Typical examples of emotion regulation

The core essence of emotional regulation is never to "eliminate negative emotions" or to force oneself to "remain stable at all times", but to bring the emotional fluctuations beyond the normal threshold back to a controllable range by adapting the method of personal characteristics - a typical scenario that has been repeatedly proven effective by clinical research and public practice. It mainly covers the three high-frequency areas of workplace stress response, intimate relationship conflict management, and sudden negative event management. There is no absolute right or wrong in any method. It only depends on whether it is suitable for the current scene and personal habits.

Akai, the Internet operator I worked with a while ago, had experienced the pitfall of "forcibly suppressing emotions". Last year, before the Double Eleven promotion, he worked continuously for 22 days. The entire department was as stretched as a stretched bow. However, the intern responsible for uploading the event link wrote the wrong threshold for full discounts. Hundreds of customer complaints poured in within 10 minutes of going online. He said that blood suddenly rushed to the top of his head, his hands were shaking, and when he opened his mouth to curse, he suddenly remembered the "pulse reset method" taught to him by a psychological counselor before. He turned around and got into the fire escape. He squatted on the steps and felt his wrist for pulse counting. When he counted 120 times, his tight back molars relaxed. Interestingly, different schools have very different views on the logic of priority processing when emotions are high: Most consultants from the cognitive behavioral school recommend "pausing irrational thoughts" first and telling yourself "this is just one thing that went wrong, not a failure of the whole person." However, many mindfulness practitioners believe that the rational brain of the brain has been offline when emotions are high, and it is easy to fall into self-attack by forcing thoughts. The most efficient way is to adjust the heart rate to return to the physiological state first. Akai himself has tried two methods. He said that for a quick-tempered person like him, counting the pulse is indeed more useful than trying to reason with himself. After he returned to the office that time, instead of scolding the interns, he first got everyone to change the link and send a compensation announcement. After finishing their work, he went to have a one-on-one chat with the interns about the reasons for the error. In the end, there was no big problem.

Emotional regulation in the workplace requires to some extent taking into account the occasion and cost, but in an intimate relationship, the logic of "taking the overall situation into account" often fails. In the past two years, my cousin and her brother-in-law always quarreled with each other and always wanted to bring up old scores. The smallest things can lead to the fact that the other party forgot the anniversary three years ago, and said the wrong thing when they first met their parents five years ago. Every time they quarreled, they had to file for divorce. Both of us were exhausted. Later, they went to couple counseling, and the counselor gave them a "pause code", saying that whoever made the noise first raised the voice to 80 decibels could shout "orange". After shouting, the two people must stop arguing immediately and stay for 20 minutes before communicating. My cousin was very resistant at first, saying, isn’t this just cold violence? If you have emotions, you have to express them on the spot. What should you do if you get sick if you suppress them? Until a quarrel last winter, she was getting more and more angry because her brother-in-law forgot to bring back the cold medicine she had given her after get off work. When she was about to say, "You never take my words to heart," her brother-in-law shouted "Orange" first. She was stunned for a moment, turned around and went into the study. She touched the Lego on the table and played with it for ten minutes. She felt boring after playing with it - didn't she just forget to bring her medicine? The drugstore downstairs is open 24 hours a day. It only takes 5 minutes to go downstairs and buy something yourself. It doesn't take that long. When 20 minutes were up, my brother-in-law came in with a glass of hot milk and apologized, and the two of them reconciled within a few words. I have seen that many people on the Internet are opposed to "pausing arguments", thinking that if emotions are interrupted, they are not taken seriously. In fact, counselors in the field of couples counseling also have two schools of thought. One group believes that immediate communication can avoid emotional distress, and the other group believes that when the emotional concentration exceeds 80%, it is best to speak out 90% of the time you come here, it’s just to hurt someone. Pausing can avoid leaving irreversible emotional scars. To put it bluntly, it depends on the two people’s habits of getting along. If both parties feel comfortable arguing, then it’s okay to argue on the spot. If you say harsh words as soon as you argue, it’s better to pause and calm down first.

If the emotions in the workplace and in intimate relationships are foreshadowed, then the emotional impact of sudden negative events often does not give you time to react. Last year, my colleague Ah Shuang was riding an electric scooter home from work. He was stabbed by a delivery truck going the wrong way at the intersection, and a large piece of his knee was broken. The first thing the other person said when he got off the car was not to ask if she was okay, but to blame her for not looking at the road. Ah Shuang said that she was standing on the roadside, and tears instantly came to her eyes. The idea of ​​squatting down to cry or yelling at the other party came up. Suddenly she remembered the "54321 Grounding Method" that she had learned before, and immediately forced herself to count: the five things she could see were the parasol trees on the roadside, the sanitation workers in yellow vests, the other party's blue take-out boxes, the children in red cotton-padded jackets, and the red lights at the intersection. ； The four things that can be touched are the handlebars of the electric car, the keys in the pocket, the slippery fabric of the down jacket, and the torn pants fabric on the knees. ； The 3 things that can be heard are car horns, music from roadside shops, and the sound of wind blowing leaves. ； The two things you can smell are the aroma of roasted sweet potatoes and the smell of car exhaust. ； The only thing you can taste is the aftertaste of the mint you just sucked. After counting, she immediately calmed down and held back her tears. Without arguing with the other party, she directly took out her mobile phone to call the traffic police, took photos to keep evidence, and went through the process to determine the responsibility and go to the hospital. She didn't shed a single tear during the whole process. Later, she told me that some people had said that this method was about suppressing emotions. When something happened, you could cry or get angry. But after she tried it herself, she realized that when everyone is waiting to see your reaction, it is much more effective to suppress your emotions first and solve the problem than to act on the spot. Later, when she went home, she sat on the sofa and hugged her cat and cried for half an hour. Her emotions were relieved and nothing was delayed.

I myself had a misunderstanding about "emotional stability" in the past two years. I always felt that it was great to be able to hold back all my emotions. It wasn't until I stood in the corridor and broke down crying because I couldn't find the key to my house that I realized that the suppressed emotions would never go away. They would only be accumulated and exploded over some trivial matter. Later, I also tried many methods, including writing an emotional diary, running to vent, and complaining to friends. In the end, I found that the most useful thing for me was to wipe the table. When I got emotional, I would take a rag and wipe all the tables and cabinets at home. After wiping, the suffocation in my heart disappeared.

To put it bluntly, there are really not so many high-level standards for emotional regulation, and there is no need to follow a certain set of Internet celebrity methods. Once you have been with your emotions for a long time, you will naturally know whether to stroke them or hide for 20 minutes when they explode. You don’t need to treat your emotions as a scourge, and don’t be led by them. That’s enough.