What feelings and experiences do you have after emotional adjustment?

For most people who have done serious emotional regulation exercises, the most intuitive feeling is not to bid farewell to negative emotions completely, but to finally no longer be dragged away by sudden emotions, and there is no need to internally consume a momentary mood swing for several days. Of course, there are also many people who have tried the wrong adjustment method, but feel that emotional adjustment is just "holding out internal injuries", which is not only useless but also makes them more uncomfortable. The difference between the two experiences is actually whether the adjustment method is correct.

I have been through this pitfall when I first came into contact with emotional regulation. At that time, I always felt that "emotional stability" meant not being angry. Last time I made an appointment with my best friend to go shopping, she temporarily overslept and made me wait in the cold wind for more than an hour. I was obviously so angry that I clenched my fists and even said with a smile when we met, "No." "It's okay, I just arrived." As a result, the more I thought about it when I got home, the more I felt aggrieved. I didn't even want to reply to her message for half a month. Only later did I realize that what I was doing was not regulating. It was emotional suppression. It is the least recommended method of regulating in psychology. It has no use at all except gathering energy to explode.

Later, as I slowly learned the ropes, I realized that emotional regulation is not about forcing yourself to "don't be angry" at all, but about catching your emotions first. Last month, I was working on the project until 3 a.m. when Party A suddenly sent a message at 9 a.m. saying that the entire direction was to be changed. Before the change, I would have dropped my mouse on the spot. I was very angry in the work group. After get off work, I would drag my friends to scold me for two hours. I was so sick that I couldn't eat for two or three days in a row. That day, I stared at the screen without replying to the message. I did box breathing for three minutes. After my heartbeat slowed down from the blistering speed, I confessed frankly, "I'm just unhappy right now. His changes didn't take into account my previous workload at all." I didn't scold myself, "What's there to be angry about?" ", wait until the emotional peak has passed, and then check with Party A about the boundaries of modifications, which ones must be changed, and which ones can be put into the next iteration. On the contrary, it is much more efficient than the previous quarrels and blame-shifting. I even bought a strawberry sundae on the way after get off work, and did not take the emotions of work home at all.

There are also friends around me who always feel "unsatisfied" when they first started practicing. They say that they used to be able to get angry in seconds when quarreling with others, but now they have to stop for two seconds, and they always feel that their anger is not vented. Some people think that emotional adjustment is to make themselves "cowardly" and they don't even dare to lose their temper. In fact, this is also a very common misunderstanding. If you really understand the logic of adjustment, you will know that it is not that you cannot lose your temper, but that you can choose whether to lose your temper. In the past, you would explode immediately when someone provoked you, regardless of whether the other person was intentional or accidental, and whether you would offend others or cause subsequent trouble after losing your temper. Now you know clearly that you are angry, and you know that if losing your temper can achieve your goal, it is completely okay to lose your temper. If it is just letting your anger go bad, you can choose a more appropriate way to deal with it. To put it bluntly, you take back the initiative.

It's quite vivid to say. In the past, you had a firecracker in your heart that would explode at the slightest touch. It would explode when someone else touched it, and you had to clean up the mess yourself. Now you have added a safety bolt to the firecracker. You have the final say when to pull it out and whether to explode it. That sense of control is really much better than losing your temper randomly. I can't always do it well now. I couldn't hold back tears when I quarreled with my mother last time, but it's much better than the cold war for a week after we quarreled. After calming down, I can talk to my mother about what I just said that made me uncomfortable, but there are a lot less conflicts. Speaking of emotional regulation, it's not a magical thing. The more you practice it, the more you'll gradually learn how to get along with your own emotions. You don't have to fight against them or be led away by them, and your overall state will become much more relaxed.