Experience of emotional management

The essence of emotional management is never to eliminate negative emotions, nor to force yourself to be an "adult who never loses his temper", but to establish a safe and cooperative relationship between you and your emotions-let it be your early warning officer, not your master.

In the first two years of work, my understanding of emotional management was all wrong. On the Internet, it was said that "emotional stability is the best match for adults", so I really forced myself to smile at people no matter what happened: my subordinates stabbed me, I pressed myself to work overtime, my customers deliberately made things difficult for me, and even my friends stood me up temporarily, and I smiled and said, "Nothing, nothing, you are busy." As a result, in the winter of 2021, because the takeaway was 10 minutes late, I sat in the rental house and cried for half an hour at the cold fried rice. The next day, I went to the hospital to check that I had a mild gastric ulcer. The doctor said it was a long-term emotional depression.

Later, I began to look for ways. The first thing I came into contact with was the idea of the school of cognitive behavior (CBT): the root of emotions is never the event itself, but your interpretation of the event. I kept an emotional record for two months according to the template. For example, I always felt that the leader criticized me for me. After several times, I found out that he was mean to everyone as long as he was rushing to the project progress, and he didn't specifically come at me at all. Slowly, he wouldn't have repeated internal friction because of this. However, this method has been used for half a year and I have encountered a bottleneck-when you are really overwhelmed by emotions, how can you have a list of "events, interpretations, emotions, and alternative interpretations"? Last time, Party A temporarily changed the demand for 8 times, and I was so angry that I shook my hand and forced myself to "adjust my cognition rationally". As a result, I became more and more angry and almost smashed my mouse.

Later, I followed the counselor to practice mindfulness, and the core logic was just the opposite: don't reason with emotions when you come up, first see it and accept it. It is just a signal sent by your body, and there is no difference between good and bad. The first thing I found was my "emotional reaction point": when I was angry, my neck would be as hard as a stone, when I was wronged, my chest would be stuffy, and when I was anxious, I would subconsciously pick my fingers. After that, I don't want to talk or make a decision. I first touch the corresponding part and feel the tension for 30 seconds. Even if my mind is full of thoughts about "how stupid this person is", I don't scold myself for "how can I lose my temper". I just watch the emotion float, and often the fire will disperse by itself. However, I have also seen many people use this method in a biased way. They regard "accepting emotions" as "letting themselves vent their anger" and say "I am not suppressing myself" when they are angry at colleagues and family members. This is completely putting the cart before the horse-accepting emotions does not mean accepting emotional-driven harmful behaviors, which must be made clear.

I have compiled a small table of the applicable scenes and pit avoidance points of the two mainstream ideas, which you can compare:

Seriously, I don't stick to a certain method at all now, it all depends on the situation: I usually use CBT's ideas to follow my unreasonable beliefs when I have nothing to do, for example, don't always acquiesce that "others must be friendly to me" and "things must develop as I think", and less obsession with "must" and "should" will naturally reduce half my troubles; If you really get emotional, just use mindfulness to slow down for 30 seconds. If you really can't slow down, you can find a deserted stairwell to scold, or walk around the company twice and let that energy out. It's better than holding your breath and hurting your feelings.

Last week, I took my nephew to the amusement park. He insisted on buying the Altman balloon that was taller than him. I didn't buy it, so he just sat on the ground and cried. Before, I either dragged him away to hold my breath, or I was angry with myself after I bought it. On that day, I squatted down and touched my chest a little tight (knowing that I was a little annoyed), and then told him, "I know you really want this balloon, and I would want it if I were a child, but we agreed that we can only buy one toy today. You have already bought a car, right?" He cried for two minutes and then got up and took my hand and left. I was not angry, and he didn't make trouble for long. It was impossible to have such a satisfactory result before.

In fact, I still can't control my emotions until now. Last week, in the early hours of the morning, my cat knocked over my water cup and spilled a keyboard. I still yelled at it, regretted it after yelling, and turned to open a can for it to make amends. You see, there is no perfect answer sheet for emotional management. To put it bluntly, it means slowly learning to live in peace with your various emotions. When it comes, don't rush it away in a panic, and don't be led by it. It's like not taking an umbrella in rainy days, don't stand in the rain and scold the sky, and don't walk hard. Isn't it good to find a roof to hide for a while and wait until the rain subsides?