You can not hold back your emotions, get angry, scream, laugh, cry bitterly and be loudly indignant. Do you think anyone likes such sincerity? Only your enemies enjoy watching this performance. Learning to manage emotions!
Sometimes, succumbing to emotions or allowing ourselves to be led by false feelings, we commit actions that we later repent of. At the same time, we make excuses that we have lost control over ourselves, so emotions have prevailed over reason. That is, we did not control our emotions, but they controlled us.
Is it really that bad? Perhaps there is nothing good in the lack of self-control. People who do not know how to control themselves, maintain self-control and subordinate their feelings to their will, as a rule, do not achieve success either in their personal lives or in the professional sphere.
They don't think about it tomorrow, and their expenses often far exceed their income.
Unrestrained people flare up like a match during any quarrel, unable to stop in time and compromise, which earns them the reputation of a conflict person. At the same time, they also destroy their health: doctors claim that many diseases have a direct connection with such negative emotions as anger, etc. People who value their own peace and nerves prefer to avoid them.
People who are not used to limiting themselves spend too much free time in empty entertainment and useless conversations. If they make promises, they themselves are not sure whether they can fulfill them. It is not surprising that no matter what field they work in, they are rarely professionals in their field. And the reason for it all is lack of self-control.
A developed sense of self-control allows you to maintain a cool head, sober thoughts and understanding in any situation that feelings may turn out to be false and lead to a dead end.
There are also situations when we need to hide our emotions in our own interests. “Sometimes I am a fox, sometimes I am a lion,” said the French commander. “The secret... is to understand when to be one and when to be another!”
People who control themselves deserve respect and enjoy authority. On the other hand, many people think they are callous, heartless, “insensitive blockheads” and...incomprehensible. Much more understandable to us are those who from time to time “go all out,” “break down,” lose control of themselves and commit unpredictable acts! Looking at them, we also seem to ourselves not so weak. Moreover, becoming restrained and strong-willed is not so easy. So we reassure ourselves that the life of people who are guided by reason and not by feelings is joyless, and therefore unhappy.
That this is not the case is evidenced by an experiment conducted by psychologists, as a result of which they came to the conclusion: people who can overcome themselves and resist momentary temptation are more successful and happy than those who are unable to cope with emotions.
The experiment is named after Michel Walter, a psychologist from Stanford University. It is also known as the “marshmallow test” because one of its main “heroes” is an ordinary marshmallow.
The experiment, conducted in the 60s of the last century, involved 653 4-year-old children. They were taken one by one into a room where one marshmallow lay in a plate on the table. Each child was told that he could eat it now, but if he waited 15 minutes, he would get another one, and then he could eat both. Michel Walter would leave the child alone for a few minutes and then return. 70% of children ate one marshmallow before he returned, and only 30 waited and received a second one. It is curious that the same percentage was observed during a similar experiment in two other countries where it was conducted.
Michel Walter followed the fate of his students and after 15 years came to the conclusion that those who at one time did not succumb to the temptation to get “everything now”, but were able to control themselves, turned out to be more learnable and successful in their chosen areas of knowledge and interests. Thus, it was concluded that the ability to self-control significantly improves a person’s quality of life.
Isaac Pintosevich, who is called the “success coach,” argues that those who have no control over themselves and their actions should forget about efficiency forever.
How to learn to manage yourself
1. Let's remember the “marshmallow test”
30% of 4-year-old children already knew how. This character trait was inherited from them “by nature,” or this skill was instilled in them by their parents.
Someone said: “Don’t raise your children, they will still be like you. Educate yourself." Indeed, we want to see our children restrained, but we ourselves throw tantrums in front of their eyes. We tell them that they must cultivate willpower, but we ourselves show weakness. We remind them to be punctual and we are late for work every morning.
Therefore, we begin to learn to control ourselves by carefully analyzing our behavior and identifying “ weak spots- where exactly we allow ourselves to “bloom”.
2. Components of control
The aforementioned Yitzhak Pintosevich believes that in order for control to be effective, it must include 3 components:
- Be honest with yourself and have no illusions about yourself;
- You should control yourself systematically, and not occasionally;
- Control should be not only internal (when we control ourselves), but also external. For example, we promised to solve a problem within such and such a period. And, in order not to leave ourselves a loophole for retreat, we announce this among our colleagues. If we do not meet the stated time, we pay them a fine. The danger of losing a decent amount of money will serve as a good incentive not to be distracted by extraneous matters.
3. We write down the main goals facing us on a sheet of paper and put (or hang) it in a visible place
Every day we monitor how far we have managed to move towards their implementation.
4. Putting our financial affairs in order
We keep our loans under control, remember whether we have any debts that urgently need to be repaid, and balance debits with credits. Is our emotional condition depends quite a lot on the state of our finances. Therefore, the less confusion and problems there are in this area, the less reason we will have to “lose our temper.”
5. Observe our reaction to events that evoke strong emotions in us and analyze whether they are worth our worries
We imagine the worst case scenario and understand that it is not as terrible as the consequences of our inadequate and thoughtless behavior.
6. We do everything the other way around
We are angry with a colleague, and we are tempted to say “a few kind words” to him. Instead, we smile welcomingly and give a compliment. If we were offended that another employee was sent to the conference instead of us, we should not be angry, but would be happy for him and wish him a happy journey.
Since the very morning we have been overcome by laziness, so we turn on the music and get down to some business. In a word, we act contrary to what our emotions tell us.
7. A famous phrase says: we cannot change our circumstances, but we can change our attitude towards them.
We are surrounded different people, and not all of them are friendly and fair to us. We cannot be upset and indignant every time we encounter someone else's envy, anger, or rudeness. We need to come to terms with what we cannot influence.
8. The best assistant in mastering the science of self-control is meditation.
Just as physical exercise develops the body, meditation trains the mind. Through daily meditation sessions, you can learn to avoid negative emotions and not give in to passions that interfere with a sober view of circumstances and can destroy your life. With the help of meditation, a person immerses himself in a state of calm and achieves harmony with himself.
Emotions and control are an age-old topic. Anyone strong and successful man- knows how, and for this he purposefully learns to manage his emotions.
Absolutely everyone can learn to manage their emotions! But you need to try, and for this there are appropriate techniques and methods.
Negative emotions - you need to be able to eliminate them, not pushing them inside your soul, but getting them out and getting rid of them.
Positive emotions - you need to learn to form, strengthen and control them.
How to control and manage your Emotions?
A pressing and painful question for many! There are such strongly emotional people that with their emotions, like an uncontrollable weapon, they tear and destroy themselves and the people around them, especially if these emotions are absolutely negative, such as anger, malice, hatred, etc.
Any intelligence officer, diplomat, good politician (not ours :)), professional athlete, surgeon, aristocrat, or simply a worthy self-respecting person, will clearly explain to you why you need to be able to control and manage your emotions. Because the success of each of them directly depends on this. Imagine what would happen if each of them did not know how to control themselves and could not control their emotions.
- The scout would have been split on the second day, in the first unusual situation.
- An athlete who could not control his own anxiety would not be able to control his body properly and would most likely receive an injury instead of a medal.
- The surgeon would have killed the patient with his scalpel in his trembling hands.
- A politician would break down all the time and fall for every provocation, get upset, nervous, lose face, and with it the support, reputation and trust of people, voters, and the electorate.
- An aristocrat, in such cases, in the old days, lost Honor and Dignity, and with them the right to enter high society and the highest circles of the elite of society, the right to appear at balls and high-ranking receptions. And sometimes, due to unworthy behavior, an Aristocrat could lose his title, and even the right to bear a surname.
- An ordinary person loses no less than a politician, surgeon, athlete or diplomat if he does not know how to manage his emotions.
1. Joy and positive state, when negative emotions provoke him, take possession of him and destroy his good state of mind.
2. Rest and peace in the Soul, which are often much more valuable than any, even positive emotions that are uncontrollable.
3. Often loses relationships, friends, loved ones and loved ones! When, in a fit of anger or resentment, they destroy the remnants of feelings, love and trust in each other.
4. The face, dignity and reputation of an adequate respected person who is able to control himself. One who does not know how to control himself is often no better than an animal that rushes in rage at its owner, defending a bone thrown by him.
5. Power and control over yourself and your life! Because there is always a great danger of finding yourself in such external conditions that will contribute to the loss of your condition, the awakening of uncontrollable negative emotions and inappropriate, unworthy behavior, with unpredictable and sometimes terrible consequences.
We can list many more points that a person loses when he is unable to control himself. But this article is not about that, but about what you need to do to learn to control your emotions. I hope there is enough motivation, now on to the topic!
How to control your emotions and how to learn to manage emotions?
Let's consider the main methods designed to control and manage emotions. There are methods that are generally available to everyone, and there are also purely esoteric, more complex ones that need to be mastered with a mentor. But that’s not all you need to be able to do with your emotions.
In addition, if these emotions are purely negative - anger, anger, fear, envy, resentment, hatred, etc. - you need to be able to completely eradicate them in yourself, burn them out, destroy them and replace them with necessary, positive ones that give strength and dignity quality. Such as - calmness, patience, forgiveness, self-control, mercy, kindness and good nature, gratitude, acceptance, love. How to work with these emotions - read the articles dedicated to each of them.
So, how to control and manage your emotions:
1. First, you need to learn to at least stop, restrain yourself- do not shout in response to a provocation or expressed insult, but learn, before you say anything in response (yell), at least count to ten or take a deep breath 3 times. If you managed to do this, this is already a big victory! The next step is to extinguish this or that emotion, at first - at least to stop it, to block it. This allows you to take a breath and still think with your head before blurting out something without thinking.
At first, you may have to quickly get out of the situation (run out of the room or office) so as not to break down and make trouble, calm down, breathe, drink some water, think about what is the appropriate answer, then go in and say what you planned.
2. Method of switching yourself! Switch yourself to something else, it's clean psychological method and it is suitable for people with good imagination. For example, imagine that a person does not swear at you, but reads poetry to you, and thank him for every word, saying “I love you too very much.” Sometimes it can help a lot, but it doesn’t work for everyone, this method is more suitable for cheerful and creative people. It helps prevent the awakening of negative emotions in them.
3. Method of switching another or shock therapy! One friend used it. The boss started yelling at her in the elevator, she listened and listened, and when he fell silent, she asked calmly and smiling: “Evgeny Olegovich, do you want me to sing a song for you?” He was taken aback, didn’t say a word in response, didn’t come out on your floor. He didn't yell at her anymore. This is from the category of preventing negative emotions in oneself and blocking them in another. But this is still a method of control and management.
4. Self-hypnosis method! Self-hypnosis has 2 modes - ordinary and esoteric. Esoteric - this is for those who master the energy techniques of self-hypnosis and reprogramming. This method, if a negative emotion has arisen, allows you not only to extinguish it, but also to immediately rewrite it into a positive reaction through self-hypnosis - for example, burn off anger and open it, increase goodwill, or destroy fear and increase fearlessness and courage.
A simplified technique of self-hypnosis is, in fact, affirmations or mantras, that is, reciting certain programs to oneself: “I increase calmness,” “I control myself,” “I am calm, independent and invulnerable,” etc.
5. Yogic Breathing - Pranayama, in a word! Breath of fire and other types of yogic breathing, among others, are intended to learn how to manage emotions. These same techniques, with regular practice, allow you to learn to burn through negative emotions and establish inner peace. The sages say: “Cutting is the door to Paradise.” - try this, it's worth it.
6. Meditation techniques and practices! Meditation allows you to learn how to do several important things: A) Develop a state of deep peace and relaxation in order to gradually transfer it throughout your life. C) In a comfortable meditative state, learn to raise your negative emotions (through modeling a conflict situation), consider your anger, for example, see its cause and remove it altogether, that is, reprogram your usual reaction. C) Find stronger and more worthy reactions and master them through modeling the necessary situation in meditation. Moreover, this can be done many times until the reaction becomes stable and begins to automatically work out in real life.
7. Technique Identification! Dress yourself in the image of some chosen hero or heroine, completely, imagine yourself as him (the hero) and act, react in everything exactly like him. Ask yourself what a real Knight or a true Lady would do in this situation, imagine this and then play this worthy role to the end. It works, however, this technique is also more suitable for creative or spiritual people with imagination.
8. Prayer! For believers. When you feel that you are about to lose your temper and you see that you can’t restrain yourself (losing control) - close your eyes and start praying, forgive God, take away your and his (the other person’s) negativity from the Light Forces, and give you in this situation, what is most needed (strength, patience, goodwill, the ability to forgive the offender, wisdom, etc.). It works! If you can do all this without closing your eyes, pray with your eyes open. If you feel that you cannot withstand the negative pressure, get out of the situation (leave the room for 5 minutes and put yourself in order).
9. Active physical exercise! Good physical activity always helps to burn out negativity. Go to the gym to hit a punching bag, do 50 push-ups (20 for women) or do squats. Run on a treadmill for 20 minutes at an intense pace. In general, if it’s accumulated and you can’t stand it anymore, go and dump it, burn off all the negativity in training. It works! Athletes who train until exhaustion, until they sweat, are usually very calm people, without negative emotions, because all their negativity burns out during training.
Good luck to you in mastering control methods!
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Knowing how to manage one’s emotions and feelings allows a person to control one’s thinking, behavior, life and destiny, and other people, and what’s more, the whole world.
He who controls himself controls the world, said Seneca. So learn to manage your feelings and emotions in order to control yourself.
Greetings, dear visitors to the psychotherapeutic assistance site, today in the self-help section, you will learn how you can manage your emotions and feelings using a simple cognitive therapy technique
How to learn to manage your emotions
You are introduced to the cognitive technique of Socratic self-dialogue to learn to manage your emotions and feelings.
For example, you are angry at your friend for his behavior (this is the emotion of anger), and are already ready for aggressive actions, against yourself - if you are an introvert, or against others - if you are an extrovert.
How to bounce back and get rid of anger, especially if it is really unfounded, and how not to become aggressive at the same time?
To find out how to manage emotions, let's understand the cognitive model.
Its essence: “How I think is how I feel, and how I feel is how I behave (including the physiological reactions of the body).”
That is, our feelings and emotions, and with them behavioral and physiological reactions (blood pressure, rapid or slow breathing, increased sweating, lump in the throat, redness of the skin, and so on), directly depend on our thinking, on our interpretation of the traumatic , a stressful situation (in our example, the behavior of a friend).
The process diagram of a cognitive error (thinking error) is as follows:
Stressful situation – Dysfunctional automatic thought (Autothought) or idea (image) – Emotion (feelings) – Behavior (and/or physiological reactions).
In fact, in order to return to normal well-being, we can break this chain anywhere, for example, by changing the situation: if there are no thoughts about it, there will be no emotions...
But the situation cannot always be changed, especially since the unfinished situation with self-thought and unprocessed emotion remains in the head, in the depths of the psyche, and then manifests itself, for example, in relationships.
The emotion itself, or the behavior corresponding to it, is difficult to change, especially when you experience it in this moment. Therefore, you and I will discover and change dysfunctional automatic thoughts (abbreviated as autothoughts).
Let's move on to the practice of using this technique to manage emotions
So, you are angry... You need to imagine the moment when you started to get angry... what the situation was... what the behavior of your friend was... and ask yourself the question: “What was I thinking then?”Maybe I thought what a dear friend I have, how attentive he is to me?
Hardly! I guess I thought that he didn’t love or respect me if he behaved like that? (thoughts are fast, so you need to catch them intuitively)
Well, this thought fits: “He doesn’t respect me,” so I got angry and was ready to beat him up.
Ask yourself the question: “How much do I believe in this idea that my friend doesn’t respect me?” (from 0 to 100%)… let's say 90% (write it down)
How strong and intense is my emotion of anger? (from 0 to 100%)… let's say 80% (write it down).
To do this, we conduct a dialogue with ourselves: ask and answer the following questions:
1) What is the evidence to support this idea?
We write down about ten pieces of evidence (arguments).
For example: He doesn’t respect me because he didn’t lend me money.
And we prove...
2) What is the evidence that contradicts this idea?
Here we find more evidence than in the previous question.
For example: He respects me because...
3) Are there alternative explanations for this idea?
For example: It’s not that he doesn’t respect me, he just had Bad mood...there was no money...
4) What's the worst that can happen if he doesn't respect me?
For example: we will stop being friends
5) Imagine that this happened and ask yourself: “Will I be able to survive this?”
6) What's the best thing that can happen if he doesn't respect me?
For example: he will respect me.
7) What is the most realistic thing that can happen if he doesn’t respect me?
For example: we will sort things out and continue our friendship.
8) What are the consequences of my believing this idea that he doesn't respect me?
For example: I will accumulate negativity, and we will quarrel.
9) What are the consequences of changing this thought?
For example: I will stop being angry, accumulating negativity, and I will be able to solve this problem.
10) What should I do about this?
For example: change your attitude (thinking) to a certain situation….
11) What advice could I give to a loved one in the same situation?
We write down a large adaptive answer, for example: “MY MOOD DOES NOT DEPEND ON THE RESPECT OF ME BY OTHERS.” (then you can re-read this several times to consolidate the result).
How much % do I now believe in this idea that he doesn’t respect me? For example 30%. (or I don’t believe it at all).
What is the strength (intensity) of my anger? For example: I no longer have anger (or so much).
If you did everything correctly, then the belief in the auto-thought will decrease or disappear altogether, as will the strength of the emotion, and you will feel better!
In the same way, you can control other emotions and feelings, auto-thoughts and behavior, including obsessions...
As soon as you feel a change in mood or the manifestation of a negative emotion (feeling), immediately ask yourself: “What did I just think?” and find an adaptive response.
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