Emotion management skills

The best emotion management is never "tolerance" or "elimination", but to establish a three-layer response mechanism of "emotion recognition-scene diversion-action implementation". You don't need to force yourself to be an "emotional saint" who is always peaceful. You just need to not let your emotions lead you to do things you regret.

Previously, it was said all over the Internet that "emotional stability is the top quality for adults", which made many people feel that they were doing something wrong whenever they had a temper. In a case I received last year, there was a post-95s girl who was engaged in Internet operations, and she was deceived by this statement - the boss said in public at a meeting that her plan was illogical, and she took it for granted. Shi swallowed the excuses that came to her lips, and nodded and said "I will change" with a smile the whole time. On the way to get off work, while riding an electric scooter, my mind was filled with images of the meeting. When I was distracted, I hit a guardrail on the side of the road. I needed three stitches on my arm. When I got home, I cried with my cat in my arms for two hours, saying, "I don't even dare to get angry, for fear that others will say I am emotionally unstable."

You see, this is not emotional management at all, but emotional suppression.

Regarding how to deal with emotions, there are actually two completely different mainstream ideas in the industry: Scholars of the cognitive behavioral school (CBT) advocate adjusting cognition first. To put it bluntly, it means "thinking about the problem from a different angle." If you feel that the boss is scolding you to deny you, you should change this thought to "He is scolding the plan that was not done well, not me as a person", and the emotion will naturally go away.； However, researchers in the mindfulness school are very opposed to this "forced thought change" approach. They believe that there is no right or wrong in emotions themselves. If you deny your anger and grievance at first, you are still suppressing it. The correct approach is to "aware" first - for example, when you feel tightness in your chest and cold fingertips, stop and take three deep breaths. There is no need to judge "It is wrong for me to be angry now", just know "Oh, I am emotional now".

I also encountered pitfalls when I first became a counselor. I felt that CBT methods were quick to produce results, and I would always ask clients to "change their thinking." Until one client said to me, "If I could change my thinking, would I still come to you?" I was so angry right now, how could I have time to think about whether he was targeting the situation or not the person? ”I just realized that there is no difference between these two methods, but they are suitable for different scenarios.

Let's say that you and your partner were arguing at home, and both of you are angry. You have to do CBT for yourself and change your mind to "He didn't mean to quarrel with me, he is just under a lot of work pressure." There is a high probability that you will only feel more and more wronged as you think about it. Instead, it is better to use the mindful pause method and directly say, "I'm a little nervous right now. I'll stand on the balcony for 5 minutes and I'll talk to you when I get back." Once the anger has passed, you can say anything. But if you are robbed of credit by a colleague during a meeting at the company, and you slam the table on the spot, and you will only be rated as having a "bad temper" in the end, it is appropriate to use the method of cognitive detachment at this time. First, separate the thought of "he deliberately targeted me" from the emotion of "I want to scold him back on the spot." Write down the matter first, and talk to the leader alone after the meeting, which will make the truth clear.

Let me tell you a little story about myself. Two months ago, when I was driving to pick up my children from school, I was forcibly cut off by a car and almost hit the front of my car. I had my hands on the window lift button and was about to curse, when I suddenly touched the small smiley face sticker on the steering wheel - it was given to me during a previous visit. Mine said, "Teacher, if you are angry, touch this smiley face." I held the sticker for 3 seconds and suddenly realized: If I open the window to argue with him, in case he is also a road rage, we will be stuck in the road for half an hour, and the child should be in a hurry after school, so I can't do it. I stepped on the brake and let him pass. After that, the journey was smooth and nothing happened.

There are two quite extreme opinions on the Internet. One says, "You must stop your emotions to become mature." The other says, "Don't engage in emotional management. You can scold and laugh when you want. Suppression will make you sick." In fact, both of them are a bit off track. I have seen a financial director who has never had a bad temper, but broke down and cried in the finance department on the spot because he was 20 yuan short of an invoice for reimbursement. I have also seen a sales director who fussed every day, but was calmer than anyone else when a real problem arose. I was particularly impressed by the sales manager. The last time we discussed cooperation with Party A, the other party pushed the price below the cost line. He slapped the table on the spot and said, "We can't meet this price. If you are really not sincere, don't talk." He turned around and walked out of the conference room, smiled and said to us, "Let's go order milk tea. The fire just now was staged for them. We want them to know our bottom line. I'm not really angry."

You see, this is where emotions are really understood. Emotional management is never about putting shackles on you, preventing you from crying or laughing. It is about installing an extra switch for you: you can choose to get angry, you can choose to be patient, you can choose to turn around and forget, or you can choose to find a place to cry for half an hour, as long as this choice is made by yourself and not pushed by emotions.

I sometimes joke with visitors, saying that you should treat your emotions like your cat. Sometimes it rubs against you and acts coquettishly, and sometimes it gets angry with you. You don’t have to train it to be an always obedient cat, and you don’t have to throw it out as soon as its fur gets frayed. You will know that it has frayed now, so you can either feed it something delicious, or stay away from it first and wait for it to smooth out its fur.

There is no perfect emotion management technique. To put it bluntly, it just means that you don’t compete with yourself.