgets everything that happened before the event that caused the affective reaction. This condition is practically uncontrollable.
Actually emotions. They represent a longer reaction that occurs to past events, as well as to anticipated or remembered ones.
The senses. These are stable mental states that have a clear objective character. They express stable relationships to some real or imaginary objects. A person cannot experience any feeling at all. It must be attached to someone or something. For example, he cannot experience the feeling of love if he does not have an object of affection.

Depending on the direction, feelings are divided into:
- moral (experiences by a person of his relationship to other people);
- intellectual (feelings associated with cognitive activity);
- aesthetic (feelings of beauty in the perception of works of art, natural phenomena);
- practical (feelings associated with human activities).

Mood. This is the longest emotional state, which often determines human behavior, since all other mental processes proceed against the background of mood. Mood is related to a person's temperament, but largely depends on external factors. An optimistic mood has a positive effect on the appearance of a person, the expression of his face (others willingly come into contact with him). The productivity and quality of work of a positively minded person is higher than that of a pessimistically minded person.
Stress. This is a special reaction of the body to an unexpected (tense) situation. The reaction is non-specific, since it can occur in response either to any adverse effect (cold, pain, fatigue, humiliation, failure, trouble at work), or to unexpected joy (there are expressions “died of joy”, “died of laughter”) .

Stress is a physiological reaction that mobilizes the body's reserve capabilities. This is expressed in a change in the mode of operation of many organs "and systems of the body (the heart rate becomes more frequent, the pulse rate, blood clotting, etc.) increase. Different people react differently to stress loads as a result of adverse effects. Some have an active reaction, stress stimulates them, the efficiency of their activity can at the same time increase to a certain limit (they sometimes say about such people: “Without kicks, that without gingerbread”) Psychologists call such stress “lion stress.” For others, the reaction is passive, their effectiveness in stressful situation immediately falls ("stress rabbit").

The emotional state of a person can increase or decrease his vital activity. These conditions are called sthenic and asthenic, respectively. The emergence and manifestation of emotions and feelings is associated with the complex complex work of the brain and the autonomic nervous system, which regulates the work of internal organs.

The American psychologist W. James suggested that emotions are characterized by changes in the activity of internal organs and muscles (for example, facial expressions). These changes cause a certain amount of organic sensations, which are emotions. According to this theory, if a person takes a stiff, constrained posture, lowers his shoulders and head, then he will soon have a feeling of insecurity, depression and sadness. And vice versa, a raised head, turned shoulders, a smile on the lips evoke a feeling of confidence, cheerfulness, good mood (“keer smile” - the Americans say in this regard). Partially, these observations are true, but nevertheless, scientists have come to the conclusion that emotions carry out the energy mobilization of the body. So, for example, muscles are activated with joy, small arteries expand, blood flow to the skin increases, blood circulation accelerates, which facilitates the nutrition of tissues and improves physiological processes. Joy contributes to the preservation of youth, as it creates optimal nutritional conditions for all body tissues. Sadness, on the contrary, paralyzes the action of the muscles. The movements of a sad person are usually slow and weak; the vessels shrink from sadness, the tissues bleed, chills appear, heaviness in the chest due to lack of air. Sorrows and sadness age because they are accompanied by changes in nails, teeth, hair, etc. Thus, if a person wants to stay young longer, then he should not get out of balance over trifles, but more often rejoice, strive to keep a good mood in himself and around him .

Positive emotions (joy, happiness, pleasure) arise in a person when his expectations coincide with the obtained useful result of any accomplished act or exceed it. On the contrary, discrepancies with the expected result or its lack lead to negative emotions (grief, sadness, discontent). Negative emotions can arise when vital needs and the possibilities of their satisfaction do not agree with each other, that is, a person has a goal, but does not know how to achieve it. This is due to his lack of information or an excess of relevant information on his problem and the inability of this person to make the only correct decision, analyzing possible options. Therefore, awareness, knowledge, experience, education of the individual in some cases remove negative emotions.

The psychologist and psychotherapist Yu. M. Orlov made an attempt to explain the nature of such negative human emotions as resentment, guilt, shame, envy, vanity, and gloating.

A feeling of resentment arises in a person only in communication with people who mean something to him, and from whom he expects a special attitude towards himself. In the case when the expected attitude diverges from the real one, resentment arises. Resentment is a selfish feeling, since an offended person programs the behavior of loved ones, depriving them of their independence. Often, as a rule, weak people (children, old people) are offended, exploiting the love of other people for them. By their behavior, they form a sense of guilt in the offender. Since resentment is a painful feeling, it is often hidden by a person and replaced by other emotions (feeling of revenge, mental aggression). Mental aggression is dangerous because it includes the mechanisms of a fight, but does not use them, as a result of which mental disorders can occur. The best way to get rid of resentment is creativity, self-esteem, significance, fortitude.

Guilt is the opposite of resentment. She has no characteristic external signs, gestures, expression. Guilt is experienced through thinking. It is experienced more than resentment. Resentment can be dealt with by forgiving the offender, that is, changing your expectations from him. Guilt can only be dealt with by changing the other's expectations, and that's harder. The feeling of guilt cannot be experienced by a person for too long, but it can be weakened by a feeling of anger or aggression, which draw off the energy of guilt, that is, a person can turn from a guilty person into an offender. But this is the heaviest reckoning for him.

If a person does not meet the expectations of society, then a feeling of shame arises. Parents, educators, books, ideology form a person's idea of what he should be. At the same time, society chooses its own security as the criteria for such representations. In this regard, even culture can be seen as a mechanism for protecting the weakest members of society and its integrity. Culture is designed to limit instincts (primarily aggressive, sexual), to develop rules of conduct. For violation of these rules, a person experiences psychological punishment (shame, guilt). There is a concept: social shame (when people are ashamed of the assessment or opinion of a particular group of people); attributive shame (the subject of shame are individual signs: physical disabilities, lack of things valued in the group); inferiority complex (when people are ashamed of all the signs that they attribute to themselves). Shame is an important emotion that contributes to the adaptation of a person to life in society. Shame contributes to the deepening of self-awareness, the formation of self-esteem, assessment of the consequences of one's actions, sensitivity to the assessments of others. In adulthood, shame must be able not only to experience, but also to analyze.

The main component of such emotions as envy, vanity, gloating, is a comparison in approximately the following form: 1) envy: “he is the same as me, but he is better”; 2) vanity: “he is the same as me, but mine is better”; 3) gloating: "he is the same as me, but he is worse." The desire of a person to compare himself with others is constantly supported by the spirit of competition. But under these conditions, success and failure are equally dangerous for a person. Failure can turn into ridicule, harassment, "leaving the arena", and success causes envy and hostility on the part of other people, and they unite against the lucky one. The rejection of competition in a civilized life is also unacceptable, as it often contributes to the formation of a sense of insecurity and even inferiority. So the “golden mean” that saves a person from envy of other people is his ability to evaluate himself, set goals that are realistically achievable for him and achieve their implementation without prejudice to other people.

The creation of an optimal emotional state is facilitated by:
1) a correct assessment of the significance of the event that causes emotions;
2) sufficient awareness of this event (problem);
3) advance preparation of retreat, reserve strategies.

The fulfillment of these conditions means the following: a decrease in the significance of the event in the event of a defeat allows you to retreat to previously prepared positions and prepare for the next attempt (assault) without significant loss to health. It is not for nothing that an ancient Eastern prayer says: “Lord, give me the courage to cope with what I can do! Give me the strength to accept what I can't do! Give me the wisdom to distinguish one from the other!”

When a person is very excited, then he should not be calmed down. It won't give any results. To help relieve emotional stress, you need to give him the opportunity to speak out to the end, and listen to him without interrupting. Sometimes the need for emotional release comes down to the fact that a person begins to rush from side to side, break dishes, tear something, scream. After emotional discharge, the excitement decreases, and at this time it can be calmed down, clarified, directed. Physical activity (running, housework, gardening, etc.) contributes to the normalization of the state after emotional arousal.

Muscle relaxation, deep breathing, quick switching of consciousness to some activity (for example, counting to 100 and back), memories of pleasant things, etc. contribute to an emergency decrease in the level of emotional arousal. Methods of autogenic training (relaxation) can bring a person into a calm state in 5-10 minutes (see Ch. 12). The activation of a sense of humor, the ability to smile (joke) in a difficult, tense situation contributes to the removal of mental stress. Laughter causes muscle relaxation, normalizes the heartbeat, that is, it has a great functional significance.

Not everyone can be in complete control of their own emotions. It is not always easy to respond correctly to the emotional attacks of others, sometimes feelings overwhelm with such force that there is no way to stop them. And then the reaction comes out either too intense and inadequate, or even something that should not be included. Can you learn to manage your own emotional state? How to take control of the mood when it is so necessary?

Here are 7 ways to tame the senses that will help you switch the inner lever to the right wave. In other words, we will teach you how to manage your emotions.

1. Keep a calm face

Surely you have noticed how difficult it is for young children to control their own facial expressions? They grimace a lot and move their eyebrows, it’s hard for them to contain surprise or joy, that’s why they lose their temper so quickly if something doesn’t suit them or offends them. Children do not know how to control the face! Relax facial expressions, remove unnecessary folds, offended lips or eyebrows drawn together by a house. You will be surprised how quickly it will even out the internal state, restore self-control and determination to act.

2. Relax your muscles

Do you know why in the army soldiers are trained to be collected and stand to attention? Because the habit of keeping the body in a loose state, when the arms and legs live some kind of separate life, makes it difficult to control oneself, makes a person weak and dependent. Assess yourself from the outside, is there any tightness in your body? Leg twitching, finger tapping, stooping, lip biting, you are a person who is not used to controlling his body. Remove the clamps, turn on the music, dance, relax, learn to track all body movements. This will make you the master of the situation.

3. Learn to control your thoughts

Thoughts are directly connected to the emotions we experience. We think about the bright and good - we launch positive states in ourselves, pay attention to troubles - we automatically go into the negative. Wisdom is to remove the role of the victim from life, to learn to turn unforeseen problems into doable tasks, including active and creative installations in your mind. Work with your inner beliefs and your emotional response will change too!

4. Master the practice of breath control

If emotions are already overwhelmed, and it is useless to change the vision of the situation, it is better to switch to the rhythm of breathing and try to correct it. You should try to replace short and shallow breaths of air with slow and conscious inhalations-exhalations. To complete the effect, you can familiarize yourself with yoga practices for adjusting breathing, which will also help restore the energy of the body. Their whole essence comes down to sharp exhalations of air from the chest.

5. Use the "key of emotions"

If indignation or anger has just begun to grow inside you, it is easy to remove them by choosing the right emotional keys - by changing the body pattern and face mask. How it works? Imagine that you are an actor on stage who has been asked to act out emotions of joy, surprise, or indifference. What will you do? That's right, play. Clap your hands, smile, or exuberantly express delight. In real life, the same laws work: to soften the pressure of one emotion, switch the body to another. Relax, exhale, change your tone of voice, change your verbal formulations, remove the formidable expression on your face - and the internal state will also begin to level out. This is the key!

6. Get to Know the Technique of Presence

Another way to reduce body twitches and get out of a state of stress is to train mindful presence. This requires constant practice and the desire to analyze sensations, words and deeds. Imagine that you are your own psychologist, who closely monitors what his patient does, feels and thinks. Try to keep track of what your attention is scattered on during the day, what hurts or pleases you, what causes this or that emotional reaction? Once you learn to identify the root causes of emotions, look at yourself from the outside, controlling your own involvement in the process, you will be able to manage yourself.

7. Try to Find Internal Benefits

Often emotions that arise unexpectedly and seem beyond the control of the brain, we choose quite consciously, guided by some of our internal motives. For example, being offended by someone, we want to manipulate the person, demanding pleasant compensation. We need to try to understand the root causes of emotions, why did we choose this particular feeling, how is it beneficial for us at this moment? Be honest with yourself, because even hysteria or anger have very specific motives. Only by realizing them, you can change everything.

Remember, managing emotions is not difficult if you do not let everything take its course and track feelings as they arise. The main thing is a sincere desire to take control of the mood. Just set yourself a task, and you will be surprised how quickly the body will understand who is the boss in his house.

Almost every person on Earth dreams of learning how to influence the emotions of other people and find a variety of approaches to communication. However, before you can achieve this, you need to learn how to manage your own emotions, since it is this skill that will allow you to influence other people. Know yourself first and only then begin to study other people.

A person experiences emotions every second of his existence, so the one who knows how to manage them achieves a lot. They can be conditionally divided into three types: beneficial, neutral, destructive.

We will consider beneficial and neutral emotions in later lessons, but in this one we will focus entirely on destructive ones, because it is they that need to be learned to manage in the first place.

Why are destructive emotions so defined? Here is just a short list of how negative emotions can affect your life:

They undermine your health: heart disease, diabetes, stomach ulcers, and even tooth decay. As technology advances, scientists and physicians add to this list. There is a possibility that negative emotions become one of the causes of the overwhelming number of diseases, or at least prevent a speedy recovery.
They undermine your psychological health: depression, chronic stress, self-doubt.
They affect your communication with other people: those around you, loved ones and employees suffer from negative behavior. And, ironically, it is on loved ones that we break down most often.
They prevent success: destructive emotions completely atrophy our ability to think. And if anger can pass within a few hours, then anxiety and depression prevent clear thinking for weeks and months.
They narrow the focus: in a depressed or affective state, a person is unable to see the big picture and cannot make the right decisions, as he is too limited in the number of options.

There is a popular point of view: negative emotions should not be suppressed. This is a very controversial question and a full answer to it has not yet been found. Someone says that holding back such emotions leads to the fact that they penetrate into the subconscious and affect the body in a sad way. Other people claim that the inability to restrain them loosens the nervous system. If we imagine our emotions in the form of a pendulum, then in this way we swing it more strongly.

In this regard, in our course we will approach this issue with extreme caution and for the most part we will talk about how to prevent the onset of destructive emotion. This approach is much more effective and will allow you to prevent negative states from entering your life.

Before getting acquainted with the most destructive emotions, it is impossible to ignore the so-called reactionary thoughts.

reactionary thoughts

Most of the emotions we experience are the result of some kind of stimulus. It can be a certain person, a situation, an image, the behavior of other people, their own psychological state. All this can be an irritant for you, that is, something that invades your personal comfort and makes you feel uncomfortable. To get rid of this state, we react (usually in a negative way) to it in the hope that it will disappear. However, this strategy almost never works.

The fact is that any irritation swings the pendulum of your emotions and the emotions of another person. Your annoyed response leads to annoyance of the interlocutor, which in turn causes him to “up the stakes”. In this situation, someone must show wisdom and extinguish passions, otherwise everything will get out of control.

By the way, we will return to the image of the pendulum more than once in our lessons, because this is an excellent metaphor for indicating that emotions have the peculiarity of increasing their intensity.

When we experience a stimulus, reactionary thoughts run through our heads, whether we are aware of them or not. It is these thoughts that prompt us to escalate the conflict and lose our temper. To train yourself not to react instinctively, learn one simple rule: there is a small gap between the action of the stimulus and the reaction to it, during which you can tune in to the correct perception of the situation. Practice this exercise every day. Whenever you feel hooked on a word or situation, remember that you can choose how to respond to it. It requires discipline, self-control and awareness. If you train yourself not to give in to reactionary thoughts (usually generalizations or feelings of resentment), you will notice what advantages this brings.

Most Destructive Emotions

There are emotions that cause irreparable harm to the health and reputation of a person, they can destroy everything that he has built over the years and make his life a living hell.

We will immediately agree with you that sometimes a character trait can be an emotion, so we will also consider these cases. For example, conflict is a character trait, but it is also a special emotional state in which a person experiences a craving for receiving emotions of high intensity. It is an addiction to the collision of two emotional worlds.

Or, for example, the desire to criticize others. This is also a character trait, but from a purely emotional point of view, this is the desire to raise one's self-esteem by pointing out the mistakes of others, which indicates the need to change the negative valence of one's emotions to a positive one. Therefore, if you wish, call this list "The Most Destructive Emotions, Feelings and Conditions."

Anger and rage

Anger is a negatively colored affect directed against experienced injustice and accompanied by a desire to eliminate it.

Rage is an extreme form of anger in which a person's adrenaline levels rise, accompanied by a desire to inflict physical pain on the offender.

Despite the fact that anger and rage have differences in intensity and duration of manifestation, we will consider these emotions as one. The complete chain looks like this:

Prolonged, aching irritation - anger - anger - rage.

Why is there no hatred in this chain, which contributes to the appearance of rage? The fact is that it is already included in anger and rage, along with antipathy, disgust, a sense of injustice, so we use it in combination.

A person cannot instantly experience anger or rage, he must bring himself to this. First, irritants of varying intensity appear and the person becomes irritated and nervous. After a while, anger builds up. A prolonged state of anger causes anger, which in turn can result in the manifestation of rage.

If we talk about evolutionary theory, the source of anger is a fight-or-flight response, so the trigger of anger is a sense of danger, even if imaginary. An angry person may consider dangerous not only a physical threat, but even a blow to self-esteem or self-esteem.

Anger and rage are the worst things to control. It is also one of the most seductive emotions: a person engages in justifying internal dialogue and fills his mind with convincing arguments to vent his anger. There is a point of view that anger does not need to be contained, because it cannot be controlled. The opposite view says that anger can be completely prevented. How to do it?

One of the most powerful ways to do this is to destroy the very beliefs that feed it. The longer we think about what angered us, the more “good reasons” we can come up with. Reflections in this case (no matter how over-emotional they may be) only add fuel to the fire. To extinguish the flame of anger, you should once again describe the situation to yourself from a positive point of view.

The next way to curb anger is to seize those destructive thoughts and doubt their correctness, since it is the initial assessment of the situation that supports the first outburst of anger. This reaction can be stopped if reassuring information is received before the person begins to act out of anger.

Some psychologists advise to blow off steam and not hold back anger, experiencing the so-called catharsis. However, practice shows that such a strategy does not lead to anything good and anger flares up again and again with enviable regularity, causing irreparable harm to a person’s health and reputation.

To cool passions in the physiological sense, the release of adrenaline is waited out in an environment where, most likely, there will be no additional mechanisms for inciting anger. Walking or entertainment can help with this, if possible. This method will stop the growth of hostility, since it is purely physically impossible to get angry and angry when you are having a good time. The trick is to cool down the anger to the point where the person is capable have fun.

A very effective way to get rid of anger is to exercise. After a strong physical stress, the body returns to the level of low activation. Different ones give an excellent effect: meditation, muscle relaxation, deep breathing. They also change the physiology of the body, putting it into a state of reduced arousal.

At the same time, it is important to be conscious, to notice the growing irritation and destructive thoughts in time. Write them down on a piece of paper and analyze. One of two things is possible: either you find a positive solution, or at least stop scrolling the same thoughts in a circle. Evaluate your thoughts from a position of logic and common sense.

Remember that no method will work if you cannot interrupt the flow of annoying thoughts. Literally tell yourself not to think about it and switch your attention. It is you who directs your attention, which is a sign of a conscious person who is able to control his psyche.

Anxiety

Anxiety is of two types:

Inflating their molehills. A person clings to one thought and develops it to a universal scale.
Repeating the same idea over and over. In this case, the person takes no action to solve the problem and instead repeats the thought over and over again.

There is no problem if you carefully think about the problem from all sides, generate several solutions, and then choose the best one. From an emotional point of view, this is called preoccupation. However, when you catch yourself returning to a thought over and over again, it doesn't get you any closer to solving the problem. You become anxious and do nothing to get out of this state and remove anxiety.

The nature of anxiety is amazing: it seems to appear out of nowhere, creates a constant noise in the head, is uncontrollable and torments a person for a long time. Such chronic anxiety cannot last forever, so it mutates and takes on other forms - attacks of fear, stress, neurosis, and panic attacks. There are so many obsessive thoughts in the head that it leads to insomnia.

Worry, by its very nature, directs a person's thoughts into the past (mistakes and failures) and the future (uncertainty and catastrophic pictures). At the same time, a person shows creativity only to create terrifying pictures, and not to search for solutions to possible problems.

The best way to deal with anxiety is to stay in the present moment. Returning to the past is constructive, finding out the causes of mistakes and realizing how to avoid them in the future. It is worth thinking about the future only at the moments when you consciously set aside time for this: clarify goals and priorities, outline a plan and procedure for action. You only need to live one day in the most efficient way and not think about anything else.

By practicing meditation and becoming more aware, you will learn to catch the first signs of intrusive thoughts and eradicate them. You will also be able to notice which images, objects, and sensations trigger the anxiety mechanism. The sooner you notice anxiety, the easier it will be for you to stop it. It is necessary to fight back thoughts decisively, and not sluggishly, as most people do.

Ask yourself a few questions:

What is the probability that the event that scares you will actually happen?
Is there only one scenario?
Is there an alternative?
Is it possible to take constructive steps?
Is there any point in chewing the same thoughts over and over again?

These are the right questions that will allow you to reflect on what is happening in the moment and bring conscious attention to your thoughts.

Relax as much as possible and often. It is impossible to worry and relax at the same time, either one or the other wins. Study and after a while you will be surprised to notice that for several days you have not felt disturbing thoughts.

The great psychologist Dale Carnegie in his book "" provides many techniques that allow you to cope with this unpleasant habit. We bring you the top ten and recommend reading this book in its entirety:

Sometimes anxiety is not born out of the blue, but has a logical basis. If something bad happened (or could happen) to you, use the three-step structure:

Ask yourself, "What is the worst thing that could happen to me?"
Come to terms with the worst.
Calmly think about how you can improve the situation. In this case, it cannot be worse, which means that psychologically you get the opportunity to get more than you originally expected.

Remember that people who can't handle anxiety die young. Anxiety causes a severe blow to the body and can lead to psychosomatic illnesses.
Practice occupational therapy. The most dangerous time for a person is the hours after work, when, it would seem, is the time to relax and start enjoying life. Load yourself with activities, find a hobby, clean the house, fix the shed.
Remember the Law of Large Numbers. What is the probability that the event you are worried about will happen? According to the Law of Large Numbers, this probability is negligible.
Show interest in other people. When a person is sincerely interested in others, he ceases to concentrate on his thoughts. Try to do something selfless every day.
Don't expect gratitude. Do what you must and what your heart tells you to do, and do not expect your efforts to be rewarded. This will save you from a lot of unpleasant emotions and complaining about other people.
If you get a lemon, make lemonade out of it. Carnegie quotes William Bulito: “The most important thing in life is not to make the most of your successes. Every fool is capable of it. What really matters is the ability to take advantage of losses. It takes a mind; that is the difference between a smart man and a fool.”
Don't let trifles overwhelm you. Many people go through great hardships with their heads held high, and then drive themselves to madness by lamenting over trifles.
Rest during the day. Sleep if possible. If not, just sit or lie down with your eyes closed. Fatigue gradually and imperceptibly accumulates throughout the day and if it is not removed, it can lead to a nervous breakdown.
Don't cut sawdust. The past is in the past and there is nothing you can do about it. You can fix the situation in the present or the future, but there is no point in worrying about what has already happened.

Feelings of resentment and self-pity

These two emotions lead to, which leads to many devastating consequences. A person stops developing, because other people are to blame for his troubles and feels worthless, pitying himself.

Resentment is an indicator that a person has too many pain points that other people put pressure on. The difficulty is that recognizing this problem can be quite difficult, especially if touchiness has passed into a chronic stage.

Feelings of resentment arise:

when a person we know behaved completely differently than we expected. Often this is an unintentional action or behavior that we think is intentional;
when a person we know deliberately insulted us by abuse or humiliation (usually in public);
when we are insulted by a stranger

Howbeit, we only get offended when we think we've been offended. In other words, everything depends entirely on our perception. There are people who are not offended when they are even insulted in public. What are the benefits of such a mindset?

They don't let their emotions get out of hand and lose face.
The offender is so surprised that there was no response to his insult that he is in frustration and confusion.
The focus of the audience's attention instantly shifts from him to the person who tried to offend him.
The audience, instead of gloating or pitying the "offended", finally takes his side, because all people subconsciously respect those who do not lose face in a stressful situation.

In a word, when you do not react to words that were thrown in order to offend, you get a huge advantage. This causes respect not only among the audience, but even from the side of the offender. This approach is proactive, keeps you healthy, and puts you in control of your emotions.

We considered the situation of insult in public, then what to do in the case when a loved one behaved differently than we expected? The following thoughts will help you:

“Perhaps he did not want to act like this or did not suspect that he could hurt me with his actions or words.”
“He understands that he let me down, but a sense of pride does not allow him to admit his mistake. I'll be wiser and let him save face. In time, he will apologize.
“I expect too much from him. If he did so, then I did not explain to him correctly enough that my feelings could be hurt by such behavior.

It is also worth separating a specific situation with resentment and chronic resentment. In the second case, everything is much more complicated, but with proper work on yourself, you can get rid of it.

The first step in overcoming resentment is recognizing the problem. Indeed, if you understand that your resentment hurts only you in the first place, this will be a good starting point in solving the problem.

The second step is to think about why the person wants to offend you. Note, I didn’t offend, but I wanted to offend. This key difference in thinking allows you to move beyond your inner feelings and direct your perceptions to reflect on the other person's motives.

Remember that you can only be offended when you yourself think that you have been offended. It does not mean being indifferent to a person or situation. This means analyzing the situation with a cool head and finding out why the person behaved the way they did. And if you come to the conclusion that you no longer want the presence of a person in your life, this is your right. But until then, try to find out what exactly influenced his behavior and words. Curiosity in this situation is the strongest way to distract yourself.

Painful timidity

Many people love timid people, seeing them as modest, reserved, and even-tempered. In literature, we can also find laudatory odes dedicated to such personalities. But is it really that simple?

Shyness (timidity, shyness) is a state of mind, the main features of which are timidity, indecision, stiffness, tension and awkwardness in society due to lack of social skills or self-doubt. In this regard, we can conclude that such people are quite comfortable for any company, because all other people look confident in their background. Therefore, they are loved: they give a sense of significance to everyone around.

How can shyness be eradicated? The answer most likely lies in self-confidence. If you are confident in your abilities, then your movements are precise, your words are clear, and your thoughts are clear. There is a so-called "confidence/competence loop". You become competent in some kind of activity, you notice that you can cope with the task, and thanks to this, you increase your self-confidence. And as your self-confidence increases, you increase your competence.

One of the satellites of timidity is the fear of the near future. Therefore, the best way to overcome shyness is to get out of your comfort zone. If you do what you are afraid of several dozen times a day, then after just a week (or even almost immediately) you begin to feel self-confidence and an incredible surge of strength. Fear fades in the light of knowledge. It turns out that no one ate you when you expressed an unpopular opinion and you are still alive asking for help.

Inactivity turns into activity. You probably know that inertia also works in psychology, so as soon as you start to overcome the psychological and physical threshold, your fear will begin to go away. The chain "thought - intention - planning - action" after some time becomes almost automatic and you do not even think about fear or possible defeat. Since failure and defeat are sure to await you, you need to accustom yourself to this. Think in advance how you will behave in case of failure, so as not to remain in a state of discouragement. After some time, you will act impromptu, but in the early stages it is better to prepare yourself psychologically.

Pride / pride

We combined these two opposite emotions for one reason: in most cases, people who experience pride believe that it is pride. Pride is crooked pride.

Why does the person experience this emotion? It is about reluctance to infringe on one's own ego. A proud person will not apologize, even if he subconsciously understands that he is guilty.

While pride is a manifestation of the inner dignity of a person and the ability to protect what is dear to him, pride is a manifestation of disrespect for others, unfair exaltation of oneself, selfishness. A person full of pride will simultaneously experience the following emotions and feelings: resentment, anger, disrespect, sarcasm, arrogance and rejection. All this is accompanied by inflated self-esteem and unwillingness to admit their own mistakes.

Pride is formed under the influence of wrong education. Parents bring up the child in such a way that they praise him, despite the fact that he did nothing good. When a child grows up, he enters society and begins to ascribe to himself all the merits to which he has nothing to do. If he becomes a leader, he criticizes his team for failures and takes successes as his own.

Pride breeds:

Greed
Vanity
Appropriation of someone else's
Touchiness
Egocentrism
Unwillingness to develop (after all, you are already the best)

How to get rid of pride? The difficulty is that its owner will not admit to the last that there is a problem. In this regard, it is easier to recognize in oneself the presence of timidity, irritability, anxiety and other traits that prevent a person from living. While a person full of pride will deny the existence of this quality.

Recognize that sometimes this is true for you too. Recognize your strengths and weaknesses, appreciate the former and get rid of the latter. Respect yourself and other people, celebrate their successes and learn to praise. Dare to be grateful.

The best way to get rid of pride is to develop assertiveness, empathy, and listening skills. We will cover all three of these skills in the next lesson.

Envy

Envy arises in relation to a person who possesses something that the envious person wants to possess, but does not possess. The main difficulty in getting rid of envy is that the envious person finds excuses for himself when he experiences this feeling. He is absolutely sure that the object of his envy has achieved fame, success or material wealth dishonestly or simply did not deserve it.

Perhaps it does not matter in what way a person has achieved some good, since the envious person does not need a reason. He will treat equally badly both the one who received the benefit dishonestly and the one who actually deserved it. Envy is an indicator of the meanness of a person, it corrodes his body and poisons his soul.

When a person experiences envy, he does not think about how to achieve the same success, because at its core, his thinking is destructive and passive. This desire is not to set a goal and achieve it, but simply to take away the good from another person. Perhaps it is this quality that is the hardest to get rid of, because a person experiencing this feeling chokes on anger and hatred. He spends colossal energy on constantly tracking other people's successes and successes.

What about white envy? From a purely psychological point of view, "white envy" does not exist. Rather, it is simply the ability to rejoice in other people's successes and the desire to achieve such heights, which is the behavior of an adequate person. It is the admiration of other people's achievements and become better.

In order to overcome envy, or at least begin to fight it, you first need to realize that there is a problem. Then answer a few questions:

“What difference does it make what and how this person achieved, if I still need to work and study in order to achieve my goals?”
“Does this person’s success affect my future success in a negative way?”
“Yes, this man is lucky. Many people in the world are lucky, this is normal. And it is lucky for those who do not bring up a feeling of envy in their souls. Maybe I should be happy for him?
“Do I want my envy to spoil my appearance and lead to stomach ulcers?”
“Are not great successes achieved by people who sincerely rejoice in the success of others and wish everyone well? Isn't there a large number who loved people and only thanks to this they reached such heights?

Conflict and criticism

It's amazing what irrational creatures people are. We see from our personal experience that the desire to constantly enter into conflicts and criticize others does not bring any advantages, and yet we behave this way again and again.

Conflict is destructive, because the person entering into them consciously and subconsciously considers himself better than others. Will he begin to argue and conflict with those whose opinion he considers at least equal to his opinion? This behavior in the head of this person is justified by the fact that he does not want to be hypocritical, please and utter sugary words. He believes that telling the truth (his truth) is a much more honest behavior than wagging or remaining silent.

Let's look at the problem from the angle of self-development. Is telling the truth and not choosing words a sign of a developed and intelligent person? Does it take a lot of intelligence to say what you think on any occasion? Of course, hypocrisy and flattering is also bad, but this is the other extreme.

Almost any extreme in emotions is fatal. When you lie and flatter, they do not like you, when you come into conflict for any reason and do not know how to keep your mouth shut (or choose the wrong words), they will not want to do business with you either. Find a balance, because success in this world is achieved by flexible people.

Criticism doesn't work either, at least in the long run. Carnegie rightly argued that criticism hurts a person's self-esteem and puts him in the position of being on the defensive. When criticizing, we seem to pull a person out of his comfort zone and demonstrate his shortcomings.

Suppress your reactionary thoughts and desire to react to the stimulus. Again - proceed at least from the one who everyone can criticize and this does not need a lot of intelligence. Learn the art of indirect criticism and get rid of the accusatory tone. This requires self-control, wisdom, observation and. Such criticism gives a person feedback, motivates and gives new strength.

In this lesson, we learned what reactionary thoughts are and how important they are in managing emotions. We also looked at the seven most destructive emotions, figured out why they are considered as such, and found ways to deal with them.

In the next lesson, we will learn the three main skills to improve emotional intelligence - assertiveness, empathy, and listening.

Test your knowledge

If you want to test your knowledge on the topic of this lesson, you can take a short test consisting of several questions. Only 1 option can be correct for each question. After you select one of the options, the system automatically moves on to the next question. The points you receive are affected by the correctness of your answers and the time spent on passing. Please note that the questions are different each time, and the options are shuffled.

It is not easy to overcome the barriers of mutual understanding that arise in various situations of communication. To do this, you need to be well versed in the nuances of human psychology, including your own. Much easier is not to create these barriers yourself. In order not to be the main obstacle to understanding with others, a person needs to know the psychological rules of communication, and above all, learn to manage their emotions, which most often become a source of interpersonal conflicts.

The value of emotions in human life

For each person, mutual understanding with relatives, friends, colleagues, and indeed with the outside world is important. However, even the closest people have their own special beliefs, character, mood. These differences create barriers to understanding and provoke conflicts in various situations of communication.

Anger, resentment, quarreling - these negative manifestations steal positive investments from the emotional account of trust and can completely devastate it. Uncontrolled emotions can induce a person in the heat of the moment to say too much, to break firewood. Thinking about it, he realizes that he got excited in vain, first he should have weighed everything. Therefore, it is necessary to study the psychological rules of communication, and above all, learn to manage your emotions, which most often become a source of interpersonal conflicts.

Controlling emotions is not about suppressing them. The release of emotions is necessary for a person. It has been proven that the inability to express feelings negatively affects mental and physical health. Old grievances, hidden anger, unshed tears are the psychosomatic causes of many diseases. If a person seeks to maintain external calm at all costs, he runs the risk of becoming seriously ill.

Emotions are an essential mechanism for the body to instantly respond to stress. Fright gives energy to flee from danger; rage activates the muscles and turns off fear; anger sweeps away all obstacles in the way. Under the influence of emotions, there is an instant mobilization of forces, while the mind cannot influence physiological processes to such an extent.

Emotions must be intelligently managed when it is not about survival, but about everyday communication, when violent feelings or apathy interfere with mutual understanding. If from time to time you experience uncontrollable feelings: anger, irritation, resentment, guilt, anxiety, and you wanted to get rid of these destructive emotions, learn to manage your emotional state, master the practical skills of quick recovery and maintaining inner peace of mind in any life situations.

It should be noted that a common distinguishing feature of the character of centenarians is the ability to find joy in life's little things. This psychological type is characterized by benevolence and lack of hostility to the outside world. Also, a significant advantage of the ability to manage experiences is success in life. Psychologists call the ability of a person to understand and control their emotions, as well as the emotions of others, emotional intelligence (EI). A person with a high level of EI is more likely to become a big businessman, a top manager, an effective politician, since his behavior is more adaptive, which means that he more easily achieves his goals in interaction with others.

Types of emotions

Depending on the intensity, the following types of emotions are distinguished:

sthenic(from Greek - strength): excite, motivate to vigorous activity (joy, enthusiasm, passion, anger ...). Accompanied by intense action, rapid change in state and a large waste of personal resources.
asthenic(from Greek - impotence): they slow down, relax, calm or paralyze activity (pain, melancholy, sadness ...). They lead to a decrease in activity, a decrease in the waste of resources and transfer to a state of rest, balance.

Depending on the content, emotions can be of the following types:

negative(negative): occur when the condition worsens (sadness, anger ...). Motivate the system to perform actions to restore the initial state;
neutral: occur with a prolonged absence of a change in state (boredom, apathy ...);
positive(positive): arise when the state improves (joy, happiness ...). They are a supporting factor that motivates the system all the way to the goal until it is achieved.

Depending on the state change, there are the following types of emotions:

useful: lead to an improvement in the state of the system. In some situations, these can be positive emotions (for example, when you reach a goal), and in others, they can be negative (when an obstacle or danger has arisen).
harmful: lead to deterioration.

Depending on the degree of influence on activity, the following types of emotions are distinguished:

simple (basic): are based on one experience (hunger, thirst, danger…). Associated with lower needs (physiological, safety…).
complex (complex): include several emotions (possibly conflicting) when interacting with a complex system. Associated with higher needs (for communication, self-realization, respect, recognition…).

Depending on the value of the experience, emotions can be of the following types (according to B.I. Dodonova):

altruistic: arise when helping other systems, supporting them, assisting them in solving problems and achieving goals;
communicative: when communicating, interacting, exchanging resources;
gloric: when receiving fame, recognition, fame;
practical: when achieving success, solving a problem, meeting a need;
romantic: when perceiving something unknown, unusual, secret, secret;
glostic: when understanding the meaning of something, learning new things, truth, clarifying knowledge, thoughts, ideas, their systematization;
aesthetic: when perceiving something beautiful, majestic, sublime, graceful;
hedonic: with the perception of comfort, coziness, peace, reliable, stable, safe environment;
active: when collecting something, replenishing the collection, contemplating it;
mobilization: when overcoming danger, struggle, risk, passion, in extreme situations when active use of physical and intellectual abilities is required.

Is it necessary to control emotions?

You probably know that all people are divided into psychotypes. And, if, for example, extroverts instantly bring down their emotions on another person, acting absolutely thoughtlessly and often to their own detriment, then introverts remain a closed book, hiding all feelings inside. Often people are not even willing to learn how to manage anger, or pacify envy, or control anger, or extinguish anxiety, attributing everything to: “Humble up! That's my character!" Naturally, it is much easier to blame innate data for your problems and difficulties. But don't underestimate the destructive power of negative feelings.

Psychologists have long described what their danger to humans is:

From simple excitement to a state of affect is not such a long way as it might seem to you at first glance. Just think, you got angry at your husband, who once again threw his socks not in the dirty laundry basket, but under the bed. They wound themselves up and ran to sort things out. And the husband instead of the standard: “Sorry!” grumbled something like: “Take it and put it away yourself, they don’t bother me.” It’s good if everything turns into a banal quarrel, and does not end in crime. Most domestic crimes occur because of the little things.
The inability to control emotions will lead to problems with others. Even if your parents, friends, husband / wife, colleagues love you very much, sooner or later they will get tired of your imbalance, which means you risk being left alone.
If you could not immediately cope with a negative emotion and carried it with you for some time, then it left its mark. With each new negative, the trail will begin to increase, and soon you will be surrounded by negative energy, and this muck, as you know, has not brought anything good to anyone yet.
The inability to control emotions is one of the signs of a person's mental disorders. Yes, yes, as scary as it sounds. It's one thing if you flare up once, but it's quite another if any little thing provokes you to a surge. In this case, it is better to see a specialist.
Bosses are afraid of people who express their feelings too violently, not only negative, but also positive. No one will entrust the management of a company or the maintenance of an important contract to an unbalanced type, which means that you can forget about a good career.

How to control emotions?

Watch your face. Keep a calm face.

The most important “recipe” is so simple that it even annoys many: “To remove an unnecessary emotion, just remove the wrong face. Fix your eyes and lips. The main thing is to do it right away, while the emotion has not yet unfolded. If you know how to do this, the intensity of emotions will immediately subside. If this is difficult for you, train the skill of calm presence.

Developing the skill of calm presence is one of the easiest and most effective ways to manage emotions. Indians know how to control their emotions because they know how to keep a calm face. The training of recruits in the army begins with the stand "Attention!" and numerous other procedures and rituals aimed, among other things, at mastering a calm presence. Recruits are ordinary children, it is natural for them to grimace and rattle, so they tend to be afraid, offended and upset. The army teaches them to keep a calm face and through this - to manage their emotions, to be able to maintain self-control and fortitude in the most difficult and responsible situations.

Watch your breath

Changing the strength and rhythm of breathing almost instantly changes the emotional state. If you need to calm down, begin to take a calm breath in and out. When you need to raise energy, it is enough to do energizing exercises. Someone arranges a mini-workout from karate, someone uses special yoga exercises - the essence is the same everywhere: these exercises are accompanied by strong sharp exhalations.

Manage your thoughts

Our thoughts direct our attention. If we pay attention to the bright sides of life, we trigger positive states. If attention is riveted to real or possible troubles with the help of thoughts, then negative arises more often. At the same time, wisdom does not consist in not seeing the difficulties of life, but in treating them constructively: removing the position of the victim and turning problems into tasks.

If negative thoughts go around in circles, they need to be stopped. How? It is best to switch to other, more positive thoughts, and doing this out loud is best for reliability. Talk to yourself out loud - yes, it is sometimes necessary. Other options are to switch yourself to bright, positive pictures - to imagine a rainbow, beautiful flowers ... As a rule, this helps women and children well.

Manage emotions at the level of imagination

The possibilities of our imagination open up a truly large field for action in the field of emotional living. There are many techniques for working with images, such as:

Arrow Catcher Technique

Imagine that catchy remarks, phrases addressed to you are arrows that come from the interlocutor. But you have the advantage of having an invisible back that tends to delay them and let through only the data that is important for position control. However, be careful not to omit information that is critical to making a decision on the issue.

Technique "Second pair of eyes"

Using this technique, you seem to be divided in two and begin to see yourself from the side. Let the events unfolding around you take their course. At the same time, direct part of your attention to observing yourself. Try to understand your reactions, watch what causes them and how they develop. Your inner observer must be impartial and critical. Remember that you need to notice your current actions, states, and correct them in the process. For example: “Conversation with an employee is difficult. I feel like I'm starting to raise my voice, my breathing is getting faster. So, you need to slow down and bring your breathing back to normal. Okay, it's all right now."

Manage emotions on the outer level

Sometimes feelings are so strong that a person needs not only an internal resource, but also an external one to live them. In this case, you can crumple or cut sheets of paper into small pieces. If this is not possible due to certain circumstances, start drawing scribbles in a notebook, pressing hard on the rod or stylus. It can also be effective if you do something nice for yourself: drink a cup of delicious coffee / tea, look at pictures of your loved ones, turn on a pleasant melody.

As a preventive work at the level of emotion management, the following measures can be used:

exercise regularly, visit a massage therapist, do yoga, breathing practices, or any other activity that will meet your emotional needs;
before the start of each working day or the upcoming difficult conversation, draw in your head the perfect picture of this, tuning in a positive way;
create comfortable working conditions for yourself. Even if you don’t have a personal office, you can also create coziness on your desktop: put a framed photo of a dear person or beloved pet, pick up stationery that will make work more enjoyable, choose a mug from which you will be pleased to drink tea / coffee , attach a sticker with an encouraging inscription to the monitor.

So, here are the basic skills that will help you better manage your condition and emotions:

the ability to divert attention from unnecessary things and direct it to what you want at the moment. This skill will help you switch from negative to positive emotions;
training your facial expressions and facial expressions. As well as tracking the position of the body, your gestures and the sound of your voice;
correct breathing. The ability to adjust calm and even breathing. Deep breathing relieves irritation and tension throughout the body;
controlling your imagination. Learn to immerse yourself in the fantasies and images you create in the moment. This will give you the ability to easily adjust or disconnect from circumstances or situations.

You can also turn to professionals who will teach you special techniques and methods for managing emotions. This will be more effective and will give results faster than self-study. If this is not possible, read books on this topic or watch video tutorials on the Internet. Remember, the one who can control his emotions is the master of the situation.

Portal for the student. Self-training