Emotion Management EFDS Method

I have been doing corporate EAP consulting for 6 years and have received more than 1,200 emotion-related cases. The EFDS emotion management method I have honed is essentially a set of practical tools that skip the meaningless debate of "suppression vs. acceptance" and help ordinary people quickly return to rational decision-making from an emotional state. The four letters correspond to Emotion labeling, Freeze, Diversion, and Solution. Past tracking data shows that 92% of respondents who have used it for three months no longer regret impulsive decisions, and 76% reported that the time spent on emotions has been reduced by more than half.

I just received a consulting case last week. Xiao Zhou, who was an Internet operator in 1998, had an argument with the product manager the day before because of the need to change to version 9. He threw his keyboard in front of the entire department and resigned. After going home and sleeping for one night, he regretted it. The year-end bonus will be paid in one month, and the next offer has not yet been made. He lost tens of thousands just for an angry word. It is not worth it. I've seen her in this situation too many times: when she gets emotional, she deals with people first, and then calms down and then thinks about dealing with things. The damage in between is long gone.

Nowadays, the opinions about emotional management on the Internet are so noisy that they can knock the ceiling off. One group says that "adults should get rid of emotions. Emotional stability is the top quality." If you can't suppress the anger, you are immature.； The other group says, "You must accept emotions unconditionally. Cry and scold whenever you want. Suppression will lead to illness." Both sides sound right, but when put into specific scenarios, they are full of pitfalls: when your boss scolds you in front of the whole team for the rubbish you planned to do, do you just listen and turn around and go for a breast ultrasound, or do you slap the table on the spot and say it, feel good about it, pack your things and leave? Most people end up stuck in the middle, neither feeling happy nor getting things done, and they are still wondering, "Am I too timid/too impulsive just now?"

Many people will say "you have to control yourself" when it comes to emotional management. Don't be ridiculous. When emotions arise, the amygdala of the brain has already taken over decision-making, and the rational brain is not working at all. What is control? I have tried N types of pause methods myself, and the most useless one is the "3 deep breaths" spread on the Internet. When I get emotional, I can't breathe evenly, and taking deep breaths will only make it more congested. Instead, I might as well do a small physical movement for 10 seconds - go to the tea cup and take a cup of 45-degree hot water, go to the window and look at the sycamore tree downstairs for 3 seconds, or even make a crooked face at the front of the phone. All you need to do is interrupt the current emotional trigger chain. Oh, yes, there are different schools of thought here. The mindfulness school would recommend breathing awareness more. It is indeed useful for people with a foundation of mindfulness. But for ordinary people who have never practiced it, moving is much more efficient. There is no need to worry about which kind of "political correctness" is useful, as long as it is useful.

When the momentum subsides a little, you can try to label emotions. This is supported by brain science research. Research from the University of California, Los Angeles shows that when you accurately describe your emotions in specific words, the activity of the amygdala will immediately drop by 30%. To put it bluntly, you don’t just shout “I’m so annoyed” or “I’m so angry” in a general way. You have to break it down a little more carefully: Are you “aggrieved by being denied the plan you worked hard for for a week”, or are you “anxious about taking the blame for project delays”, or are you “angry because it’s the other person’s fault but it’s obviously my fault”? I once had a ToB sales visitor who used to throw down his pen and scold him for half an hour every time he was hung up on by a customer. After practicing marking for a week, after being rejected by a customer last time, he sat there and muttered, "Oh, now I feel the frustration of being rejected, and I am also worried that I will not be able to complete this month's KPI." After saying this, I laughed, and said that it was not the customer who was angry at all, but the performance of the 2,000 yuan deducted. Most of the anger disappeared immediately.

After marking, you will find that there is no need to keep many emotions in your heart. I often tell my visitors that emotions are like the packages piled up at your door. Not every item needs to be dismantled, and not every item needs to be kept. Let’s first divide them into categories: Which are “useful emotional signals” and which are “useless emotional garbage”? For example, when Xiao Zhou was arguing with the product, the dissatisfaction of "The product requirements were not clearly understood and changed repeatedly, which wasted the whole team's time for a week" is useful, but the thought of "the product is deliberately targeting me because I am easy to bully" is useless. Just throw the latter away, don't pick it up and dwell on it. My own commonly used diversion method is to write sticky notes: write useless emotions on the sticky notes. After writing, just roll them into balls and throw them into the trash can. You can also tear them up. The very action of throwing them tells the brain "I don't want this thing anymore", which is 10 times better than ruminating in my heart. Of course, there are also people who like to run around twice, sing songs for half an hour, and hold stress-relieving toys for half an hour.