Emotional flexibility is the key to personal growth.

What is common between contempt, hatred, anxiety, shame and regret?

According to David Hawkins, they can literally kill our body.
')
It is no secret that emotions can play an important role in mental and physical health. However, the psychiatrist and popular lecturer Dr. Hawkins argues that the sensations we experience daily are a matter of life and death (at least at the cellular level).

Hawkins' theory is based on his discovery: all emotions are characterized by a certain amount of energy . He believes that lower-energy emotions, such as anxiety and shame, contribute to cell death, and more positive mental states, such as tranquility, joy, love, and prudence can truly improve our well-being.

No matter how powerful the emotions are, we still can not be victims of feelings that negatively affect our lives: research on neuroplasticity shows that the human brain is more than capable of reorganization.

But where to start? How to learn to manage emotions and use them so as to develop leadership and creative qualities?

The first step is to understand the basics of the brain.

Transferred to Alconost

Scientific look at emotions

The brain consists of two main structures.

The first is the limbic system , which controls emotions and behavioral responses and triggers a sympathetic nervous system response when we are under stress. This is part of the “hit or run” reaction — an instinctive physiological path taken by the brain, trying to protect us if it feels that we are in danger.

Have you ever been nervous before an important presentation? - say thanks to the limbic system for jaundice and sweaty palms. If some reckless driver cut you on the track and your cheeks began to burn and your heart began to pound wildly - this limbic system felt threatened. In general, this reaction helps us survive.

But the second system - the prefrontal cortex - has passed a longer evolutionary path. If someone advises to “think with his head,” he most likely means it is her - the conscious part of the brain, thanks to which we can reason, postpone the reward and feel the meaning behind the emotions.

The limbic system is important because it is responsible for survival, but if it controls behavior for too long , problems can arise:

“Once in the grip of fear, anxiety, depression, or chronic stress, a person is not able to give a realistic assessment of the situation,” writes Dave Gray , author of books and a visual thinking trainer. - “The prefrontal cortex is“ disconnected ”in this case. Creative thinking, ingenuity — all high-level brain functions are suppressed. ”

How to find a balance?

If the limbic system in the brain plays the role of a gas pedal, then the prefrontal cortex is rather a brake: it helps to slow down, assess the situation and respond adequately to emotions.

Learning to press on psychological “brakes” is the first step towards emotional regulation (the ability to control the response to one’s own feelings) and an important step in personal growth on the path to well-being.

The art of emotional flexibility

No one is born with the ability of self-regulation: kids can't fall asleep until they get rocked, and older children are not able to quietly stand in line at the cashier at the grocery store. Children communicate through emotions.

By school age, most of us already know how to contain emotional reactions in difficult situations — by applying positive thinking or distracting for something.

We understand that we can control emotions, and that they should not control us - and this is the most important aspect of well-being. It is fair to say that emotional regulation is a vital part of social maturity and one of the pillars of mental health.

However, simply overcoming emotional reactions and managing emotions is not the same thing. Emotional regulation is aimed at preventing a negative reaction, and managing emotions helps to use them for personal and professional growth.

Susan David, a psychologist and professor at Harvard Medical School, calls the practice of managing emotions through careful interaction with them “ emotional flexibility .”

“Unlike positive thinking and avoidance, which give excessive importance to thoughts, emotional flexibility is a set of skills based on the ability to perceive one’s own emotions, label and understand them, and then consciously move forward,” writes David.

"It is the ability to recognize stress and the ability to get out of it and decide how to act to fit your personal values ​​and goals."

If emotional regulation is a science, then emotional flexibility is an art.

Possessing the ability to strategically perceive and control emotions, we can develop creative, communicative and leadership skills. This writes and sociologist Joseph Granny.

He says: "The ability to recognize, shape emotions and keep them under control is the main skill that will help deepen intimacy with loved ones, increase their influence at work and develop the ability to turn ideas into results."

How to practice emotional flexibility

1. Do not hide from your emotions.

Creating a startup is always a lot of emotions.

This is a sudden disappointment due to slow growth, and a feeling of powerlessness due to software errors, and even just a misunderstanding in the office. In such cases, I tend to move on with a smile on my face, because there are more important concerns - besides, I want the team to perceive me as a positive, resilient person.

After all, that is what good leaders do, right?

The ability to remain calm in case of trouble is part of the art of team management, but this is not necessarily the best approach to working with emotions. In fact, the data suggests that the habit of pulling a grin when you are very worried can be a disservice to your body.

Hiding emotions, we still run the risk: if you avoid your own feelings or strangle them, they often return with a new force. In one study, it was found that smokers who actively tried not to think about cigarettes, eventually began to dream of puffing, and because of this, they began to smoke even more .

The habit of dulling emotions can not only adversely affect behavior, but, more importantly, can limit our potential. To become truly inflexible, you first need to feel your own emotions. To gain strength and wisdom, you need to allow yourself to feel the difficult situations and life challenges.

Trying to avoid unpleasant emotions is very tempting: to quickly leave them behind, to be distracted by something or to pretend to be positive, but if you go deeper and feel them, it will help you to become stronger and more flexible.

“If we are not able to handle the full range of our own emotions, to navigate and feel comfortable in it, we will not learn to be persistent,” writes David. “It is necessary to practice working with emotions, otherwise they may be taken by surprise. I believe that a strong cultural orientation towards happiness and positive thinking actually makes us less resilient to the vicissitudes of fate. ”

Hiding from emotions means losing touch with yourself. Heavy emotions reflect what worries us the most: “Emotions, such as sadness, guilt, grief and anger, are beacons for our values,” says David. For example, if you feel frustrated when a colleague is late for an appointment, you will most likely appreciate respect and punctuality.

2. Tell a new story

When you feel anger or disappointment, it seems that the easiest thing to do is to distract yourself - go discuss some question or open your mail - however, it is more far-sighted to rethink what we feel - to cast doubt on the meaning behind emotions.

If we view our emotions as “negative”, this naturally leads to an attempt to avoid them. But if we rethink what we feel, it will help to challenge the truth of the ideas behind the emotions and take them under control.

Behind every feeling lies a story. Imagine that you have to listen to unsolicited harsh criticism: you are likely to be annoyed by the lack of tact with a colleague, but if you look deeper, you can understand that his remarks are perceived as a threat because you are not sufficiently confident in your own competence.

Often these “stories” are fundamental beliefs that have been established in your life for quite some time.

To cope with boiling emotions, Joseph Granny recommends isolating the “primary story.” For example, if you feel ashamed when a colleague criticizes you, try to track down the origin of this feeling.

Remember when you first felt ashamed of yourself?

Joseph explains that as long as we consider these “primary stories” to be true, we are doomed to remain victims of our own emotions — our feelings will be beyond our control.

Understanding the original story is the first step to overcoming emotions, the consequence of which they are.

“I realized the original origins of the stories I tell, and learned to overcome at such moments the feeling that my security and dignity are at risk,” writes Granny.

3. Making an emotional vocabulary

Managing emotions also means simply identifying them. A strong emotion that remains unnamed can seem overwhelming and limitless. Therefore, to call emotions means to realistically assess their influence and find an appropriate solution.

Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett says that misinterpreting emotions can cause a wrong reaction - and this happens often, as many of the emotional sensations are similar.

For example, it’s better to describe one’s condition not as “sadness” (this is a rather vague definition), but to try to mark emotion as “depressed” or “disappointed.”

Feldman Barrett calls this specification “detail of emotions”: it helps to better understand the circumstances in which we are located, as well as to rethink negative emotions in order to be less susceptible to the threat. For example, if you realize that you are disappointed with the investor's reaction to the presentation you have made, it will be easier to cope with this than with an uncertain feeling of sadness.

Inhibition, which accelerates growth

Rethinking and labeling emotions can be a “fire escape” for all of our sensations, but this should not be the goal. Skipping past the difficulties that emotions can bring, we miss important growth opportunities.

The goal of developing emotional flexibility in oneself is to manage emotions and even use them to advance in work and relationships. Having learned to slow down the emotions that hold us back, we will be able to rush to what we desire most.

About the translator

The article is translated in Alconost.

Alconost is engaged in the localization of games , applications and websites in 70 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any string resource formats.

We also make advertising and training videos - for sites selling, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliners, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.

→ Read more