How to make emotion regulation cards

In fact, there is no need to look for fancy templates on the Internet. Find a palm-sized hard card that is comfortable for you to touch. On the front, write down the specific scenarios that you often encounter that can easily make you lose control of your emotions. On the back, write down 3 small methods that you have personally tried and can really relieve yourself. One card can be used for several months.

When I first started working on it, I deliberately looked up information on positive psychology. Each card was marked with an emotion category, such as "angry" and "anxiety", and what was written on the back were standard methods such as "performing 478 breathing" and "reconstructing cognitive pathways". As a result, when I worked overtime for a week on a project last time, the client suddenly said that he wanted to overturn the whole case.

Later, when I talked about this with the company's on-site EAP consultant, she laughed at me for making the cards into psychology test cheat sheets. This thing is essentially your own "emotional emergency cheat sheet". The core is that it is easy to use, not correct. Nowadays, netizens have two different tendencies in how to deal with this card. One group thinks that the more systematic the better, it is best to cover all possible emotional scenes, and make twenty or thirty cards and put them into categories. The other group thinks that they can only make five cards at most and only cover them. As long as you can encounter high-frequency emotional scenes at least once a week, I have tried both. The last pile of cards in the former is just gathering dust in the drawer. It is too troublesome to find them. I don’t have the patience to look through them when I get emotional. The latter is in the side pocket of my commuting bag and can be used after taking it out.

I only carry 3 of them with me now. One of them says "I was dumped." On the back, it says, "Go to the corridor to enjoy the wind for 30 seconds. Watch the saved cat video twice. If you feel really angry, order a spicy sausage." Last time, I was dumped by a colleague. I took it out and took a quick look and went to buy the sausage. After chewing the sausage, I calmed down and thought about how to find evidence. Before, I might have started a quarrel with someone on the spot. The card made by a new girl born in 1998 last week was even more interesting. On the front, she wrote, "I had an argument with my boyfriend and I wanted to break up." The first method on the back was "Put your phone in the refrigerator for 5 minutes." She said that in just 5 minutes, she would open the refrigerator to get an iced drink, and her energy would subside, and she would not say hurtful words.

By the way, when choosing cards, try not to choose slippery glossy coated paper. It is best to choose kraft paper with a little texture. When I was so anxious that my hands were shaking, I touched the rough paper texture without reading the words on it. If you like to make a diary, you can just put some stickers or draw a little expression on it, and do whatever you like, regardless of other people's standards.

To put it bluntly, this thing is to help you do not have to think of countermeasures when your emotional brain has the upper hand and your rational brain cannot move. It will put the useful methods you have tried in front of you in advance, so that you will not get caught up in your emotions. To put it bluntly, it is to leave a small step for yourself, and you can get out of your emotions along the way. There is really no need to make it so complicated.