5 steps to start living life to the fullest

What is the emotional flexibility

Emotions have evolved for millions of years in the course of evolution, they allowed early man to adequately respond to the danger.

In life, the dangers of the modern man is much less, and if we do not interfere with our emotions, they suggest to us how to act in any given situation. We understand the heart, if someone is lying, and can not explain why we do not like a man, just as we feel.

Emotional flexibility - a person's ability to respond optimally to everyday situations, not hitting in the experiences and samoedstvo and sensing trouble as a given.

Consumer culture is fueling the notion that all would be that we are not satisfied, you can fix it. Bad attitude "treat" change of partner, unproductive work turns finding specific applications for your smartphone or training courses. When we try to forcibly fix

negative thoughtsWe only further fixate on them.

Eighty percent of success - is to face in the right direction.

Woody Allen

Emotional flexibility starts with having to turn around to face him and look at your thoughts, emotions and behavior consciously and with an open mind. Let's see what steps need to be taken for this purpose.

1. Realize that were on the hook

The day we say an average of 16 000 words, but our inner voice says much more. Most of our thoughts - a powerful cocktail of estimates and judgments, fairly seasoned with emotion. And in their judgment, we can easily get hooked on soul-searching, even in fairly neutral situations.

Contact with the hook begins with the fact that you perceive your thoughts as facts.

"I can not do it. How many times have tried - does not work. " Often, these thoughts lead to the fact that you begin to avoid situations that may cause them: "I will not even try."

thinking automatism

It is human nature to typify the surrounding reality, and then act on the machine, without analyzing every decision. Hence sometimes in doubt, but if you shut the door and turn off the stove if accurately. To emerge from the autopilot, will need considerable flexibility.

For example, the psychologists asked the experimenter to observe the conversation with the person about whom Half of the group was told that he is interviewed on the job, and the other half - he was patient psychiatrist. Then the psychologists had to make a description of this person, based on his dialogue with the experimenter. Half of the group, which was given to the installation of human abnormalities noted signs of mental illness and disability. The second half of the group found the man quite balanced and normal.

People caught on the hook, see the world from a position of ready-made solutions, which do not necessarily apply in a particular situation.

The four most harmful hook

1. Think bad - the man knocks over the responsibility for their actions at the thought: "I thought it sounded silly, and so did not say anything, "" I thought that he should take the first step, and therefore nothing It is taken. "
2. "Talking Monkey" - an imaginary inner monologue about the events of the past or future, when you predict answers interlocutor and rehearse their lines. Again and again.
3. Old ideas, of which you have already grown up. You do not revise their views over the years: "I'm too stupid for this," "I'm a loser, I've always had bad luck", "My mother always said I krivorukost".
4. Excessive rightness - insist on foaming at the mouth, even in situations where it does not make any sense.

The most interesting solutions often come when we look at the problem as a rookie, fresh eyes, free of templates.

Be emotionally flexible - to be aware of and accept their emotions, while difficult and unpleasant - to learn.

Response to stress

"Zakuporschiki" ignore the problem, dig deep into the experience and try to deny feelings. repressed emotions inevitably take their and find a way out in some other situation.

You gnawing resentment against unfair treatment at work - and you are in the voice of Howl, revising a sad movie, or yell at the person close to you.

"Cheaters" hooked unpleasant experiences, can not let the situation and think back to the negative events again and again. Scroll unpleasant emotion, a person gets the illusion that taking steps to solve the problem.

In today's world, firmly established the view that in times of mental agony have to have something to do with the senses: to solve, resolve, to take control, to think positively. According to Susan, David, it is necessary to do the most obvious and simple - nothing. To take their experience and get used to them, rather than trying to get rid of them as quickly as possible.

2. Distancing itself from the experience

Distancing from the emotions allows us to develop awareness. How to share thoughts and feelings? There are several ways.

1. Keep notes about the day or the week, everything that occupies your mind and prevents move on.
2. Proceed in a familiar situation in a different way, because you do not have to constantly follow the settled a scenario that was once chosen and has long outgrown "sport is not for me", "I can not speak on the public. "
3. Turn contradictions mode, look at the problem from different angles: you both love and hate their bodies, relationships, work, the place where you live. Everything has two sides.
4. Laugh.
5. Try to look at the problem from another's point of view.
6. Call a spade a spade. If you feel that you are gnawing a thought, the Speak it: "I had an idea ...", "I feel that ...".

3. Find your inner values

If you are a long time exist on autopilot, you begin to live someone else's life, which corresponds to the values ​​is not necessarily important to you.

If you never take the time to define its values, you can spend hours surfing the Internet, watching a reality show - and to feel the inner emptiness.

Grope your values ​​will help matters. That to me is more important than anything else? I want to do in life? What kind of relationship I want to be? What situations most of all gives me energy?

In some cases, you may find that you are torn between two values ​​that are exactly yours. For example, an interesting project at work and a family favorite. Justify your choice you will not be so, which option in the current situation is better, but the fact that now it is necessary to prefer one to another.

When we know our values, we become more flexible and open.

Fidelity unrealistic or harmful goals, which are often dictated by the emotions - the cause of much suffering and lost opportunities.

Goals and values ​​are subject to change - and that's okay!

Many years of holding on to outdated attitudes or unloved work. These people are afraid to admit they were wrong when they choose, or that they have already outgrown that purpose. Let go of old scripts that prevent you from changing.

If we understand that to solve the problem can only be radically changed their way of life, we are guaranteed a sense of despair and paralyzing fear of the unknown.

To move a big goal in small steps.

If progress towards the goals we split into small steps, the price of failure is reduced, we have almost no risk and start to move more confidently.

4. Adhere to the principle of the balance

Emotional flexibility is best stored in a balance between situations supercomplex tasks that we develop and move forward, and familiar tasks.

When we confuse safety with the fact that we are familiar with and understand our options are limited. Leave the zone of stability - so to disclose their full potential.

Proactive. Take responsibility for your life, career, relationships with people.

Do not deny the fear. This is what drives us forward. Be brave - do not mean nothing to fear, it means to move forward, no matter how terrible.

5. accept yourself

Do not aspire to the ideal, such people exist only on the covers of magazines and in Instagram. You just as you are, with all their emotions, positive and negative, experiences and ideals.

There is a misconception that in order to stay on the horse, you can not give yourself indulgences. However, those who are comfortable with failure, are more motivated to achieve success, as it is not afraid to stumble.

Learn to accept yourself and to sympathize with myself.

Think of yourself as a child. You do not chose a parent character or figure, the economic situation in the country and the family's financial situation. All this was not the result of your efforts, it was all by itself. As a child, you used to the maximum only that you have acted in the circumstances - and managed.

Now imagine that a child that you once were, runs to you in tears. It is unlikely that you will laugh at his fears, say that he was warned and that he is guilty. Most likely, you hug him and calm down. To yourself an adult should be treated with the same compassion.

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If you want to learn how to live in the present, not floating away into the sky-high dreams about the future and are not tormented by regrets about the past failures, we recommend you read the book "Emotional flexibility."

Susan David cites numerous examples from his practice in which you are sure to know yourself, and tell me how to act in a given situation more constructively.

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