Theory of emotional relativity. Practical guide to the development of awareness and emotional intelligence

It is important to ask yourself for:

What can I do useful right now?What steps can I take to achieve my goal?

Therefore, it is important to have these goals. When you begin to act, you spend your mobilized body, you spend your internal resources in the direction of your goals; otherwise they are simply burned at the hormonal level inside you and bring discomfort.

So, a healthy strategy of processing fear:

Step 1. We notice the expression of fear at a low intensity

As soon as the shoulders tightened, and tension appeared in the stomach, we immediately say to ourselves:

I have started to worry now, what am I afraid of?

It is necessary to list all the possible dangers that come to your mind.

Step 2. Explore which of these fears are real

We remove all unrealistic fears that are wound up by our mind and cannot happen, we leave only what really can happen.

How real are these dangers?What is the percentage of probabilitythat this is exactly what will happen?

Fear is often inadequate to the current situation, but it is an echo of some system dynamics or some previous experience. We must check the correspondence to the current moment. If you usually discover a real fear that concerns what is happening to you right now, the body begins to relax. After all, emotions are lights which task is to warn. And when the emotion does its work, it begins to leave. That is why it is said that awareness of emotions in the current moment is one of the first steps to manage your state. It is often enough to take only this step.

Step 3. We make a resource calculation

How many resources do I have nowin order to cope with this situation?

Resources are material and immaterial, internal and external. The amount of material resources affects our psychological state.

For example, I need to move to another city, I worry about how to do this. We calculate the resources:

• I have a car

• I have some petrol

• I know the way

• who can I ask for helping me to load heavy things? Will I find these people among friends or hire anyone for money?

If you calculated resources, made a plan, pulled up additional necessary resources, for example, support for loved ones, missing information, then you calm down and begin to treat the situation as a current task. When we set a goal and calculate the steps towards this goal, a sensation of a certain future appears and, accordingly, our peace of mind and confidence grow.

Step 4. Release tension

To release tension, you need to use the body. Hard physical work is great, especially if you need it now. For example, things for moving can be packaged right now, loaded. After the muscles of the body have worked, they naturally tend to relax. Dig something or lay a brick, do cleaning in the house.

If there is no hard work at hand, just offer yourself some physical exercises. For example, make your hands into fists, tense shoulders, abs, and then release this state sharp, relax (such an exercise is recommended even before a public speech). Another great exercise is a plank for at least a minute. After such exercises, relaxation and pleasure come. In this way, we help our body to process fear.

Step 5. Set strategic goals

What do I want in a long-term prospective?

In the example of moving, we should not think about the move itself, but about more distant future, about what it is associated with this moving. It can be housing, professional or personal questions, and goals should be set according to these questions.

You should have a prospective goal which willconnect not only with the search for securitybut will also give some development and, in the end,more calmness in your life.

If we looked into the future and set a strategic goal, it means we coped with our fears in a quality manner.

If strategic goals are set in a state of fear, self-deception will occur. In a state of fear, we are not able to focus on the future. So the first step to take is to get rid of fear. In this case it is necessary to create a more secure environment:

• make a plan;

• gather all necessary resources;

• give your body a good workout;

• set future goals in the calm state.

In the next situation, in which you will experience anxiety or fear, the long-term goal that you set will create a sense of direction and the feeling that you are managing your life, this will be your guideline.

If you act this way gradually and constantly, your future will become predicted for you and created personally by you.

Fear. Release

If a person often experiences fear, anxiety, doubts, the first thing to do is use to our strategy, which we have described.

We are scared when we believe that we lack resources, when we feel small, poor, unable to cope with the situation, with life. The more often we prove to ourselves that we are able to manage the situation and achieve goals, the more intensively we turn from a small and poor little man, first into a normal one, and then into a champion for ourselves, because we have objective results.

Release from fear is possible only throughanother need – a need for respect

If we do not set goals, and everything happens by itself in our life, we cannot estimate the result of our activity and life in general.

We cannot independently estimate ourselves, we need feedback from the outside world. And now the outside world evaluates us and reports: “Look, you’re good at this field, and you have done it perfectly, this is great,” but you cannot understand whether this is your result or not, because you didn’t set such goals.

We need goals to cultivate self-respect

Setting a goal, taking some steps towards it and achieving a result will lead to a large number of accumulated results and, of course, to self-confidence. You will have confirmation that you can, that you have resources, skills, abilities. But in this whole story, you need results.

People who focus only on the process do everything in their life with pleasure, but they have no self-respect, because there is no result of this activity. The feeling of respect “I can” creates security from the inside.

Fear. How to Help others?

If there is a person near who is in a state of anxiety or fear, the first thing we can do to help is to talk with him, so that he speaks out loud all his fears, feelings. We should draw his attention to the body and its condition gently. Ask some questions:

In relation to what things do you have such a state now?What exactly are you most afraid of?

When a person lists everything that worries him, he gradually begins to free himself from all these fears. At the same time, when you ask questions, he receives emotional support from you, and support is also a resource that satisfies the need for security. There is a feeling that he is not alone in coping with this situation, but as if we are doing it together. It also relaxes.

After a person has realized his fears, you can ask questions that are listed in the strategy for yourself:

How real are these dangers?What do you need to overcome this danger?What resources do you have?Where can you take resources that you don’t have?

You can help a person to make a plan where to get the necessary resources. And then it would be great to turn on the body: go for a walk or run, do some work in the garden together, change the position of the body to move actively. After some body activity, a person will definitely calm down.

When a person calms down, ask him the following questions:

What do you want in the distant future?What do you really want?In what way will be the problemsolved in 3—5 years?

It will allow you to start dreaming in the direction of your desired future. And if he is ready, he will be able to set real goals, the achievement of which will have criteria.

Fear. Security and Responsibility

We must always remember that fear mobilizes us, i.e. takes out all our resources, collects them so that we use them. Our responsibility is to determine life goals, the direction of development to know how to use all our forces and mobilized resources and what steps we should take.

Responsibility is a complex feeling that contains an emotion of fear. If there were no fear, we could not take decisive actions in any other way. Thanks our fears for that.

Having goals in life, of course, does not preclude the presence of fear. When scared, you are active and keep your eyes clean in search of this danger, you know where you need to throw all your strength. In this state, you can cope with any situation. If you use fear in the right direction and to the right degree – this is a successful action strategy.

If there is only fear, and there are no desired goals, then we have danger and nothing more. And wherever we go, this danger is always with us, even when we move away from it, we only see it. Is it possible to calm down with only danger in front of my eyes? It’s impossible. The quality of life will be very low, you will only move from danger to danger, because your mind is tuned to it. Why are we talking about the importance of setting goals to deal with fears?

Goal setting is a conscious redirection of attentionby the effort of the will to the regime of the goal,not a danger

And then a part of the fears leaves us, because we begin to move to the goal. A person who knows how to manage his attention controls his life.

This is deliberate work: tear off, peel off, unhook the inner gaze from danger, move it to the zone of the desired result and attach, glue, pin it there. And you begin to move there – to the desired and pleasant with ease and joy. And if suddenly some danger nevertheless arises in the way of your movement, your fear will be enough to activate forces at the right moment and put them all to achieve goals.

On the last day before passing the exam you suddenly have so much strength! Three days ago, you were not capable of such absorption of information, i.e. it is fear that makes you mobilize and prepare as well as possible in a very short period of time.

At work, when you do what you did not do before, it happens in a similar way. It is fear that activates you, pushes you to search of information, new strategies, opportunities, your abilities. And you want to do all this in order to achieve your goal. You get it naturally, because your interest lies in this plane. Fear and desire work together. Therefore, fear is a very useful emotion. If someone says: “I want to get rid of my fear,” he does not understand what he is signing up for.

The most important condition for freeingyourself from fear is setting goals and keeping yourinternal focus on the desired result

If your inner view is focused on the search for dangers, you will not see your goals by yourself, this is only conscious work.

Shame

Shame. How does it Serve?

In ancient times, people united in tribes in order to withstand external dangers. If for some reason a person was left alone, it meant death for him. That’s why for each of us it is very important to feel like a group, because the ancient part of our brain perceives the lack of belonging as a danger to life. But how do you understand that you are one of them or a stranger? How to fit in a tribe, how to become part of this group, so that it protects you and helps you to withstand external threats? It is a feeling of shame that tells us that we are doing things, for which we can be condemned, for which we can be expelled.

In the modern world, it seems that we can live outside the group, that there is no external danger. However, our brains are millions of years old, we can convince ourselves as much as we like, but there is a clear connection in our subconscious: belonging to a group is life, exclusion is death. So shame is a social emotion that is always associated with comparing yourself and other people.

We call the sense of affiliation in ordinary life – love. When we love someone, he is very close, valuable, exceptional to us, we want to devote time to him, our attention is always directed to the object of love, we want to take care of him, we are ready to sacrifice for him. Being loved is a successful strategy for life. We need to have the same attitude to ourselves in order to take care of ourselves, in order to give ourselves priority over others, in order to be happy.

Self-love is a criterion of belonging to the family

If you accept yourself, take care of yourself, pay attention to yourself, like yourself – this means that you accept your ancestors, you are a part of them, because everything that is in you has come from them. When we love ourselves, we know that we are a part of something larger, ourselves among ourselves. When we do not love ourselves, do not recognize our strong qualities, our resources, and consider ourselves insufficiently attractive, it means that we exclude ourselves from our system and look for another group, we want to be liked to this group in order to feel belonging.

If a person is often met with excessive shame, this situation means that he does not feel his belonging, does not accept some of his qualities, constantly compares himself with others and loses in this comparison. There is a good cartoon from our childhood “The Ugly Duckling”, about how a little swan suddenly, being in a bird’s yard, tried to attach itself to hens, then to ducks, to geese and nowhere felt like his own. Shame, melancholy, loneliness filled his life, danger waited for him around every corner. His life changed radically when he found his own group of swans and flew with them to distant lands. So we, having claims to our parents and family, are looking for a better place among other people, but there is no better place like your family for you. When you understand this, you begin to appreciate, a lot of strength and energy appear, and suddenly you become attractive to the whole outside world.

Ironically, the mission of shameis to take care of love

A little later we will talk about tenderness, as a criterion of belonging and communication, and shame is a criterion of disconnection. Shame reports that now you do not fit in the environment you want to fit in, now you feel that you do not meet the expectations of those observers with whom you would like to be together as one.

Thus, shame takes care of love, of communication, of belonging. The law of belonging is very important in systems. We want to receive a message from the society in which we live: “You are as you should be. You are ours. You are like us. You are with us.” If we receive this message, we feel safe, we feel accepted (we receive love), so we experience a lot of positive emotions.

But if we do not receive such a message from society, we immediately have an inner feeling that we are doing something wrong. You feel that you are a little bit different in order to fit into your important environment. It is shame that gives us such a clue.

Of course, someone can say that shame appears without people. But in fact, if you are ashamed, and there is nobody around, it means that inside your head are observers, witnesses, they are looking at you. Perhaps, the ideal you look at the imperfect you, if there is a certain image inside that you would like to match. Perhaps, you look at yourself with the eyes of your parents, with their expectations and hopes, which you would like to meet and be good, to receive love.

That is why we say that shame is a social emotion, and it is worth looking for the eyes of observers, even if it is obvious that there aren’t any witnesses around you. If there is shame, the eyes of the observers are always there.

Shame is an emotion that is generally not discussed about at all. People talk about their fears, show their anger, joy, sadness, but about shame everything is “as quite as a lamb.” We are usually silent about things that are associated with shame, we hide them, so that no one knows as much as possible. And if there are witnesses (those who know), then they must somehow be bribed or destroyed, or hidden from their eyes. As soon as witnesses disappear, shame will diminish. Because shame is a social emotion, a person who is ashamed always wants to hide his eyes, and he always feels the eyes of strangers.

Shame helps to tell us what is not worth doing, what qualities are not worth cultivating. If you cultivate qualities that are not accepted in society, it will push you away. This often happens in the first grades of the school, when children still do not have the ability to hide their feelings, they can sometimes be cruel, too forthright. At some time, society begins to give feedback about your unacceptable behavior, for example, when a child lags behind at school in comparison with other pupils, they do not want to be friends with him, even to sit down at one desk. As a result of it, important people will be further from a child, the distance between them will increase. Let’s see how it works.

Shame is formed in childhood. In the kindergarten, children first begin to be interested in their genitals, in their characteristics, and differences. Then interest arises towards each other, a self-demonstration arises: “Now, look, I have something that you don’t have”. But then comes the period of strong, bright, exaggerated constraint, when the children begin to hide from other children. When a girl, for example, gets dressed in three blouses, she needs to take off the top, and she is shy and hides behind a locker, goes to the toilet or somewhere else. In other words excessive shyness appears. For some time, the child did not know what shame was and could swim or walk naked and didn’t even think about it. But at some point the question of shyness, excessive shame, sharply arises. If you notice this behavior in your child, be calm, it is very good. This suggests that the child begins to enter the age when social instincts appear, there is a desire to fit into meaningful communities, groups and not to do what is not accepted in these groups.

For instance, there is an idea to put a carton box on a head and go to school looking like that. But you can’t do that. You know for sure what will be told: you are a stupid, narrow-minded person. You are not fitted in the group.

There are societies in which there are special norms of social behavior. Aborigines can walk only in beads on any island and this is normal for them, they are not shy. They are shy about something else, for example, going out without beads.

In situations where you do not fit in, shame comes first. Of course, then fear arises, the fear of punishment and consequences.

Shame helps us not to forget to put on a skirt or pants when you go to work, to zip up your trousers when you leave the toilet. We don’t even think about these things, because we are uncomfortable when some very personal things come out and become obvious to others.

In the same way, we estimate our skills, knowledge and character traits. We are ashamed to not know anything, we are ashamed to demonstrate qualities of character that are socially unacceptable. No matter how we want to be individuals, to be different from others, we experience a huge, sometimes unconscious desire to belong to a significant group, society as a whole, in order to receive love and protection.

Of course, if there was only shame in us, it would be difficult to cultivate individuality and go beyond certain norms. But other emotions and complex feelings: tenderness, desire, courage, determination will already be responsible for this.

Literally at the level of instincts, shame aims at observing important norms of behavior, cultivating certain qualities in ourselves, looking in a certain way in order to fit in, being a part of the group that is important to us. What is the main group? Of course, it is your family. When you do something that your loved ones do not accept, it becomes a big problem right up to the desire to exclude you from the family system. For example, to go to another country and not communicate at all, as if you don’t know each other. In such cases, the family tells: “You are not ours. You are not like us. You are a stranger now” and such messages may be heard “You are not our son now, you are not my father” and so on. Of course, no one can be expelled from the family; this can only be done at the level of consciousness, thoughts. At the level of the patrimonial system, we cannot exclude anyone, we can only think that we have done it.

We can say that shame is a social fear, because at the hormonal level, adrenaline is also produced when shame appears. It’s very difficult for people with a basic need for security to distinguish their shame from their fear. When such a person experiences shame, fear is immediately connected, and because they have the same hormonal expression, the body processes a more familiar emotion – fear. Thus, shame is disguised as fear.

Shame cannot be ignored; it is a very vivid emotion. How does shame arise in our bodies?

Shame. How does it Show up in the body?

Body. The head goes down and to the side (most often to the left). The look goes down after the head and a person looks at the left heel, as if he wants to look away as much as possible, but his legs are standing still. The body twists, as if it wants to run away and hide. The shoulders are twisted as far as possible, the chest is pressed inward as much as possible. As if a person wants to shrink to occupy a minimum amount of space. All gestures are very close to the body, hugging themselves. Hands often cover his face, he wants to hide his eyes with his hands. Sometimes we can rub our nose or scratch an eyebrow to be able to hide behind our hand. The knees and legs are soft. As we have said, a person’s cheeks turn red, this reaction almost always appears.

Hormones. At the hormonal level, adrenaline is also produced when shame appears. Under the action of adrenaline, blood rushes to the head so that a person can quickly make a decision. Under adrenaline, our face gets red in shame.

Body language. When the intensity of shame is not still high (shyness), the first thing that appears on the face is a stupid smile and the person begins to giggle. He lowers his head down and giggles. When the intensity of shame grows, the lips tighten and the person begins to prim them.

Breathing. A person holds his breath when he exhales. When exhaling, he physically becomes smaller, so he wants to exhale and hold his breath.

Look. The look goes inside, although it is physically visible that a person is looking at the floor. As shame is a social emotion, from time to time a person looks at witnesses: “How are they? Are they still there? Do they still hate me? Did they somehow change their attitude towards me? Are they gone?” It means that a glance from time to time furtively looks at the observers.

Inner sensations. The inner feelings of shame are very bright. A person feels one point – the solar plexus (the upper abdomen part between the ribs, where they begin to diverge). There is a very strong burning sensation in it, it burns there.

Direction. There is no direction either forward or backward, neither upward nor downward, the body wants to roll in place, as if a person wants to run away from himself, but you can’t run away from yourself. Like a dog who wants to catch its tail and runs in a circle. And while a person is so “running”, inside he feels a collapse, he wants to shrink to the point of the solar plexus and disappear – “go bright red with shame.”

Speech. At the moment of shame, blood rushes to the head, and then goes to the legs. So a person, as in fear, becomes speechless, his speech becomes tongue-tied, speech defects and stuttering appear, a person cannot formulate what he wants to say.