Emotional regulator

In your impression, the kind of people who talk about "being optimistic" and "emotional stability is the best match for adults" every day and advise you "don't take it personally" are not serious emotion adjusters at all. The core work of our profession has never been to help you eliminate negative emotions, nor to teach you to suppress your temper and become an invincible perfect person, but to help you find your own emotional response plan, so that you will neither be overwhelmed by sudden emotions and lose your mind, nor will you have to hold back internal injuries in order to "control your emotions."

I just received a case last week. I was an Internet operator in 1998. I had an argument with the product department over an event schedule that could be heard in the entire office area. I turned around and hid in the bathroom and slapped myself in the mirror. When I came back, my eyes were still swollen. The first thing I said was, "Teacher, can you teach me how to not be angry?" I will definitely get fired next time I quarrel." I didn't tell her any big reasons at the time. I first asked her if she felt like her chest was congested during the quarrel, and she was almost suffocated to death before she could say anything. She nodded sharply, and I handed her a decompression ball and said, just hold it now, hold it hard, and wait until you feel the energy is smoother.

There is actually no unified standard for emotion regulation in the industry, and the handling methods of regulators with different technical backgrounds are very different. For example, the most common method used by counselors with a background in cognitive behavioral studies is to help you dismantle your cognition - if you think "quarrel = I am going to be fired", you are essentially tying "conflict" and "I am a bad employee" together. If you separate these two, your emotions will naturally go down. I once met a salesperson who had just joined the job. After being scolded by his boss, he sat in the stairwell and cried. He felt that he would definitely not pass the probation period. I helped him rationalize and found out that the boss had just finished scolding him that day. The scolding him was purely because the report format he submitted was wrong, and it had nothing to do with his work ability. He recovered on the same day, and now he has become the best seller of the team. But the disadvantages of this method are also obvious: if you are at the peak of your emotions, such as you have just been broken up or misunderstood by your loved ones, and someone comes up and says to you, "Think about it from another perspective," you will most likely want to throw the water in your hand at his face.

Therefore, many mediators prefer the mindfulness-based solution. They don’t talk to you about the truth at all, but just teach you to “see” emotions first. For example, don't speak when you are angry. Feel your pulse, feel if your fingertips are numb, and if the air in your chest is in your throat. Just watch your own reaction just like watching other people's emotions. Don't judge, and don't rush to suppress it. I have a colleague who practices mindfulness. He rarely speaks when receiving visitors. He just sits with them for ten minutes and counts their breaths. Many people come crying. After sitting for ten minutes, they know what to do. But this method is not omnipotent. It requires long-term practice. After practicing for two or three days, many people feel like "Why am I still angry?" On the contrary, they have a new layer of anxiety like "I can't even detect my emotions well."

There is also a category that takes a more pragmatic route, which belongs to the category of expressive art therapy, and the core is the word "vent". Whether you tear up paper, throw stress balls, find a place where no one is around and scold the person who made you angry eight hundred times, or use a paintbrush to scribble, as long as you can pour out your emotions without hurting yourself or others, you can do anything. Last time, a mother who was accompanying me came to me and said that her child was rebellious in sixth grade and was fighting against her every day. She was so angry that she had breast hyperplasia, and she did not dare to scold the child for fear of leaving a psychological shadow on the child. I gave her a stack of A4 paper and said that you can tear it up here, and tear it up as you like. She tore it for ten minutes, until the shredded paper fell to the floor, and suddenly she cried, saying that she had not had such a happy time in a long time. But this method also has limits. If used too much, some people will develop path dependence. In a workplace where you can't vent casually, it will be easier to lose control.

I have been doing this for almost 6 years. To be honest, I rarely use a certain method for my clients. The first thing I ask most often is: How did you get through the last time you were in a bad mood? There used to be a back-end programmer who said that every time he fixed a bug until it crashed, he would go downstairs and feed the stray cats in the community for 10 minutes, and after touching the cat's head twice, he would feel better. I didn't ask him to practice mindfulness or change his cognition at that time. I just asked him to carry two packs of cat strips with him and go downstairs if he felt bad. Isn't this as effective as any high-level theory?

When many people come to me, they hold the expectation that "I want to become a permanently emotionally stable person." I always pour cold water on them: It's impossible. Last year, I took on a particularly difficult case. I couldn't find a way out for three consecutive weeks. I was rear-ended while driving home from work. I had an argument with the driver behind me on the spot, and my face turned red. After the argument, I sat back in the car, and suddenly I wanted to understand what the problem with that case was. You see, emotions themselves are never scourges. Those negative anger, grievances, and sadness are actually sending you a signal: You are uncomfortable now, and you need to make some adjustments. What really hurts people is never the emotion, it's your self-attack of "How could I have this emotion?"

I came across a very interesting metaphor two days ago. It says that emotions are like a malfunction light in your car. When it comes on, it doesn't tell you to find something to cover the light, nor does it tell you to keep driving. It reminds you to stop and see what's wrong. We emotional adjusters, to put it bluntly, are car mechanics squatting next to your car. We will not come up and scold you for breaking the car again, nor will we force you to step on the accelerator and hit the road immediately. We will just accompany you to open the hood and see where the screws are loose and where the glass water is missing. When you learn to read the fault light on your own and know when to stop and when to leave, our task will be completed.