Harvard Emotional Intelligence Class

Chapter 39 My emotional intelligence is up to me (1)
Personal power is knowing yourself and doing the best you can with what you have.It doesn't require perfection or total control over your emotions; rather, it allows your emotions to express themselves and guide your behavior.All of us have the feeling that our emotions get out of control at times.Faced with this situation, the most important thing is to know how to regain control.

(Section [-] Basic Knowledge of Controlling Emotions
When people's emotions surpass rationality, it is very difficult to communicate actively and effectively with them.Angry emotions are like a thief, stealing part of your brain, stealing part of your sanity, making you say things you regret later, and even do things that hurt feelings.Therefore, we must fully understand the benefits of controlling emotions and master effective methods of controlling emotions.

First of all, we need a comprehensive understanding of controlling emotions.

There are many benefits for us to control our emotions.

1.Choose better responses to challenging individuals and circumstances.

2.Become calmer and more peaceful when you have to deal with stress.

3.Help someone to deal with their anger.

4.Avoid harsh behavior and language.

There are 3 challenges in controlling emotions.

1.Control your anger.

2.Control other people's anger towards you.

3.Manage stress and negativity.

Emotional control is divided into two stages:

Stage 1: Before reacting to someone else's anger, it is important to try to control your emotions.

Phase 2: Prepare yourself for appropriate responses when others get angry, frustrated, and start picking on you.

There are three ways to control emotions: welcome emotions, integrate emotions, and change emotional gears.

1.welcome affection

Feelings are not always welcome, so many times we are actively suppressing our feelings.Sometimes it makes sense to repress feelings, and that's because we can't process the feelings that arise, so we choose to ignore them and the information they contain.But if this repression becomes a habit, we lose the informational value of our feelings.

So at other times we have to allow ourselves to experience a feeling, even to welcome the feeling, whether it be unexpected, unwelcome, or unpleasant.If we choose not to experience this feeling, we waste a lot of energy.Imagine what would happen if we mourned a dear friend and tried to suppress our grief?I'm afraid this suppression won't work.

2.fusion of emotions

Feeling bad can be a good thing, and feeling good can be a bad thing—it all depends on the circumstances, the people involved, and your goals.Sometimes it's good to stay in an unhappy mood; other times it's more important to pick yourself up quickly and become happy or neutral.Aristotle once said: "Anyone can be suddenly angry - it is easy. But to be angry at the right person, in the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way It's not easy."

We need to make wise choices about our emotions.Doing so means that we must unify our feelings and thoughts in our actions, and require us to maintain a balanced and peaceful attitude towards our feelings, neither suppressing them below the surface of consciousness, nor exaggerating their importance too much.If the above two points cannot be achieved, it means that we are too rational or too impulsive, and the goal of emotional balance is rational passion.

This is not to say that we should never feel or act on strong feelings.In fact, in many cases, doing so is a very sensible choice.For example, when we feel happy, we sing and dance to celebrate, and this happiness can be expressed vividly.When a violent personal attack occurs, our feelings of anger flare up and intensify, prompting us to take action to protect ourselves from the attack.

3.change emotional gear

If you think you can't change emotional gear, then you're wrong.It's happened to everyone in real life: Feelings are intense at first, then immediately change the way you feel or behave.Example: You are yelling at a colleague or family member when the phone rings and you pick it up and say calmly, "Hello!  …"

On this basis, the skill of emotional shifting can be changed through practice.Follow the 3 steps below:
1.Imagine an emotional situation: Picture a situation in your mind where you yourself are in this emotional state.Imagine an event that interrupts the situation such as the phone ringing, the door knocking, someone calling your name, or someone walking in.

2.How did you feel when these things happened?
3.What could you have done to change your behavior at the time?
We need to keep the brain calm, there are the following steps:

1.The first step is to understand why you are angry and what is causing your emotions to go out of control:
(1) When you feel that you have no choice and no opportunity.

(2) When you are in a physical and emotional dilemma.

(3) When you are treated unfairly.

(4) When you are disappointed in yourself because you made a mistake.

(5) When something or someone stands in the way of your wishes.

(6) When you feel someone is not in line with your values, such as lying to you.

(7) Others.

2.Take Control of Your Emotions in 3 Steps
Taking just a few seconds of these critical steps can make the difference between controlling emotions and bursting into flames.These steps can help you calm down.

(1) Slow down your breathing rate, speak softly, take a deep breath and relax.

(2) Know your emotions.Are you embarrassed, offended, frightened or confused?Be aware of specific circumstances that cause you to lose control of your emotions.For example, you may become annoyed when you are sprinting to meet a deadline.

(3) Know what is really causing you to be angry.Are you sad because you were innocently accused of doing something?
Prepare a plan for dealing with angry people
Prepare a plan for dealing with someone who uses you as a punching bag.The program is a plan of action.It will be easier to control your feelings if you have a coping plan.Once you feel calm, you can use UART mode. The UART system is an effective method used to deal with wrath.

U: Understand (understand)
A: Apologize (apology)
R: Resolve the Problem
T: Take a Break (take a break)
1.understand

Listen carefully and calmly, and let the angry person talk about his feelings.Paraphrase in your own words what you think the angry person was trying to say.

2.Apologize

Most people who are angry feel they have been treated unfairly.They will be less angry after receiving a sincere apology.

3．Solve the problem

Do your best to solve the problem.If you can't fix it right away, please explain what you can do and when you will be able to fix the problem completely.Most of the time, people's anger evaporates in this type of conversation.If they're still angry and you're starting to feel your emotions are spiraling out of control, take the next step.

4.take a break

It's time to take a break if you sense that one or more of the following is about to happen:

(1) Emotions become dangerous.

(2) You are about to say something you regret.

(3) The other party started to yell, his face flushed.

(4) Nothing you say or do is of any use.

(5) Your or the other person's emotions are getting out of control.

Rest periods can vary from 5 minutes to 24 hours and can be anywhere.You could say something like, "I need a few minutes to confirm something. Let's both take a few minutes to think about it. Can we talk in 15 minutes?"

When the inevitable arises, the emotionally intelligent person confronts his denyer positively.If you approach a negative person in your life in a positive and objective way, you will help him understand how his actions affect others as well as his own career success.Preparing a set of methods in advance will make this kind of confrontation more effective.This approach should include an objective description of the person's behavior and an honest explanation of how his behavior affected your feelings.

Imagine Jerimi is a denier and a member of your project team.He often complained that nothing was as it should be, and was critical of any improvement.He was very dissatisfied with his job and his attitude affected the rest of the team.

The following is a set of possible solutions.

1.Give Yourself a Positive Creed
Example: "I was able to talk to Jerimi about his negative attitude and how it affected me."

2.Describe Jerimi's behavior objectively.

Example: "When we propose a solution, why would it not work?"

3.Describe how his negative attitude affects you

Example: "I'm distressed that we're not spending enough time on how to make the project work. Instead, we're spending time analyzing what's wrong with the solution."

4.If the person's negative behavior doesn't change, tell him what you're going to do

For example: "If you keep doing this, I'll let you know how I feel. And, I'll get the job done without your involvement."

5.keep your promise

If the stress persists for an extended period of time, the body becomes physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted.Chronic stress interferes with the brain's focus and logic.This makes it harder to deal with angry co-workers, frustrated clients, and bosses who are always calling the shots.When you are physically and mentally healthy, or building up your personal energy, you can effectively deal with stress in both ways.

The energy source creates feel-good chemicals in your brain (endocrine).These chemicals lift your mood and make you feel good.

(1) Energy source l: exercise

Exercise increases your heart rate and breathing rate and can make you sweat.Many health experts recommend being active for 20 to 40 minutes a day, three to five times a week.Even a small amount of activity is helpful, and activity becomes increasingly important with age.An effective exercise plan might be five easy half-hour walks a week.

(2) Energy Source 2: Laughing

A sense of humor is important to you and to others.Do you laugh out loud at plays, movies or jokes?Laughter can increase heart rate, speed up breathing, and increase endocrine hormones in the brain.Be careful not to make fun of others, but join them in finding joy in everyday events.

(3) Energy source 3: concern

Caring is positive emotional contact with another person.Positive emotional contact involves giving or receiving support, encouragement, and helping others.Giving love and care creates feel-good chemicals in the brain that benefit both the giver and receiver.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand your own emotions, empathize with the feelings of others, and manage your emotions in order to improve your own life.Emotional intelligence involves many things, but it mainly includes 5 aspects:
1.Self-awareness: The ability to understand one's own moods, emotions, needs and their impact on others.Self-awareness also includes the ability to use your intuition to make decisions that will make you happy in your life.

2.Self-control: the ability to control impulses, eliminate anxiety, and control anger within a reasonable range.People with high self-control ability can effectively control excessive temper tantrums when the situation does not develop according to plan, so as to avoid unnecessary losses.People with poor emotional self-control often fail to succeed in their careers.

3.Self-motivation: The ability to find joy in work, not just work for money and status.Self-motivation tends to include good resilience, an enduring zest for life, perseverance, and optimism.

4.Empathy: The ability to respond to the nonverbal emotions of others, and also the ability to respond in response to the emotional responses of others.Empathy is important because there are many situations at work that require responding appropriately to the emotions of others.

5.Social skills: the ability to effectively network, manage, and build good relationships.

While there are many programs designed to help people improve their emotional intelligence, the earlier this ability is developed, the better for personal development.Because an important stage for the formation and development of emotional intelligence is childhood, of course people can also learn how to improve their emotional intelligence as adults.For the majority of adults, although we have lost the precious emotional intelligence development period of children, it is not too late to make up for it; as long as positive and effective methods are adopted, it is believed that individuals' emotional intelligence will be greatly improved .

We call those areas of your life that indicate a threat in your life "emotional bananas."The idea arose out of a common method of trapping monkeys in some remote parts of Asia.To catch the monkeys, hunters tie a small wicker cage to the jungle floor.The opening of the cage is so small that the monkeys can only reach in and out with their bare hands.The hunter puts one or two bananas in the cage, and when the monkey sees it, it will reach in and grab the bananas.However, when it holds a banana in its hand, its hand cannot be drawn out, so it is easy to be caught by hunters.People are no different—we cling to our emotional bananas because we feel threatened by their loss.Common contents of emotional bananas include the following:

1.The desire for status.

2.Need to be loved and respected by others.

3.The need for control.

4.The desire for recognition.

5.Avoidance of discomfort.

(Section [-] Emotional Self-Regulation

There's a song that says, "I've got to let out all the emotions inside of me," but that doesn't mean you have to do the same.After all, we have a role to play in helping us deal with our emotions because we have the capacity for self-regulation.

★The story of Tyson's emotional center short circuit
In the 1997 Heavyweight Championship, Tyson was so angry that he bit off a small piece of Holyfield's ear.This bite cost him $300 million.It was the largest fine in boxing and was deducted from his $3000 million net.In addition, he was also suspended for one year. ★
In a sense, Tyson was also a victim of a short circuit in the brain's alarm center.The brain's alarm circuit is located in the primitive emotional brain, a chain of neural tissue surrounding the brainstem known as the limbic system.It plays a key role in getting us to "move fast" when entering a state of emotional emergency.

Let's take a look at the physiological principle that produces a short circuit.

The prefrontal lobe of the brain is the executive center and is directly connected to the amygdala via neural highways.The neural network between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex acts as an alarm for the brain. This structure has been of great value to human survival during the millions of years of human evolution.

The amygdala is the brain's emotional memory bank, housing all our feelings of victory and defeat, hope, worry, righteous anger, frustration, and more.It uses these stored memories as sentinels, scanning all incoming information - what we see and hear moment by moment - and matches these occurrences with stored templates of our past experiences to assess the information as a threat, Or opportunity.

As far as Tyson is concerned, he believes Holyfield did the same in the title fight eight months ago.Holyfield once butted him on the head, making him so angry that he will never forget it.That time, when Tyson lost, he was very dissatisfied and made a big fuss.The next ending is that Tyson's amygdala short-circuited this time, and his instantaneous reaction led to disastrous consequences.

During evolution, the amygdala most likely used its memory templates to deal with survival-related questions such as "Am I going to sit here? Can I escape?"To answer such questions, one must have a keen sense of the situation at the time and act immediately and without thinking.To stop what you are doing, to think slowly, and to react will only lead to disaster.

The brain's emergency response still follows the ancient strategy of enhancing sensory acuity, shutting down complex thinking, and triggering mechanical and automatic responses.Despite the glaring flaws that this mode of response may have in modern life, the brain still goes its own way.

When the stress is driving us crazy, of course things can really suck, or at least be quite annoying.When stress comes one after another, it's no longer simply accumulating.At this time, the pressure that people feel is multiplied.As a result, each added stress becomes more unbearable, "adding a straw will break the camel's back", and we are on the verge of collapse.This is a vivid illustration of why small troubles that you usually don't care about suddenly become a situation of overwhelming stress.

(End of this chapter)