Nowadays, emotional stability has become one of the most important criteria for young people to choose a mate. But recently, there is a popular view on the Internet that real emotional management is not emotional stability, but emotional freedom (probably when you are happy, you can be happy without guilt, and when you are sad, you can also experience bad things smoothly).

For a long time, emotional stability was misunderstood as a model of "not being alarmed, being sensible, and always stable". But in the eyes of many counselors, modern people are capable of the opposite: they are not very accustomed to taking themselves out of a state of emotional stability. Emotional freedom is healthier than emotional stability.

Today, we're going to talk about emotional freedom.

Emotional freedom does not mean

想發火就發火

To know what emotional freedom really is, let's first talk about what it is not.

For emotions, everyone generally believes that it is a word forbearance, family and everything is prosperous, relying on personal patience. This kind of teaching will make everyone very depressed and bitter. Another "scary" misconception is that we can vent our emotions anytime, anywhere. The so-called "being yourself" is to do what you want and express what you feel.

Actually, this is due to misuse caused by not understanding emotions. Psychotherapy is more important for people to recognize their own inner emotions, thoughts and needs, rather than saying that they will get angry when they want to get angry in the future, completely ignoring the occasion, rules or other people's emotions, or asking relatives and friends to treat themselves like psychologists, and expecting their partners to accept them unconditionally, which is unrealistic.

Emotions are divided into different kinds, there are healthy and unhealthy. If unhealthy emotions are also vented, the situation will only get worse and the conflict will escalate. Therefore, learning to recognize your emotions is an important first step. Venting doesn't solve the problem, and it may be addictive.

2 underlying logic of emotional freedom

Speaking of which, we have to mention Emotional Focus Therapy (EFT). EFT is one of the three major schools of contemporary psychotherapy recognized by the APA.

This evidence-based psychotherapy works from the bottom up, starting with the person's physical experience and perception of emotions, and finally slowly integrating it into the perception of the mind and the narrative of trauma. So for ordinary people, to achieve emotional freedom, can EFT provide some generalizable underlying logic? Here we can talk about it in two parts:

1

Distinguish the types of emotions

Emotions can be divided into different categories, which is a big contribution from Greenberg, the founder of EFT. There are so many emotions and such complexities, first of all, you need to have knowledge and discernment before you can deal with emotions wisely.

We divide emotions into 3 categories:

Instrumental emotion is an emotion used to control others and want others to do what you want. This emotion has an interpersonal purpose and is not a real emotion. It's PUA, "crocodile tears," or the mood of a child crying because their parents won't buy a toy.

Secondary emotion, also called secondary emotion, is not the real emotion of the person, but a second emotion that develops in order to cover up the true emotion. For example, in the midst of annoyance, shame, anger, which is the real emotion? Shame, right? But what is presented is anger, because anger is more powerful, and shame is too fragile and humiliating. So, there are a lot of emotions that are masks, to cover up real feelings.

Primary emotion, also known as primary emotion, is the true response to the situation. For example, you can be sad when you lose something or a loved one, and you can get angry when you are offended. However, even if it is a primary emotion, you need to discern it: Is your reaction moderate? Or is it overkill? If moderate, it is a response that can be followed and expressed. If you overreact, it means that the incident triggered an old wound of your own. The problem is not with the person in front of you, but with the unprocessed past.

Recognize emotions first and figure yourself out. Just being able to categorize emotions will help you cope with and deal with it.

2

Stop and ask yourself: Is this a primary emotion, or is it a secondary emotion?

Many couples quarrel often without the idea. For example:

My husband had a setback at the company during the day, and when he came back from work, he needed comfort and was sad. When he came home, he saw that his wife was chasing the drama and had no time to pay attention to him, so he got angry.

The anger here is actually the so-called secondary emotion. His primary emotion is actually sadness, which is healthy. But instead of expressing sadness, he covered it up with anger. When he got angry, he ran to the kitchen and deliberately ping-pong to make a lot of noise in an attempt to get attention.

As a result, the wife also began to get angry, but behind her anger may be fear and shame: inexplicably, I don't know where to anger him again?

In fact, the real emotion of both people is not anger. One is the need to be cared for, and the other is the need to be comforted. This is actually a very normal need in a relationship, but many people don't give these things a chance to show them at all, and as long as their needs are not met, they immediately cover these vulnerable feelings with anger, so that they see anger for each other. Anger to anger, conflict escalates.

Most anger is secondary. All those who want to improve their emotional intelligence can try it first: don't follow the anger, but carefully experience, under the anger, what do you really want? When you're willing to unmask yourself emotionally and allow yourself to appear vulnerable, conflict doesn't escalate.

This technique also applies to parent-child relationships. For example, when a child comes home and you see that he is in a bad mood, you must explore what lies beneath the anger. When the TA says what the anger is, you can pay attention to the next sentence of the TA, and you will know what the real emotion of the TA is. For example, TA said: "Good luck, I only scored 95 points in today's exam, and I almost got 0 points, but I scored 0 points at the same table."

So, what are the real emotions of children? It's the shame of "I'm not good enough". What is the need of the TA behind the shame, this is something to focus on.

If you can't feel your emotions

What to do?

Many people will ask: some people have no emotions at all, how to interact with them, how to help them? In fact, we are born with emotions, and this is because in the process of growing up, we are taught and trained not to have emotions, because it is not good to have emotions.

Emotions are not a word in Chinese's daily life, and even friends may not talk much about each other. A lot of people grow up and never experience these things. Some people are very lacking in interpersonal interaction when they are young, and they are not sensitive to things such as relationships and emotions, so they are not developed. Therefore, when tears are shed, people who are not emotionally isolated should be able to feel what the tears are expressing. But for people who are emotionally isolated, they may really just not know.

There are also some people who are growing up and have been educated and trained not to have emotions, because it is not good to have emotions. For example, many people have this experience:

When I was a child, I was sad, but I knew that I couldn't cry, because crying would lead to more scolding. Because I know that crying is not good, and emotions cannot be expressed, otherwise it will be bad for myself, so I will swallow the emotions in the end. From now on, I won't even cry or get angry. In the middle of this, I experienced self-interruption, and in this self-interruption, I actually felt it, but I closed myself off. The way EFT deals with it is to go back to the situation and let the emotions come out. If you want to help TA, the most important thing is to make the other person aware that this isolation was caused by himself, and you can try to explore the source of the interrupter - since when do you need to tell yourself not to be emotional? If you have emotions, what are the bad consequences?

There is also a kind of self-interruption that is more common in mental dynamics. It's that I've experienced a lot of trauma, so much so that I have a deeper defense and automatically block out all emotions, because once there are emotions, danger will come. In psychodynamics, the counselor may use more challenging methods to break through defenses.

In short, the hardest thing for an individual, a partner, or a parent is not being self-aware, not realizing that the problem can be solved, and continuing to suffer in vain. The courage to walk into the counseling room is the first step towards change. For counselors, the most important first step is to cultivate their emotions. If you don't cultivate yourself, no matter how much knowledge and skills you learn, you won't have "internal strength", and you will only be reduced to "fists and legs".