ABC rules of emotion management

All your emotional reactions and behavioral choices are never directly determined by the events that occur, but by your inherent perception and interpretation of the matter.

This concept was first proposed by psychologist Albert Ellis in rational emotive therapy. The three letters correspond to: triggering event (Activating event), cognitive belief (Belief), and behavioral consequence (Consequence). To take the most common life example, someone stepped on me on the subway during the morning rush hour, and the other person squeezed me away without even looking back - this is a common A. If the first thought that comes to your mind is "This person did it on purpose, he dares to pretend to be blind because he has no quality", then there is a high probability that you will have to hold your breath for the next ten minutes, and you may even have to complain to the people around you. ； But if you then think, "Maybe he was rushing to clock in more quickly than I was, and he didn't notice when he stepped on it," you will probably just lift your foot and forget about it. You should check your phone when you should, or buy breakfast when you should buy breakfast. The same thing, the emotions are very different, and the difference is all in the B in the middle.

In the past few years of working as a psychological companion, I have encountered too many people who tied the cause and effect very tightly at first sight: "I got angry because he insulted me in public" and "I wouldn't have been insomnia all night if the project hadn't failed." In essence, they skipped the belief link in the middle, directly equated the event with the emotion, and gave up all the control of the emotion.

Of course, there has been a lot of controversy over this rule over the years. Many practitioners of applied psychology say it very truthfully: when a person is emotionally overwhelmed, the amygdala directly takes over the brain, and the whole person is in a state of "amygdala hijacking". There is no time to use rational thinking to find beliefs. At this time, talking about ABC is just standing up and talking without pain.

This question resonates so much with me. When I first came into contact with this rule two years ago, I followed the rules rigidly. After explaining the truth to visitors, people rolled their eyes and said, "I was so angry that my hands were shaking, and I couldn't even remember the ABCs." Later, after practicing a lot, we figured out the trick. We don’t need to apply the formula in the moment when we are in an emotional state. We can break the action into two steps: usually, when we are free, we should pick out our common “irrational beliefs” and make a list in advance, such as “I mentioned this” "Needs must be met." "Anything that goes wrong means I'm not capable." If something really happens, don't say anything and don't make a decision. Grit your teeth and count to three. Wait for the momentum to subside a little, and then check the list to see if you have stepped on any preset pitfalls.

When I was doing EAP for an Internet company last year, I met an operations girl who was born in 1998. She failed to get a single vote in the quarterly evaluation. She hid in the fire escape and cried for almost two hours. She even wrote half of her resignation report. Her automatic thinking at that time was very smooth: "I didn't get the evaluation = the leader didn't recognize me = my ability is too poor and I don't deserve to be in the team." There were three equal signs in a row without stumbling. As a result, after checking with the department head, we found out that the evaluation was an anonymous vote by the entire department. The person in charge voted for another veteran employee who was about to transfer. The person in charge had already prepared to hand over the tens of millions of projects to her next quarter. You see, after removing the string of equal signs in the middle that she had made up in her head, the sky cleared up immediately, and that afternoon she went to revise the project proposal with her computer in hand.

Many people say that using ABC is useless. In all likelihood, B and A are confused. There is a very simple criterion here: A can only be an objective fact without subjective evaluation at all. “"He didn't reply to the message I sent for three hours" is A, and "he deliberately didn't want to talk to me" is already B. ； “"My child scored 59 points in this exam" is an A, and "He is just playful and doesn't work hard" is also a B. Too many people regard their automatic thoughts as facts that have already happened, and end up being so angry that they can't eat. As a result, either the other person left his cell phone in the taxi, or the child's class average score in this exam was only 40 points, and they got angry for no reason.

To put it bluntly, those irrational beliefs hidden in your subconscious are like the default pop-up ads secretly installed on your mobile phone. You don’t know when you clicked to agree to the installation. As soon as you encounter the corresponding triggering scene, they will pop up, directly covering your rational page. You don’t have to blame the pop-ups for popping up quickly. If you clean them a few times, you’ll know when you encounter them, and they will gradually become less annoying.

Of course, there is no need to treat this rule as an emotional bible that must be followed. When something really bad happens, you should cry or curse when you should, and you always force yourself to "be rational and adjust your cognition." This is actually another kind of irrational belief. After all, when we do emotional management, we never train ourselves to become a wooden person without emotions. We just need to understand the origin of each emotion, so that we will not be led by emotions in a daze, which will delay things even if we are in a good mood.