Handling Negative Emotions - NLP Psychotherapy

by siqi7649 on 2011-07-12 14:00:00

Whenever I think of emotions, I always find them particularly interesting. Sometimes we inexplicably get upset, or even cleverly feel that we are the most pitiful people in the world. Faced with the pressures of life, work, and various other aspects, it is easy to fall into negative emotions, complaining about life, parents, and everyone around us. Therefore, adjusting our emotions to maintain a good mindset is very important. So every time something unpleasant happens, I always keep telling myself, "A happy day is one day, an unhappy day is also one day!" Today, I found a great article on the website teaching us how to overcome our negative emotions, and I want to share it with everyone.

Emotions themselves have no distinction between good and bad. Emotions are like all things in the world, and should be judged by whether they contribute to the success and happiness of life. This result determines whether an emotional state is good or bad.

Traditionally, we think some emotions are bad, such as anger and sadness, which we call negative emotions. Thus, there are positive (good) emotions and negative (bad) emotions in the world.

Some people, unable to bear the emotional torment due to excessive pressure, learn to "numb their feelings," meaning they no longer respond emotionally to events in the same way.

This is a defense mechanism, and short-term it's not a problem. However, if it continues long-term, it can greatly harm the person.

In fact, when a person reduces the intensity of their response to a certain emotion, they also reduce their response to all other emotions in the same way. The so-called negative emotions decrease, but positive emotions decrease equally, just like the pendulum effect (Pendulum Effect) shown in the diagram.

When scolded by others, this person becomes "emotionally numb" and does not feel as angry as before; watching the movie "Titanic," he doesn't feel as moved as others do. "Why cry? It's just a movie, NLP!" At the same time, for a joke, he wouldn't find it funny: "Why laugh? It's just a joke." Bad things won't hurt him, and good things won't make him happy, joyful, satisfied, or proud!

In fact, this person has learned to become numb to their emotional intensity, shrinking until if this person continues to "make themselves numb," eventually they will reach only point C in the diagram.

At this point, nothing will make him sad or happy, and he will have no feeling towards anything. He has become a walking animal!

Over time, daily life becomes monotonous and boring. One day, he wakes up and asks himself, "What is the meaning of life? Is the daily struggle just to continue this joyless existence?"

Feelings are not only the source of emotions but also where our abilities lie: every kind of inner ability, such as confidence, excitement, calmness, sense of humor, creativity, is merely a feeling within us. Analysis and judgment of events also require feelings. Phrases like "not knowing the measure" or "not knowing the weight" all indicate insufficient feelings. Memory and learning also require participation of feelings. It is clear how important feelings are in life!

What should we do? Contrary to that person, we should try to maximize our emotional intensity. In this way, every day, every event brings us joy, satisfaction, pride, and confidence, which we fully experience and reach the peak, filling our hearts with the meaning and joy of life.

Occasionally, an event might bring us negative emotions, though the intensity reaches its peak, but because of the daily joy and satisfaction we gain, we can endure it. Moreover, we have four types of skills to deal with "negative" emotions: elimination, dilution, utilization, and coordination.

NLP is full of such skills. We fully enjoy and completely possess "positive" emotions, and there are so many ways to handle "negative" emotions, thus controlling a successful and happy life.

A comprehensive understanding of emotional management

A person you barely know suddenly rushes forward, with a fierce face, rough actions, and vulgar language to curse at you, you would feel surprised. If he is a colleague at your workplace, you might feel angry. Suppose three minutes ago you received a phone call, a friend told you that this colleague was just diagnosed with mental illness, facing his sudden behavior, you are very likely to feel scared.

If a certain behavior causes a certain emotion, then the same behavior must cause the same emotion. The same behavior causing three different emotions proves that the source of emotions is not the behavior itself.

Then, where do emotions come from? In fact, emotions are the products of one's own beliefs, values, and rules system, rather than being determined by external people, events, or things.

Furthermore, all so-called "negative emotions" necessarily mean that part of one's own beliefs, values, and rules has been violated. If I ask you why you have emotions, your answer will include how this person should treat you, what his current behavior makes you lose or gain, and what he could have done differently in such a situation.

All these words merely point out which of your beliefs, values, and rules have been violated.

Therefore, without changing the event, just by changing our beliefs, values, and rules, the emotions brought by the event will be different. Events are often controlled by others or the environment, making them hard to change, but our own beliefs, values, and rules are under our own control. Thus, I regain control over my emotions!

As mentioned earlier, we have four types of skills to handle negative emotions: elimination, dilution, utilization, and coordination. These skills allow us not to be controlled by emotions, but to manage them actively, meaning we have the option when emotions arise. And as proven above, emotions do not come from events, meaning the same event does not necessarily lead to a specific emotion.

In today's society, many people often fall into negative emotions due to certain recurring events. Whenever a certain negative emotion arises, they are at a loss, leading to certain behaviors, which is entirely unnecessary. In the same event, we can choose different emotions; and when the same emotion arises, we can also choose to behave differently.

The knowledge of NLP not only makes us realize that this is possible, but also gives us the ability to regain control of our lives through the use of NLP techniques (my EQ course provides many such techniques).

Elimination, dilution, utilization, and coordination skills for handling emotions are only symptomatic techniques, as they can only be used when emotions appear. Like a fire extinguisher, it is only used when there is a fire. And whenever a fire extinguisher is used, something must have been burned.

Symptomatic techniques have two levels, both of which are NLP's specialties:

1. Belief, value, and rule level

Beliefs can change, but don't necessarily need to change. Beliefs can be temporarily set aside, modified, and continuously expanded and compatible. (In fact, a person's maturity is the result of their belief system expanding compatibility.) Values can be created, increased, and transferred, and rules are the easiest part to handle: just remain flexible and don't stick to one method. These skills allow us to have different emotional responses to the same event.

2. Thought processing level

How are beliefs, values, and rules established? They are produced by our thought processing mechanisms from every single life experience every day. Our thought processing mechanisms determine whether the same life experience results in belief A or belief B, and similarly, they determine which values we prioritize over others.

For example, a person born into a violent family generally tends to be violent, but there are also many people with such backgrounds who dedicate their lives to child welfare work, making such situations rare. Whether someone's words are for my benefit or intentionally against me is all decided by the beliefs, values, rules, and deeper "identity" shaped by our thought processing mechanisms.

Therefore, enhancing the thought processing mechanism is the highest and most fundamental level of solving emotional problems.

Author introduction: Li Zhongying is an outstanding expert in NLP and EQ in the Chinese-speaking world. His NLP courses are the most authoritative, systematic, and popular NLP learning courses in the Chinese-speaking region.