Seven Abilities for Emotional Management

Emotional awareness, emotional acceptance, emotional attribution, boundary insensitivity, expression balance, resilience and value transformation. Many people's misunderstandings about emotion management are still about "tolerating" and "not having negative emotions." I have been a corporate EAP consultant for 6 years, and I have seen too many cases where emotions were suppressed to the point of breast nodules, or they were completely unable to contain them once they broke out. I just combined practical experience and the perspectives of different schools of psychology to explain these abilities thoroughly. There is nothing mysterious about them, and they are all things that ordinary people can use after two weeks of practice.

Last week, a girl who works in Internet operations came to see me. After being scolded by her boss, she turned around and scattered the takeout she had just picked up on the floor. She sat across from me and cried for ten minutes. The first thing she said was, "Why am I so useless? I can't even control my emotions well." In fact, she didn't even realize that when she came out of her boss's office, she was already feeling ashamed, but she suppressed it subconsciously. The takeaway was just a trigger, and the accumulated emotions came rushing up and turned directly into self-attack. This is the lack of the most basic emotional awareness - it does not mean that you need to sit down and meditate for half an hour before you are aware, but the second the emotion emerges, you can stop and figure out "Am I angry now? Wronged? Or shame? What happened just now triggered this feeling? ”That’s it. Regarding the training of this ability, different schools have quite different opinions: traditional psychoanalysis will advocate that you follow the emotions to dig into the roots of childhood, such as whether the feeling of being scolded by your parents when you failed in the exam when you were a child comes back. ； But Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) feels that there is no need to trace the root cause. As long as you can identify the emotion at the moment and give it a name, the intensity of the emotion will be reduced by half, which is more practical for ordinary people.

Oh, yes, many people’s first reaction when they notice they have negative emotions is to scold themselves, “Is this such a small thing worth getting angry about? I'm too petty." This is the second hurdle: failing to pass the emotional acceptance level. I have a visitor who is a product manager. Every time before a major version is launched, he is so anxious that he has insomnia all night long. The most common thing he says is, "Why should I be afraid of such a small thing? My psychological quality is too poor." The more he scolds himself, the more anxious he becomes, and eventually he simply starts to avoid going to work. In fact, emotional acceptance never means letting you lie down and vent as you please, nor does it mean forcing yourself to "think more freely." This is what the "non-judgmental attitude" mentioned in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) means: emotions themselves are just like eating and sleeping. They are normal physiological reactions, and there is no right or wrong. To use an inappropriate analogy, your cat knocked over a cup out of curiosity. If you chase it and hit it, it will only make it more panicked next time. You take it aside to clean up the mess, but nothing happens. The mood is like that of that curious cat. The more you treat it as an enemy, the more it will fight against you.

There are also many people who are suffering from internal emotional distress that is not their own fault at all, but they are taking all the problems of others on themselves. A while ago, a girl who worked in HR came to me and said that she was so angry at her colleagues that she had a stomachache every day: her colleagues gave her a job out of hand, and she was too embarrassed to refuse. She worked overtime until midnight and cried because of her grievances. ； Her friend complained to her about her ex-boyfriend, and she listened to it all night long. She was so angry that she couldn't even eat. This means that the boundary is too "sharp", and other people's emotions and responsibilities will pierce you as soon as they touch you. Oh, yes, I want to clarify a misunderstanding here. It does not mean that you should be an indifferent person. Adler's "separation of subjects" and what everyone calls "insensitivity" are essentially the same thing: whoever bears the consequences is his business. It is his responsibility to fail to meet the KPI in the end when a colleague quits his job. It is his choice whether his friend is in a relationship or not. You don't need to get angry about other people's choices. Once the boundaries are clear, emotional internal friction can be reduced by at least 80%.

Many people say, "I've endured so much, but I'm still unhappy." It's most likely that they lack the balance to express themselves. I have seen too many couples quarreling. They either suppressed the cold war for half a month, or started saying "you never care about me" or "you are always like this" when they opened their mouths. They went over old scores and added personal attacks. In the end, it was just a small matter of forgetting to pick up someone, but it turned out to be a divorce. Expressing emotions is never a matter of holding it back until you are internally injured or venting it hysterically. You have to find a balance in the middle. For example, if your husband forgets to pick you up while playing games, don't start by scolding him, "You don't have me in your heart at all." Just say, "I stood in the cold wind for 20 minutes, and my hands and feet were numb from the cold. I feel aggrieved and a little angry when you didn't come." Talk about your feelings in a matter-of-fact way and don't say judgmental words. The other party will basically not confront you. Of course, this does not mean that non-violent communication is omnipotent. Many people have to get angry when they feel they should get angry. For example, when someone robs you of your credit in the workplace, appropriate expression of anger can help you keep your boundaries. Which one to use depends on the situation. There is no standard answer.

Now that we’ve talked about what needs to be dealt with during the incident, let’s talk about what to do if the incident collapses? It’s about restoring your jumping ability. Last year, I had a visitor whose company's layoffs were optimized. She stayed at home for three months without even leaving the house. She cried whenever she mentioned looking for a job. Her family always tried to persuade her, "Cheer up, it's nothing." The more they tried to persuade her, the more she collapsed. In fact, resilience does not mean that you can be the same as a normal person the next day when something happens. That would be heartless. You can cry, you can lie down, and you can allow yourself to mourn for a while, as long as you know that this period of mourning has an end. Just like a spring, the harder you press it, the higher it bounces. But if you keep pressing it to prevent it from moving, it will break after a long time. I didn't push her to find a job at all, so I asked her to go downstairs to walk the neighbor's dog for half an hour every day, and eat a hot breakfast while she slowly regained her composure. In the fourth month, she got an offer that was 30% higher than her previous salary, which was much more effective than forcing herself to cheer up.

Oh, by the way, many people are stuck in emotions and can't get out of them. In fact, there is something wrong with attribution. For example, if you report being scolded by your boss, you will either immediately attack yourself "I am too poor and can't do anything", or you will directly blame me "The boss is targeting me, and it will be useless no matter how good I am." Both of these are extreme attribution biases. Correct emotional attribution means that you can objectively take apart events and see: Is the data I prepared wrong? Or maybe the boss was just scolded by his boss today and is already very angry? Or maybe the rhythm of my speech was wrong and he didn't understand my plan? Clearly distinguish which are your problems and which are accidental factors from the outside world, and you will naturally not fall into self-denial or blame others. Different schools of thought have different views on the training of this ability: Positive psychology advocates doing more positive attributions and not always focusing on your own mistakes. ； On the contrary, existential psychology believes that you must first accept that "some things are just bad luck, without reasons and meanings." There is no need to forcefully find positive values ​​for negative events, but it will be easier to get out of them.

The last one and the one that is most easily overlooked by everyone is the value transformation power. Many people regard negative emotions as a scourge and want to hide away. In fact, emotions are the most honest signals. I once had a client who worked as an accountant for three years. She felt chest tightness and depression when she arrived at the company every day. She took anti-anxiety drugs for more than half a year to no avail. She always felt that her ability to manage emotions was too poor. Later, she simply quit her job and followed her passion to become an illustrator. Now she is happy to stay up until midnight every day to rush to work on manuscripts, and she has stopped taking the medicine long ago. You see, if you get annoyed when you go to work, it’s most likely not that you have poor emotional management, but that this job is not suitable for you at all. ； If you feel depressed when you are with someone, it is most likely that this person is consuming you. Negative emotions are never here to harm you, they are here to deliver a letter to you. Once you catch the letter, you can transform the energy of your emotions into the motivation for change.

Oh, by the way, don’t think that you have to master all these seven abilities to be able to manage emotions. I have been doing counseling for so long, and I have seen people who are the most in tune with their emotions. Occasionally, they will drink too much, cry, or throw things to vent. In the final analysis, emotional management is not about getting full marks, it is about dealing with your own feelings for a lifetime, and doing whatever makes you feel comfortable, without being too harsh on yourself.