How To Learn To Control Your Emotions: 4 Strong Exercises And 5 Mistakes

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

One of the key signs of a free and whole person, the master of his life, is a high degree of spontaneity and arbitrariness in managing his own emotions. A person is squeezed, unsure of himself, "downtrodden" by society, expresses emotions only as a reaction to various external stimuli. He, like a puppet, "pulls the arms and legs" when the appropriate control is exerted on him.

Of course, such a person cannot boast that he lives a high-quality and full-fledged life, since he simply does not rule over his life. Any "bad" news, any disapproving words of others immediately knock him out of the "rut" and it takes time for him to re-enter a stable emotional state. Therefore, in order to truly enjoy life, you need to learn how to control your emotions.

What are our emotions?

Regarding emotions, it is extremely important to understand that they are a manifestation of our bioenergetics. This is the same natural component of ours, like blood or lymph. With the help of emotions, we interact with the surrounding reality, receive signals from it, compose our ideas, and make decisions. People who, as a result of brain injury, were deprived of the ability to experience emotions along with them, were also deprived of the opportunity to make choices based on certain subjective preferences. Logic did not help them in this matter.

Emotionality, the ability to experience and experience different emotional tones makes us alive and complete beings. Any effective communication between people requires emotion, an emotional response. Creative creative work is also impossible if a person is not able to experience interest, enthusiasm, excitement, inspiration, etc.

In other words, we can't go anywhere without emotion. The only question is what is the "control center" in our life - emotions or reason. Emotions can be deceived by slipping us tasty ("sugar-laden"), but harmful and even dangerous "food", but the mind, armed with the ability to analyze and compare facts, is more difficult to deceive. And the mind, using the power of emotions, is almost impossible to deceive.

It is important to understand that emotions are energetically stronger than reason and even reasonable, conscious people, having fallen under the influence of a strong emotion (hatred, anger, fear, greed, envy, lust, resentment, etc.), begin to commit rash, irrational actions about which they later bitterly regret … And all because they did not learn at one time to competently manage their emotions.

Common mistakes in controlling emotions

In order to properly control your emotions, it is important to avoid mistakes that people make under the influence of stupid judgments and delusions gleaned on popular sites from incompetent bloggers.

Mistake # 1

The first, most common and common mistake in managing emotions is blocking them. That is, if I feel an emotion that I do not want to experience at the moment, then I need to shout to her "stop!" and drive it back into the hangar. Nothing good will come of it. To natural stress, you add stress from suppressing emotions, which will hit the body, and in addition, knock yourself out of reality and get different problems from it.

Mistake # 2

The second mistake is “to pave the pit with radioactive waste”. This is when on top of a negative emotion (anger, rage, anger, despair), you put on a false and hypocritical "smile" of a positive mood. Which you don't really believe in. Because it’s just an idea that has been instilled in you by various “growth gurus”. Again, excess stress that hits the body.

Mistake # 3

The next mistake is to indulge your emotions. Scream when you're angry. Become bored when you're scared. Closing in yourself when you are in apathy. Beat like a child in hysterics. And so on and so forth. There is nothing critical in such behavior for the body, but such irresponsibility in controlling your own emotions can go badly for you. At the very least, they will stop taking you seriously.

Error # 4

The fourth mistake is to shift all responsibility for what is happening in your life to emotions, to justify your words or actions with certain feelings. Say, "I'm not guilty - the devil has beguiled" (he was angry, tired, sleepy, etc.). This leads to the fact that a person, even believing that he is in control of himself, begins to easily follow his emotions.

Error # 5

The last mistake is to strive at all costs to stay in a positive emotional state all the time (“think positively”) by “winding up” yourself. Forcing yourself to be affable, appear cheerful, cheerful, and so on. And sincerely believe that it is. Thus, you give out from reality to pink virtuality and begin to fight cruelly against the “hard edges” of life, which you will no longer see. Plus, deplete yourself energetically very quickly.

Basic exercises

In order to avoid these mistakes and learn to control your emotions, start doing simple but extremely effective exercises. Do them regularly if you expect to get a significant effect.

Exercise number 1 - "Identification"

The essence of this exercise is to understand what kind of emotion you are experiencing at a given moment in time. Anger or resentment, fear or excitement, whether it is pure emotion or mixed.

Since the main thing in controlling emotions is observing them, then in order to observe emotions qualitatively, they must be distinguished. To understand what emotions are, use the table of emotional states.

The exercise itself is quite simple - start observing yourself and, if you notice a change in your emotional background, just ask yourself "what is this?" Ask until you have a specific answer.

Exercise number 2 - "Transfer to the body"

Since any emotions are somehow projected onto the body, then by controlling or manipulating the body in any way, we can control the emotion. The essence of the exercise is that, having felt some unpleasant emotions boil in you, you mentally transfer it to some part of the body (for example, into a fist), which you first strain with strength, and then relax. And so several times. Until he lets go.

Another option is that there is strength to strain the muscle and hold the tension for as long as there is enough strength until the muscle itself begins to relax.

Exercise number 3 "Inhale-exhale"

When a stormy, strong, literally exciting emotion arises, it is almost impossible for an ordinary person to consciously track and stop it. He flared up sharply and immediately shouted at a loved one, and only then, with horror, he realized what he had really done.

The only way out here is an automatic reflex, which will immediately block a negative emotion when it splashes out. This reflex should consist of a deep inhalation and a slow exhalation. It must be worked out in oneself. (for example, using the "Russian system of self-discipline"). The reflex is developed by regular training, i.e. by regularly doing the following exercise - you reactivate some negativity (for example, remember how your boss scolded you), and immediately take a deep breath and slowly exit. And so several times a day for 3 months. After that, you will do it all automatically.

Exercise number 4 "Virtual game"

Any experience includes not only the emotion itself, the accompanying bodily sensation and thoughts (pleasant or not very), but also a picture (vague or distinct, symbolic or real, associated with a past experience or association). Thanks to this, we can control and influence the emotion through a certain image.

To do this, visualize the emotion, set its size, shape, color, weight, density and start with what you get, play around - try changing the color, or shape, or size. You can visualize it as a liquid and pour it from glass to glass.

Major League in Emotion Management

The difference between an ordinary person and a truly advanced Master who controls himself is that the Master is able not only to control his entire emotional spectrum and background states, but also to arbitrarily create, experience any emotions. Experience joy, peace, sadness, slight sadness, serenity, passion, and so on. Then WHEN he wants and as much as he wants.

Of course, like any real skill, achieving such a degree of arbitrariness is not a week, not a month, or even a year of hard work on oneself. This is a long-term practice, which, like any other activity, requires 4 key elements: desire, diligence, effective methodology and a competent mentor.