Negative emotions: how to cope with them and be able to manage them, turning them into positive ones

Technique for working with emotions No. 1

When you notice a negative emotion in yourself, such as fear or aggression, imagine this emotion in the form of an image. Any image can. It all depends on your imagination. Place this image in front of you mentally and tell it the following:

I see you. I accept you. I'm giving you space.

And then ask this image:

What good are you doing for me?

Any emotion arises in us not just as an uncontrollable impulse in response to some irritant, but is called upon to protect our inner “I”, and in certain situations, our physical body. Wait for an answer: how does this or that emotion help you, what mission does it carry to protect you?

For example, the emotion of rage may respond with the following: “I protect your sense of self-worth from outside influence. I don’t want anyone to stop you from achieving your goals.” And the emotion of fear can say: “I want you to think seven times before getting involved in this story. Because I don't want you to get into trouble. Otherwise it could happen like last time..."

When you receive an answer, mentally thank your emotion for taking care of you and tell it that you no longer need its help now.

Understand where negative emotions come from

You may have always thought that all negative emotions are part of human nature. That they are the opposite of positive emotions in a natural dichotomy, a bit like good and evil or sun and rain. But that's not true.

What if no one was born with the ability to feel and express certain negative emotions? It is likely that some of the negative emotions we experience as adults were learned from childhood through a process of imitation, repetition, and reinforcement.

Because we know it, like most things, it can be handled very well. And by managing them, smooth them out, turning them into positive ones.

You must begin to believe that some negative emotions can be overcome. If, on the other hand, you continue to firmly believe that they are a necessary and inevitable part of your life, then they will definitely be and remain so. Conversely, if you understand its futility, then you will have taken an important first step to reduce its intensity and influence on your behavior.

Technique for working with emotions No. 2

When you have tracked a negative emotion in yourself, place 2 fingers of your right hand on your sternum and say out loud or silently:

Even though I feel /name of emotion/, I love and accept myself, my body and my personality, and I accept the fact that I feel /name of emotion/ and give it space.

This formula is taken from Zivorad Slavinsky's technique called PEAT. Completely completing this technique takes much more time and effort. PEAT helps to cope with even the most painful psychological traumas coming from the past. If you want to go through the entire technique, you can seek appropriate advice. But in order to quickly cope with surging emotions, this formula is quite enough.

Emotions arise for a reason, they have their own function: this is how our brain reacts to signals from the outside world. Depending on the signal (for example, danger or a sign of attention from an attractive person), the brain helps the body adapt to a specific situation - tense or relax muscles, speed up or slow down the heartbeat. All the emotions that we have preserved after millions of years of evolution are needed for something, so we should accept them and treat them carefully.

The problem is that our brain's limbic system, which produces emotions, is very ancient; it was formed in conditions far from modern civilization, and is not designed for such an amount of information, stress, social phenomena, etc. Therefore, we cannot always rely on emotions: sometimes they give us false signals and lead us astray, cause unreasonable anxiety or force us to dwell on unpleasant memories.

Most people don't even notice the lion's share of their own emotions. We often lack emotional flexibility - the ability to recognize and accept our emotions and respond to them as the situation requires. It is necessary to develop this skill - it provides great advantages in overcoming stress and building constructive relationships with people. In this review, we will look at what components emotional flexibility consists of and how to develop it.

Susan David , Ph.D., is a psychologist at Harvard Medical School, co-director of the Coaching Institute at McLean Hospital, and executive director of the consulting company EvidenceBasedPsychology. Consults senior management of the UN, Ernst&Young and other large organizations.

Dealing with Negative Emotions

Many of us would prefer to always remain in a joyful mood, but not in all cases this state contributes to survival and success. When we feel too good, we ignore threats and easily take risks. Constant euphoria and loss of critical thinking may be symptoms of a mental disorder.

But when we are pessimistic, we pay more attention to details and think through plans more carefully. In addition, emotional pain, like physical pain, serves as a signal to the body that we are doing something harmful: working in a job we don’t like or being in a destructive relationship.

Despite the fact that negative emotions themselves are quite functional, our reaction to them is not always constructive. Susan David cites two typical behavior patterns: “bottlers” and “cheaters .

Blockers restrain themselves and try to distance themselves from negative emotions. Sometimes they succeed so well that they do not notice their experiences at all or do not distinguish shades in them (this condition is called alexithymia).

Cheaters , on the contrary, stew in unpleasant experiences for a long time and do not know how to let go of the situation. Probably, each of us has a friend who makes mountains out of molehills, acutely worried about news on Facebook and other insignificant reasons. These people, unlike blockers, notice their emotions, but the habit of immediately pouring out their experiences repels others.

In the heat of emotions, it is difficult to make a reasonable decision. Ideally, there should be some “gap” between the awareness of the emotion and the external response. If you are not aware of your experiences, you will not be able to regulate them. But having realized an emotion, you should not give in to it recklessly - and, fortunately, there are techniques that allow you to analyze your emotional outbursts and manage them.

Why do emotions sometimes confuse us? Our psyche is designed to save energy for the brain. Assessing each new situation “from scratch” is too energy-consuming. Therefore, based on life experience, we form in our heads something like typical scenarios, which we apply to each new situation and look for similarities. Sometimes these scenarios help us, but often they oversimplify the picture. Destructive scenarios are often associated with unpleasant experiences that happened to a person in childhood and which the psyche now tries to avoid.

Let's take a simple fact - I'm writing a book, but I'm doing it slowly. What can this fact be turned into using emotional hype?

• – “I write too slowly” – self-criticism.
• – “I write slower than most other authors” - comparison with others.
• – “I won’t meet the deadline” – anxiety.
• – “I can’t do anything” – a feeling of an approaching catastrophe.
• – “I always do everything wrong” is a generalization tied to a feeling of shame.

Typical situations in which a person moves from simple facts to irrational and harmful evaluative statements are what David calls “hooks.” Such situations trigger an autopilot of experiences in us, and the first step to emotional flexibility is to observe yourself and figure out what unconstructive lines of behavior you usually resort to? What most often provokes you to do this?

For example: you constantly eat away work stress with chocolates from the machine. “Exacerbations” can happen after meetings at which the boss does not listen to your opinion.

The author of the book offers a program for developing emotional flexibility, consisting of four steps: become aware of your emotions, distance yourself, determine the right direction and move forward. It is better to correct habitual patterns of behavior through small steps: the cumulative effect will lead to huge changes.

Step 1. Awareness

When we are ready to recognize and accept our inner fears and experiences, it becomes easier for us to get out of their power. At the moment of awareness, from the incomprehensible irrational forces that play with us, fears turn into understandable distortions of the psyche, which obey their own logic and which can be fought.

Try to find yourself a role model in cinema and literature, because our favorite heroes are actually imperfect. The ideal is too flat and boring, no one demands it from you (and if they demand it in all seriousness, it is hardly worth dealing with people so divorced from reality).

David notes that in order to learn from your own experiences, it is important to regularly ask yourself the question: “What is the meaning of this emotion? What is she talking about? Why am I experiencing it? It is especially important to understand the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is a feeling of “a stone on the heart” and regret that you did something wrong or, conversely, did not do what was worth it. This is not the most pleasant feeling, but it is always aimed at a specific action in the past.

Shame is directed toward the person as a whole (“I am bad,” not “I did something bad”) and is much more destructive. Additionally, while guilt can help you avoid making mistakes in the future, research shows that shame doesn't actually help you improve yourself. People who experience shame simultaneously feel the need to protect themselves from it - so they more often deny their guilt and “turn the tables.”

The secret to why guilt works is that it leaves room for self-compassion.

Even if you did something bad, it does not make you a hopelessly damaged person and does not negate your good deeds. You can apologize and try to repair the damage you caused. We often think that we need to be strict with ourselves, otherwise all our vices will blossom in full bloom, but psychologists do not agree with this point of view: experiments show that people who accept their failures more calmly are ultimately easier to engage in self-development, because they have motivation doesn't drop. Self-compassion even boosts your immune system!

In addition, many unpleasant actions can be prevented if you do not follow your emotions. At the same time, it is important to remember that you cannot choose or control your desires (so you should not reproach yourself for “wrong desires”). But you can choose what to do with them. It is easier for an emotionally flexible person to resist harmful temptations because he is able to look at his emotions from the outside and set his priorities correctly.

Step 2. Distancing from emotions

The author of the book offers six key methods that will help reduce the degree of negative experiences and find a foothold within yourself.

1. Meditation Regular meditation trains non-judgmental observation of your thoughts and feelings. Start with a simple exercise: focus on your breathing for a minute, do nothing else. You will probably have different thoughts, and this is natural - do not try to completely get rid of them. If you get distracted, just notice this fact and focus on your breathing again.
2. Mindful Observation Choose an object and focus on it for one minute (it can be anything - a watch, a statue, a flower, your finger). Try to look at it as if you have never seen anything like it - very carefully and with curiosity. Note to yourself the different properties of the object: size, color, texture.
3. Process Research Select a daily routine that you usually do on autopilot (for example, brushing your teeth or getting from home to work). And for a change, focus on this process: on all the movements, sensations, on what you see. At first glance, it may seem that this has nothing to do with emotions, but this exercise, like meditation, is aimed at moving from automatic reactions and patterns to conscious behavior.
4. Emotional diary People who regularly keep diaries, describing emotionally significant events and experiences, improve their mental and physical state, including lowering blood pressure. Set a timer for 20 minutes, open a notepad or text file and start writing about your experiences. It is important to concentrate specifically on emotions and not worry about the beauty of the syllable or correct punctuation. All emotions should be equally valuable; it is important to avoid self-criticism. This exercise should be repeated regularly, and it is not necessary to save the texts: the main thing is that your emotions find a way out.
5. Accepting contradictions Emotions are often contradictory: we simultaneously love and hate the same things, phenomena and people. Contradictions make life confusing, but this is a natural part of our nature, and if we take a closer look at these internal “currents,” we can sometimes reconcile them. Exercise in your free time. Choose a topic that makes you feel conflicted and try to listen to the “warring sides”, recognizing and accepting the complexity of your views on the issue.
6. Changing Focus Sometimes you can look at your emotions from the outside if you talk or write about yourself in the third person. Imagine what your situation would look like in the eyes of another person who is different from you in character.

Step 3. Determining True Values

Susan David introduces the concept of “personal identity” - this is a person’s connection with his future “I” and life values. If a person at a crossroads establishes personal identity, this will help separate what is really important from momentary temptations. For example, experiments have shown that people who were encouraged to think about their distant future were significantly less likely to agree to commit crimes. They were more concerned about their “future self” and what their biography would look like.

The author of the book emphasizes that by the word “values” she does not mean “dull moralizing” or anything imposed by society. Values ​​are not universal: what is good for one is not necessarily suitable for another. But by determining what is important to you, you will gain inner stability.

Your true values ​​correspond to the following characteristics:

• They are chosen voluntarily and not imposed from the outside.
• Values ​​are processes, not fixed points.
• They guide you rather than limit you.
• Your values ​​help you get closer to how you want to live.
• Values ​​don't force you to compare yourself to others. They promote self-acceptance, which is critical for mental health.

Step 4: Moving Forward

Psychologists divide people into two types: some have a fixed mindset , while others have a growth mindset .

People with a fixed mindset perceive their personality as a static set of different qualities: intelligence, willpower, character traits, etc. People with a growth mindset try to change and develop their personality through learning. It's interesting, but one person can have different attitudes towards different aspects of life. For example, you boldly take on difficult engineering tasks, but are not ready to learn how to communicate.

Research shows that children who take their abilities for granted perform worse in challenging subjects than those who focus on growth. In addition, if you have a fixed mindset, any mistake you make is attacked by your “inner critic”: you begin to doubt that you are capable of anything at all. While a person with a growth mindset says to himself: “Okay, actually I’m capable, but I can’t do this yet. We need to try again."

What to do if you give up halfway through?

We often try to rely on discipline and willpower rather than on natural impulses. But the problem is that trying to force yourself to do something rarely leads to long-term success. Self-discipline works in the short term when you need to finish a project urgently, but in the long term it leads to even more procrastination. We begin to sabotage our own Spartan methods (a classic example is diet failure).

Psychologists divide human goals into so-called “want-goals” and “should-goals.” The first ones are just fun for us (eating a cake), or important from the point of view of our plans (graduate from university) and hobbies (singing karaoke). In general, this is what we choose ourselves.

“Should-goals” were chosen for us by others: parents, society, school, company management, etc. They may coincide with what we want ourselves, but more often they do not coincide. There is, however, a trap here - people tend to periodically confuse their internal motivations with what is imposed from the outside. For example, you want to eat a chocolate bar out of protest, but you yourself have forbidden yourself sweets because you want to lose weight. You formulate the task as “you can’t eat chocolate,” and not as “I want to lose 5 kg much more than eat chocolate.” The emotional difference is huge and in the second case the chances of resisting increase significantly.

The best way to make long-term changes is to consciously choose a behavior pattern that is useful for yourself and turn it into a habit (that is, into an automatic reaction to similar situations).

The basic recipe is this: when you have a lot of energy and time, connect your identity as often as possible and remind yourself that you really want these changes.

If you are in a hurry, tired, hungry or nervous, your brain resources and self-control are severely limited. In such cases, it is better to come up with “useful default solutions” for yourself. That is, to make it easier to make the right choice in a morally difficult situation than the wrong one. For example, do not forbid yourself to eat sweets, but simply not keep them at home. If you want a chocolate bar, you will have to drag yourself to the store for it, and you will also think about whether it is worth getting ready, going out in the rain, etc.

Another option is to tie a new beneficial action to an existing habit. For example, you decided to recycle at least some of your garbage, but you don’t know how to start. The easiest way is to take one type of garbage that appears frequently (glass bottles or plastic yogurt jars) and hand over only that. Once you get into a routine, you can add a new category.

“if... - then...” principle helps someone For example: “If every weekend morning I read a fiction book, then by the end of the year I will have mastered all the Russian classics.” An important point is that we like to motivate ourselves to do a difficult task by fantasizing about how great it will be to succeed. This in itself is not harmful, but because of such premature optimistic pictures, we overreact to failures and quickly become deflated. When picturing a happy future for yourself, imagine the difficulties in between. If they are part of the plan, you will be much more relaxed about them, this will help you continue what you started.

Conclusion

Learn to recognize and analyze your emotions. Meditation, breath control and a list of your true values ​​​​in front of your eyes will help you.

Empathize and accept yourself. There are no “wrong” emotions. If you do something against your nature, it will not lead to long-term results. Volitional efforts are good when performing short-term tasks.

Separate your own desires from imposed social attitudes. React to the “internal alarm”; it will tell you that you are not living your life. Develop healthy habits; they raise self-esteem and improve your emotional well-being.

Photo: Daniel Reche, pixabay.com

Why do we need negative emotions?

Negative emotions are actually a very useful thing and your faithful assistant in self-development and managing reality. They are an indicator of whether you are currently at the frequency at which you can define reality - or not. Any negative emotions: anger, resentment, irritation, anxiety, sadness tell you whether you are moving in the right direction, towards your true goals, and whether you are opening the right doors.

Negative emotions become a “red light” for you, which warns you of danger, that you may go astray.

If you start listening to them and observing your emotional manifestations, you can learn a lot of new things about yourself and your life, and also speed up the implementation of your intention.

In Transurfing and Tufte techniques, we often talk about managing attention and observing thoughts rather than about emotions. However, our thoughts are often a chaotic stream, which is much more difficult to track than emotions. Try to track your emotional state right now: what are you feeling at this second? And, when you “catch” this or that unbalanced emotion, you will be able to more easily track what thought took you into this “dream”.

Under the influence of negative emotions (as well as too strong positive ones: thirst, euphoria, admiration, admiration, and so on), you always fall into a “sleep” and stop consciously defining your reality. Realize that with negativity you are right now “cutting off the oxygen” to your intention. But you work with intention every second of your life, even if you don’t think about it.

Day after day, with your mental radiation, your emotional and sensory perception of reality, your condition and your broadcast, you shape your life. This is why it is so valuable to understand what to do with negative emotions and to be able to manage them.

Satisfying Basic Needs

This is, rather, not a technique, but a natural necessity in order to feel comfortable. Therefore, it is important, first of all, to be able to listen to yourself in order to isolate the root cause of emotional imbalance.

Polina Zelenko , practicing psychologist, Gestalt therapist:

— Mental balance can be disturbed for no obvious reason. We just understand that we feel bad, but what exactly happened is unclear. Here it is appropriate to recall the basis of psychology: Maslow’s pyramid. Its first three steps are of fundamental importance: satisfaction of physiological needs (food, water, sleep, shelter); meeting security needs; and finally, meeting communication needs.

If basic needs are not satisfied, an imbalance, an internal conflict arises: there are no obvious reasons, but the mood is worse than ever, everything falls out of hand, nothing works out... You cannot be in a good mood, feel a surge of strength and enthusiasm, if you are simply hungry or chronically do not get enough sleep . That’s why it’s so important to listen to yourself: are we hungry, do we want to sleep? In some situations, sleep is the best psychotherapist; get enough sleep to restore emotional balance.

The need for security largely lies in our feelings, the expert believes. Therefore, we are not talking only about the absence of a threat as such. The feeling of security consists of ordinary things: for example, home comfort, a comfortable home, favorite clothes. Imagine that you don’t have warm clothes, or it’s cold at home, or there’s nothing to sleep on. Maintaining emotional stability in such a situation is quite difficult.

Another step is communication, contact with people.

Polina Zelenko , practicing psychologist, Gestalt therapist:

— If you don’t have anyone to talk to about your emotions and experiences, especially difficult ones, this greatly affects your emotional balance. After all, why is psychotherapy effective? Because it allows you to speak out. And in general, I am an adherent of the opinion that a person needs a person . If a person is lonely, he does not have close, trusting relationships, his mental comfort will inevitably suffer.

Thus, it is necessary to at least fully satisfy your basic needs in order to avoid or mitigate the state of emotional instability, which can manifest itself in irritation, sadness, apathy, anger, etc.

Acceptance of emotions

What happens when we experience something unpleasant? Of course we want to get rid of what we don’t like! We are designed in such a way that we instinctively resist pain and unpleasant sensations. We strive to avoid uncomfortable situations. And of course we don’t want to experience negative emotions!

Therefore, when faced with a negative experience, many try to suppress or muffle painful emotions and not notice what is happening inside.

An even more serious type of struggle is when, for some reason, a person considers the emerging emotions unacceptable. For example, many do not allow themselves to be angry. “Aggression, anger, irritation are bad,” this belief is often present. And then, having felt forbidden emotions, a person begins to push them inside himself.

Some do it so masterfully that they manage to hide their emotions even from themselves. Such people, for example, may sincerely believe that they never get irritated, angry, or offended. It must be said that such suppression of emotions never occurs without consequences, and sometimes the price is too high: depression, chronic anxiety, and psychosomatic disorders often arise as a result of the struggle with emotions.

Fighting your own emotions is harmful for many reasons. But now I want to dwell in detail on only one of them (read about other reasons here).

Any struggle only increases tension.

There is a principle in Aikido called “non-struggle.” Its meaning is as follows: if the enemy strikes, then there is no need to respond to this blow with resistance, since in this case you may lose your balance or not withstand the force of the blow. If you subtly sense the opponent’s movements and follow these movements, in this case you will be able to use the opponent’s strength for your own purposes.

This principle is quite difficult to understand unless you see it happen. Therefore, I found a video on the Internet where the principle of refusing to fight is shown very clearly.

I'm sure that most of my readers are far from martial arts. However, watch this video. At first glance, it does not fit in with psychology. But this is only at first glance. Watch it to the end and then let's continue the conversation.

Have you looked? Now imagine that the guy in the orange T-shirt from the video is your emotions, and the man in the sweater is you. Do you see what will happen if you offer direct resistance? If your emotions are very intense, you will most likely have a hard time!

So, you can’t fight your emotions! This is an absolutely futile endeavor. How then?

It is important to learn to accept emotions as they are, without trying to somehow change or suppress them. Only in this case will you be able to use emotional energy for your benefit and not for your harm.

It’s very easy to say “accept your emotions as they are.” This is much more difficult to implement: when unpleasant experiences arise, most of us instinctively, automatically, out of habit try to change something and actually turn on the fight.

By making any emotion the object of meditation, you have much more opportunities to learn to accept it: during practice, it is easier to notice your own attempts to influence emotions and inner experience. By stopping your desire to fight over and over again, you gradually learn to treat any of your experiences, no matter what they are, with kindness and acceptance.

The meditation, which I will tell you about in the next article, is designed in such a way as to learn how to positively accept any of your emotions.

Seeing the wider context

Usually, when a person experiences some strong emotions, he tends to go headlong into them. He dives into the abyss of emotions and spends all of himself worrying. His whole life, the whole world at this moment narrows down to one specific situation and the emotions associated with it.

If there is resentment inside, then all internal dialogues will be aimed at punishing the offender or proving something to him. If you are disappointed, then all your thoughts will revolve around the situation associated with these experiences. A person spends all his strength, all of himself on the experiences that arise within.

In order to learn to manage your emotions, it is important to be able to look at your experiences from the outside. What does it mean?

This does not mean that you are trying to muffle your emotions. No, when you focus your attention on them, they may feel even more intense and stronger than usual.

This does not mean that you look at the emotion and decide for yourself: “Well, it’s kind of stupid to experience such feelings in such a situation.”

To look at your experiences from the outside is to allow yourself to feel, to allow your emotions to be what they are. And at the same time, while living your emotions, it is important to realize that you are something more than the emotions that you are now experiencing.

Imagine that you are standing in front of a huge painting, pressing your nose into it. You see some fragment and are completely concentrated on it. If you take a few steps back, you will continue to see that fragment, but the whole canvas will also open before you. You will find that you have only seen a small element that is part of the whole picture.

About the same thing happens when you concentrate on emotions during meditation. You have the opportunity to go beyond these emotions, to see your experiences in a broader context.

How to control your emotions

Let's see how this works in practice. Let's say you went to get a new job. We went through an interview and were rejected. What happens next?

1. An emotion flares up inside you. For example, despair, resentment or disappointment. Such emotions are not a consequence of some strong life shock, so their lifespan is very short - 2-3 minutes.

2. A negative attitude comes into play, the thought appears in your head: “How can this be! Why am I always unlucky? I will never find a decent job!”

3. You “catch” this thought and “read” the negative attitude behind it.

4. You change a negative attitude (thought) to a positive one. Understand that a thought is just a thought, it can be changed! It's not an emotion that you can't easily capture. The thought is yours, rewrite it. For example, like this: “What if you try to come to this company for an interview again, but now prepare properly for it? The employer will probably appreciate such a desire.”

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5. Move forward with this new thought and build on it. Your task is not to feed past negative attitudes and not allow them to come into play.

Keep in mind that your mind may resist and bring up old negative attitudes and habitual patterns. The brain is lazy and prefers to do things the old fashioned way rather than reinvent the wheel. But your thoughts are in your power. Change them and follow them.

This mechanism is explained very clearly and clearly by the inimitable Irina Khakamada in her mini-lecture “Emotions: suppress, manage or relax?” Be sure to watch it if you want to learn a really working technique for managing emotions.

Perhaps someone will now think: “This is not about me, it doesn’t work like that for me.” But this thought is also a negative attitude! Don't let it go, change it without regret. “This is exactly what will work for me! I love the easy approach to solving problems!” - here is your new installation.

Now that we have learned to separate emotions from attitudes, let's talk about ways to control negative emotions and our condition.

Release: expression and feeling.

We generate emotions as positive, like joy. Positive emotions are often accompanied by ease in sensations, smiles, a temporary increase in strength, and a desire to empathize and sympathize. And as a result, they help create an atmosphere of cozy relationships and encourage communication.

There are also negative ones, like anger, anger. Negative emotions weigh down and are accompanied by uncomfortable sensations. They create a feeling of hostility, aggression, and are not conducive to a pleasant, confidential conversation, especially in the initial stages of a relationship or acquaintance.

Although the intense experience of positive things can greatly deplete the body, negative emotions have more destructive consequences for energy than positive ones.

Negative emotions blur the images of goals, knock down guidelines, knock self-worth out of the saddle and reduce stress resistance.

That is, there is almost no benefit from negativity.

Therefore, positive and negative emotions should begin to be recognized and felt.

Controlling emotions while ignoring the sensual nature of your body is like learning to control a horse, thinking that you are lying on the sofa with a book. Where then the bumps, bruises and abrasions came from, I probably dreamed about it.

You need to feel and release everything that is, and since we pour out feelings and emotions with our voice, movements and emotional tone, we should learn to clearly and clearly express our experiences, thoughts, fragments of suppressed feelings, urges and reactions. This helps a lot:

• theater improvisation clubs
• scream in nature as loud as possible consonants and open vowels
• psychological constellations
• communicate with people in such a way that at least you feel comfortable and good. (!)

Not expressed

, there should be no constrained and suppressed emotions.

The most common negative emotions

All of them are related to anger, such as resentment, envy, jealousy and others that pollute our lives. They make us feel bad and destroy our emotional and social relationships.

Some emotions, such as doubt, fear, boredom or sadness, should not be resisted. Rather, they should be accepted and listened to as messengers of discomfort that need to be understood. Only later can this discomfort be worked on, processed, and ultimately overcome. Moreover, under certain circumstances, even pessimism can be useful.

But let's get back to anger. Once it has arisen, it expresses itself either inwardly or outwardly. If you express this internally, you risk getting sick. If, on the other hand, this is expressed in relation to the outside world, then relationships with others are destroyed. This can even reach extreme cases of irrational behavior. It is violence and malice towards others.

The longer you stay angry, the more your life deteriorates in all areas. You lose sleep and your health and interpersonal relationships are destroyed. You become less productive at work. In a word, nothing good can come from negative emotions.

Awareness of emotions

In order to manage your emotions, it is important to be aware of them. Many people are often not used to paying attention to their emotional state. Therefore, if you ask them how they feel in a given situation, they will answer very vaguely: “Good,” “Bad,” “Somehow not very good,” “Normal.” What emotions are hidden behind these words? Unknown.

There are many words that can be used to describe emotions: joy, sadness, anger, irritation, sadness, melancholy, fear, anxiety, resentment, guilt, shame, embarrassment, hope, pride, tenderness, delight, etc.

The ability to describe your inner state using these or similar words is the first important step towards managing your emotions. Read more about why this is so important. Here you will find simple and understandable instructions that will help you become more aware and understand your emotional state. In the same article there is an audio recording of a meditation that helps you look deep inside yourself and become better acquainted with your emotions.

The meditation exercise, which I will describe in detail in the next article, also helps you become more aware of your own emotions.

Relaxation through tension

Working with muscles is also one of the techniques for achieving emotional balance.

Polina Zelenko , practicing psychologist, Gestalt therapist:

— When we experience strong feelings and emotions, we often do not notice how our body reacts to it. Meanwhile, at moments of peak tension, it seems to be constraining: the shoulders are pulled together, the teeth are clenched, every muscle is tense like a string... This happens reflexively. And at this moment it is useless to listen to yourself, trying to figure out what is happening inside you and why. It just won't work. To do this you need to achieve at least some kind of relaxation. Therefore, muscle relaxation skills are very important. The easiest way: consciously tense your whole body even more, starting from your cheekbones, eyes to the tips of your toes. Tighten as much as possible and stay in this state for a few seconds. Then exhale and “let go of the reins.” The case when the wedge is knocked out with wedge.

Another simple exercise that can be performed under any circumstances: focus not on emotions, but on physical sensations, feel your body. For example, listen to your breathing, imagine how your lungs are filled with air, how your heart is pulsating, driving blood through the vessels... Switching attention, concentrating on internal physical processes helps to cope with emotional swings and calm down.

Muscle relaxation techniques can also be combined with breathing techniques .

The simplest one - a deep slow breath in through your nose (if you want to concentrate) and a loud, sharp exhalation through your mouth - helps, if you need to concentrate, to remove anxiety and excitement that interfere with concentration.

Another breathing technique is more suitable for relaxation: a quick inhalation and a very long, slow exhalation.