How To Control Emotions?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Popular literature and Internet resources offer all kinds of methods: think positively, track the beginning of an emotion and "switch", not think about the problem, breathe deeply and count to 10. The human psyche is also very cleverly arranged and has at its disposal a large number of ways to "control" emotions (psychologists call these ways "defenses"). The assortment is wide - you can not notice what worries, you can attribute it to someone else, you can say "that, it does not bother me so much", you can come up with a logical explanation why this should not worry, and so on. The list is not complete.

The problem is that in these cases we are trying to deceive ourselves. Okay, more protection. They work independently of us, and, I must say, they really protect us from the bitter truth. Although the defenses can be learned to recognize, and thus to recognize what is behind them.

But when the emotion has already "broken through", when the defenses no longer work, we rush into a feverish search for a way to push it back.

But why?

And now the fun begins. There can be a lot of explanations, but they boil down to several main ones:

1. These emotions are unacceptable in society.

2, These emotions contradict the image of oneself ("I cannot be angry, I am good," "I cannot be afraid, I am strong and brave").

3. These emotions are so unbearable that you cannot feel okay with them (although this may be part of the 2nd point).

If you go even deeper (and this is always exciting), it turns out that in childhood these emotions were not accepted by the parents. It can be some specific emotion - anger, sadness, etc. And maybe almost the entire spectrum depends on the parents.

One way or another, someone had to hide their sadness so as not to upset mom, hide their anger so as not to be punished, perhaps hide their joy so as not to lose it. There can be many options, each story is unique. The sad thing is that, growing up, we continue to meet the requirements and desires of our parents, although we ourselves have become adults a long time ago. So we continue to be afraid to show "unwanted" emotion. Or we assign ourselves an "ideal image" (the way we would like to be and / or what we would like to see) and continue to correspond to it.

In short, controlling emotions is a way of self-deception. And self-deception is not about not feeling something. Self-deception in the fact that you will be able to convince yourself that everything is under control. In the meantime, emotions will not go anywhere, but will live their own lives. They will break out in all sorts of different ways. And they have many ways - in this our psyche is very smart and inventive. Panic attacks, obsessive rituals, nightmares, sudden outbursts of anger, insomnia, sexual problems, psychosomatics, increased fatigue, decreased concentration, productivity and memory, failure in relationships. And this is not the whole list.

Therefore, the most acceptable and environmentally friendly way to control emotions in relation to oneself is to recognize them, deal with the reasons, know what needs are behind them, accept these emotions in oneself and others, be able to express them in an acceptable way, without destroying oneself, others and relationships.