Emotional management refers to understanding and fully accepting one’s emotions

Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric of “emotional stability is best for adults”. Real emotion management is never about suppressing or dissolving negative emotions, nor is it about forcing yourself to remain peaceful and happy forever. Its core background is precisely to first fully understand and fully accept all your emotions - whether it is jealousy, anger, grievance or unreasonable depression, first accept it without judging, and only then can you talk about subsequent guidance and adjustment.

A while ago, I met a girl who was engaged in Internet operations. The project she had been following for half a year last month was suddenly cut off. She was hiding in a fire escape and crying when she was caught by a passing leader. She was scolded on the spot, "Can you be more professional and control your emotions?" The more she thought about it when she got home, the more guilty she felt. She felt that she couldn't even manage her emotions well. She suffered from insomnia for almost a week. When she finally came for consultation, her eyes were still swollen. In fact, she is not the only one. I have met many people in the past who have ridiculous misunderstandings about emotional management. I always think that "not showing emotions" means managing them well. However, I don't know that suppressed emotions will never disappear, but will only accumulate in the body and find other outlets.

It’s quite interesting to say that the last time I attended an industry salon, consultants from different schools had a couple of arguments about this matter. The old counselors who did classic cognitive behavioral (CBT) in the early days were more inclined to "problem-solving orientation". They felt that when negative emotions appeared, they first looked for unreasonable beliefs. After adjusting the cognitive emotions, they would naturally disappear. ； But young counselors who practice Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) and mindfulness completely disagree, saying that emotional avoidance is the root of most psychological problems. If you don't even want to admit that you are angry at the moment, how can you talk about adjusting your cognition? In fact, both sides are right, but the suitable groups are different. Clinical data feedback shows that for ordinary people without professional training, the threshold of "accepting first and then adjusting" is much lower, and the side effects are smaller - after all, forcing yourself to "think more" is a kind of mental internal consumption.

I myself also stepped into the trap of "forcibly suppressing emotions" in the past two years. I was just doing independent consulting at that time, and I always wanted to set an example of "emotional stability" to my clients. Once, someone scratched my car downstairs. Not only did the person not apologize, but they blamed me for parking crookedly. I clenched my fists and silently recited "Don't be angry, be professional" eight hundred times in my mind. As a result, I turned around and drove to the studio, spilling the hot milk tea I just bought all over the leather seats. When I got home, I choked with my mother because she asked her a few more words, "Is your day going well?" It was only after I calmed down at night that I realized that what I was doing was not managing my emotions at all. It was simply suppressing the anger brought about by scraping the car. It had no place to run, so it could only act wildly on people closer to me and on trivial matters. Psychoanalysis circles always say that emotions are letters sent by the subconscious mind. If you don't accept it, it will knock on the door. If you don't open it, it will just kick the door in. This is really the truth.

Nowadays, there are two quite extreme voices on the Internet, and they are very noisy. There is a saying that "adults need to get rid of emotions." If you ask people who have been doing this all year round, you will know that either there will be a lot of breast and thyroid nodules, or they will suddenly explode one day. There was news before that a programmer who was usually considered to have a good temper smashed the shelves of the takeout station because the delivery was half an hour late. It was just that the emotions that had been suppressed for more than half a year exploded at that point. ； There is also a saying that "to accept emotions is to let go, and to get angry casually when you are unhappy." This is simply confusing "accepting emotions" and "letting emotions drive behavior" - just because you accept "I am angry now" does not mean that you have to rush up and fight with others. It is precisely when you admit "I am angry" first that you will not be led by anger to do things out of control.

The methods I teach my clients now are very simple, and there is no need to learn any complicated emotion awareness techniques. Next time you get emotional, don't scold yourself for the first time, "Why can't you handle such a small thing?" Just stop and touch the iced Coke in your hand, or feel how fast your pulse is beating. Take three seconds to say to yourself, "Oh, I'm a little angry/aggrieved/uncomfortable right now." That's enough. You don’t have to force yourself to get better immediately, and you don’t have to feel ashamed to have negative emotions. If you stay with it for two minutes, it will pass quickly.

The operations girl sent me a message two weeks ago, saying that last week she was criticized by a client for a bad plan, but she didn't take it hard. She hid in the tea room and cried for three minutes, then wiped her face and went back to make changes. On the contrary, she was much more efficient than before when she just kept calm. You see, emotions are a part of your body, no different from your hands or feet. You can't just blame your feet for being useless and cut them off just because you accidentally tripped, right? Catch it well, it is never your enemy.