Emotion Management Handbook

Emotion management has never been about "eliminating negative emotions" or "achieving calmness at all times", and there is no standard template that suits everyone. Its essence is to establish a set of "emotion recognition-acceptance-response" mechanism that you are comfortable with. As long as it does not hurt yourself or affect innocent people, you can do it no matter what.

I've seen too many people go astray on this. A while ago, a friend who was in operations just complained to me, saying that the plan that was changed to the eighth version by Party A was eventually rejected, and she was told that she "didn't feel it." She dropped her pen on the spot and filed for resignation. Afterwards, she squatted downstairs in the company and cried, saying she regretted that she "couldn't control my emotions."” ； There is also a friend who works in finance who is even worse. No matter how much he is wronged, he will hold it back with a blank face. His mantra is "Adults need to be emotionally stable." As a result, last month's physical examination revealed grade three breast nodules. The first thing the doctor said was "Stop sulking." These two people happen to step on the two most common extremes of emotional management: either treating emotions as a scourge, and blaming oneself for immaturity whenever they appear. ； Or treat depression as management, which will eventually backfire on the body.

As early as the last century, the psychoanalytic community pointed to the nature of emotional outbursts as unhealed old wounds in our subconscious. To tell the truth, when I was doing psychological counseling before, the counselor asked me why I would get extremely angry every time someone was late for more than 10 minutes, even if the other person said hello in advance. When I dug deeper, I remembered that my mother forgot to pick me up when I was in the first grade of elementary school. I stood at the school gate for a full two hours. When it was getting dark, there was no one around me. The panic of being abandoned was always suppressed in my subconscious. Later, every time I waited for someone to time out, what was triggered was not the dissatisfaction of "the other party was not punctual" at all, but the fear hidden in my bones when I was a child. Most supporters of this logic believe that emotions are just alarms, and finding the root cause is the solution. However, some people think that this method is too "convoluted". Ordinary people don't have that much time to dig up childhood trauma. If they can't get over something immediately, they just can't get over it.

The logic of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which many bloggers now love to recommend, is actually more straightforward: it is never the event itself that affects your emotions, but your interpretation of the event. For example, if the driver takes a taxi and takes a detour, you can change your mind and think, "He may have just taken this route and he is not familiar with it. I can just use the platform to refund the money. There is no need to be angry." The anger will be gone in an instant. However, CBT has received a lot of criticism in recent years. Many people say that this method is essentially "self-PUA". It is obviously someone else's fault, so why should I adjust my own cognition? The most interesting argument I have ever seen was a quarrel between two bloggers. One said that when you encounter an idiot, you should quickly adjust your mentality and not waste your emotions. The other said that the best way to manage your emotions is to yell at an idiot when you encounter one. The two argued for three thousand floors, but in the end neither could convince the other.

To be honest, both of these statements are correct, they are just different opinions. I myself have a highly sensitive constitution. I used to use CBT methods. Every time I got angry, I forced myself to find a "positive interpretation." In the end, the anger did not go away. Instead, there was an additional layer of internal friction of "Why can't I even adjust my emotions well?". Later, I switched to mindfulness methods and it became smoother. Oh, yes, it’s the popular 5-4-3-2-1 grounding method. Last time I caught the high-speed train, I missed it by 2 minutes. I almost shed tears when I stood at the ticket gate. I didn’t force myself to “calm down”, so I just stood there and counted: I could feel the rough canvas texture of the backpack straps, and I heard the train number announced on the radio. I heard the voice, smelled the fresh meat buns in the hands of the people next to me, and the bitter taste of the American food I just drank was still in my mouth. I stepped on the cold floor tiles under my feet. After counting for only one minute, the tightness in my throat dissipated. I turned around to change my ticket without delaying the rest of the business. But my friend who is a primary school teacher said that this method did not work for her. Every time she wanted to get angry with a naughty child, she would use the logic of CBT to silently recite "He is just a child, he didn't mean to make me angry", and the anger would disappear immediately.

I also have a wild method, specially designed to deal with the kind of anger that comes to the fore, called the "10-minute buffer period." At the last meeting, the new intern made a mistake in the project data I had prepared for the week. I was called out and criticized by my boss on the spot. Blood rushed to my head and my hand holding the pen was shaking. I told the boss directly, "I'm going to the bathroom." I hid in the stairwell and watched a video of a cat stepping on breast milk for 10 minutes, and drank a glass of iced Coke. , went back 10 minutes later, neither scolding the intern nor blaming the blame, but told the boss that I would hand in the revised version in the afternoon. When I checked the data with the intern afterwards, I found out that he stayed up all night with his sick mother the day before and got distracted while making the form. If I had an attack on the spot, it would make me look unreasonable. Of course, there are times when I still want to curse someone after 10 minutes. Then I will never hold it in. I will tear it off when it’s time to do so. It’s always more cost-effective than holding it in until the knots develop.

Oh, by the way, there is another misunderstanding that needs to be mentioned: Nowadays, it is always said on the Internet that "you must provide emotional value." Many people equate emotional management with pleasing others. Even if you are wronged, you must first take care of other people's emotions. It is completely unnecessary. Emotion management is first of all responsible for yourself. Only when you are comfortable can you deal well with others. My former HR friend told me that when recruiting, they were particularly afraid of candidates who said they “never get angry.” Instead, they were afraid of candidates who could openly say, “I don’t feel comfortable doing this, let’s adjust it.” Team collaboration would be smoother—it’s better than holding back until the end and suddenly bursting out, messing up the entire project.

To put it bluntly, emotions are signals sent by your body. They are no different from wanting to eat when you are hungry or drinking water when you are thirsty. You don’t need to treat them as a scourge, nor do you need to force yourself to be an “emotionless adult”. Some people are suitable for writing an emotional diary and sorting it out slowly, some are suitable for going to the gym to hit a punching bag to vent, and some are suitable for complaining to friends for two hours. As long as you use it smoothly and don't cause trouble to others, it is the best method. One last thing to mention, if you can't get motivated for half a month and are not interested in anything, don't do it yourself. See a professional psychological counselor. This is not weakness, but responsibility for yourself.