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

4 Types of Expressing Emotions

1. Switching off. I feel, I notice what I feel, but I decide not to express this feeling as the time and place are nor suitable. And in general, emotions are bad, so I do not express them outside.

2. Ignoring. I feel, but I don’t even know how I feel. I do not recognize and block any emotion. Consciousness blocks information about the emotional state. Such people to the question “What do you feel?” always answer that everything is OK.

3. Processing. The most resource and ecological way to express emotions. We touch each stage of life cycle of emotions.

4. Reacting. The most usual way to express emotions. People around us use it very often. At the moment when the emotion was born, you wisely thought that this was not the time and place for its expression. So you tolerated and suffered. Some time passed, you moved to a different context and there you acted out this emotion, let it show. For example, you didn’t cry not at a party, but at home, expressed dissatisfaction not in the store, but in the kitchen with his family, was angry not at his colleague, but yelled at children at home. But as this process is all unconscious, we do not realize whom the emotion was actually directed to, what it tells us, we simply respond to the one who comes to hand.

The most difficult thing is to develop emotional intelligence for people who tend to forget information about their emotions, completely block it, especially if this happens from childhood, if it is already a family culture of dealing with emotions. It is not at all easy to find contact with one’s own feelings in this case, as they need to be explored from the very beginning. It is not easy, but possible! This is hard work that can only be done in a state of high awareness and a very strong contact with the body.

Welcome to the world of emotions…

Fear

Fear. How does it Serve?

Fear is a fundamental emotion, because the purpose of fear is to save life, this is its main goal. If we talk about the life value, fear is never too much, there is nothing more valuable than life.

We face fear too often, because it is primarily to take care of life. It controls our actions, if it were not there, we would not understand at all where we could stumble and fall, it would not even occur to us. And even if we stumbled and fell, we could not use this experience on a simple logical level, because this painful experience usually reminds us of fear.

Pain is some kind of harm to the body, the highest degree of pain usually leads to death. Even when we pricked a finger and got the experience of this pain, the next time we’ll be afraid a little bit of such a situation, but we feel fear. So we should think in this direction when we talk about fear, because in our brain there are ancient departments that work very quickly at the level of instincts. In these parts of the brain (the reptilian brain, the limbic system itself), very strong primitive pain-fear relationships are stored. If we are very afraid of something, it means that our ancient brain perceives the situation almost as a situation of “life and death.” And only owing to the “modern” part of the brain (cerebral cortex) we can reorient ourselves and help ourselves cope with this fear.

According to Jung approach, the most terrible fear for humanity is the abyss. On a large scale, people are afraid of death when they think of it as the abyss, after which there is nothing. Any religion gives us an understanding that there is something else beyond death, and if you believe in it, you will escape the abyss. Such knowledge allows you to feel calmer. So a person should follow a set of certain rules about what to do in order to avoid a bad scenario after life. The good purpose of religion is to create conditions for a person to live in a state of faith. In this state, a person can look at the desired future, set goals and move towards them calmly and confidently. But at the same time, when there is a certain set of rules that must be followed, a person has a fear of violation of these rules. It turns out a paradox: tools that are designed to make our life more relaxed, i.e. deliver us from fear, they also bring this fear.

 
We should be thankful to our fear that it saves our life
and gives us the cue how to avoid danger and pain.
Fear is careful of preserving our life
and protecting us against pain.
 

We all have habitual behavior, habitual emotional reactions, family scenarios of relationships with others. The habitual means the successful. Why do we declare so categorically, because at first glance our behavioral strategies very often do not lead us to a desired result?

In past experiences (in your own or in the experience of your ancestors) it was this particular pattern of behavior that was successful. It means that once such a behavior, such a position in life allowed someone to save life or allowed to continue life, which led to the birth of new family members, so this model was imprinted in ancient memory as a successful one and it doesn’t matter how much time have passed, but unconsciously you still use this model. Going beyond such behavior at a subconscious level is perceived as a threat to life. The subconscious mind tells us: “Do like that – and it will save your life.” Despite the fact that now such a behavior may not lead to where we want, we should be grateful to it, because once it has already saved a life.

In order to change the usual model of behavior, you need to make much effort, because we will need to face fear, which greatly inhibits us from giving up this strategy, identifying any other behavior as a threat to life.

For example, an attitude about money. Most of our ancestors in the post-Soviet space had money savings and material wealth, but during the political and historical events they were deprived of them, they were subjected to repression and dispossession, they suffered. This situation could not but affected the descendants. A large amount of time has passed, but now a lot of people is still, desiring material prosperity, unconsciously refusing the opportunity to earn a lot, as there is a stable model in the memory that leads to suffering or death. According to this fact, many of us have to re-learn at the level of will and awareness to withstand the discomfort (fear) that accompanies the presence of large sums of money, to save and accumulate them, despite the fact that all the time we want to waste them or get rid of them.

Everything unusual and unknown causes fear. Accordingly, the information becomes very valuable. What is around the corner? What awaits me tomorrow and the day after tomorrow? What are the prospects in this area? What do these people expect from me? What is the economic situation in the country? Information helps to calm your fear.

When we start something new, even if the business we desire, we always experience fear, because the unknown is ahead. And the more valuable the goal for us, the more fear we will experience in the process. It is human nature to exacerbate his inner state: “What will happen if it doesn’t work out?”

In order to cope with your anxiety, you always need to remember your ancient brain, this allows us to sober up a little.

 
“My life is out of danger, in reality there is no danger”
 

Yes, there are places in war in the world and bullets are whistling —this is a real danger. But there are a lot of peaceful places in the world and all the dangers are largely invented by us. The ancient man really had dangers around every corner: wild animals, bad weather, bad harvest. In the modern world, people have learned to organize their lives in such a way that we always have something to eat, where to sleep, what to wear, etc. In this sense, we have largely secured ourselves. Of course, there are and always will be those people who are still fighting for survival in the modern world.

Interestingly, people who have to survive are much braver than those who live in comfort. When you survive, you have no choice, you act on the basis of vital necessity. If you try to steal a bun in the store when you’re full, you will begin to have a lot of psychological barriers, thoughts, you will worry what others will think about you, about the consequences if you get caught. But if you haven’t eaten for 5-7-10 days, you don’t think about anything at all, you just take it and eat it right in the store, and you don’t care that they look at you, that you are being led somewhere, the most important thing you did eat.

Why do we worry so often about what others think of us? Why is it so often the fear of condemnation or “sidelong glance” stops us? In the ancient world, the affiliation and location of the tribe to which you belonged was important at the level of survival. If you are excluded “you are bad, get out”, it would be tantamount to death; to cope alone with those severe conditions was almost impossible. Relationships with society at the level of the ancient brain are issues of survival. And now the reptilian part of the brain continues to equate situations “they don’t like me” to death, seeks to avoid such situations and build its behavior, its life like everyone else.

Only a man himself, at the level of conscious work, can control his fear realizing that fear is only a familiar strategy to cope with life.

Fear. How does it Show up in the Body?

Fear is revealed brightly in our body, we should learn how to notice it.

Body. The very first reaction of the body to fear is the increase of tension in almost all the muscles of the body. The muscles of the shoulder girdle are tightened, the shoulders rise up to the ears, the body slightly deviates back and freezes. There is some muscle tonus in the arms, legs, buttocks, lower abdomen, back of the thighs. You can notice fear expression in raised, tense shoulders. At a low intensity of fear, many small movements of the fingers begin to appear: touching hair, a face, a neck, clothes, etc. Small movements are a clear marker of anxiety. In order to look confident, men often hide their hands behind their backs, but fingers keep tugging behind their backs. A person often shuffles his feet.

Hormones. Adrenaline

Body language. The micro motion “eyebrows up” lasts literally a split second at a slight intensity of fear. Horizontal wrinkles appear on the forehead, the forehead is tense. The eyes widen precisely at the moment of fear, the lips are tense, the mouth is usually horizontally stretched.

Breathing. A vivid breathing pattern appears in fear: it is very superficial, breathing fades. It seems that a person breathed some air in the form of a resource and froze not to give it away.

Look. At a low intensity of fear, when there is no obvious danger, a person searches for the source of this danger, so his eyes are running, twitching and moving sharply from object to object. When the intensity of fear is increasing, the gaze begins to slow down, stop and lose focus. When a person has a very strong fear, he seems not to see anything neither outside nor inside himself, his gaze goes to nowhere.

Inner sensations. Anxiety begins with tremor, a vibration occurs in the body, which is expressed outward through small, fussy movements. Usually in the inner sensations this is accompanied by a strong heartbeat, constriction and pulsation are felt in the abdomen. When fear is increasing, the pulsation goes inside, it accelerates so much that the body becomes immobilized. If you imagine the rotation of the wheel of a bicycle, at first you see the movement of the spokes, but with an increase in speed it seems that it stands still, you see neither movement nor details. When the intensity of fear increases, twitching movements disappear, a state of “freezing” appears, the body is like a wooden one, you do not own it.

Direction. The body slightly deviates back and freezes. There is no motion.

Speech. The voice often has a high tone, phrases become interrogative, intonation rises “yes? …”, “will we go? …”, affirmation is lost, because a person is not sure. Speech becomes fast and steel. At high intensities of fear, the tongue gets numb, a person has lost tongue. At a low intensity of fear, there are fast changes in topics and distraction is observed.

There are people who hide their fear behind their anger “I am so scared that I am angry.” This is a characteristic of counter-phobic behavior. In such cases, the voice becomes louder, but the larynx is pinched and the voice becomes loud, sharp and steel. There is fear behind such allegedly angry behavior.

 
A fearful state is an insecure state.
 

It is said that in fear a person unconsciously chooses one of the strategies: fight, flight, freeze. But that is not quite right. In order to “fight” you need to find energy somewhere. We take it from a state of anger when you find aggression in yourself in order to fight back. In order to “flight,” the movements of the body must be very fast – it is also a mixture of fear and anger.

 
Pure fear without other defense reactions is a stop
 

And then when you choose a strategy of survival, you can fight or flight. But at first you will freeze.

Fear. Processing

Fear has many names. This emotion has over 20 titles – a record among other emotions. This suggests that we very often face fear in everyday life.

It is believed that anxiety and fear are different emotions and conditions, that anxiety, unlike fear, does not imply real danger. We adhere to the opinion that anxiety and fear are not differentiated. If there is no danger in the real world, we imagine it very real within ourselves.

Doubt is fear of low intensity. When a person doubts, it means that he is in a certain state of anxiety, he looks for the right solution and is afraid to make a mistake. The more fears a person has, the more doubts he has. The doubting person does not always realize that he is now experiencing fear.

Low levels of fear: anxiety, worry. There are a lot of slangy and colloquial words for such states: (he bitches out, he pusses out, I get cold feet).

High levels of fear are horror, nightmare, panic, shock. Moreover, there is still a lot of movement in a panic, but in shock, we become paralyzed.

When moving over the scale of fear intensity, the range of movements varies from an excessive number of fussy movements to complete immobility.

Fear always signals us that our need for security is not satisfied. This need may not be satisfied right now, or we may be afraid that it will not be satisfied tomorrow, the day after tomorrow. Fear is strongly connected with our future.

When does fear appear?

When a person faces with an unknown situation, subconsciously, he calculates whether he has enough external and internal resources to cope with the current dangerous situation.

 
Fear appears when you understand
that you don’t have enough resources now
 

For example, if you meet a child in a dark alley who is trying to fight you, you won’t be afraid, it will be funny for you, you will take him by his little thin hands and lead him to his parents. Subconsciously, you have calculated the resources that you own and which are necessary in this situation. But if you have met a person who is three times taller than you and behaves aggressively, understanding on whose side the physical advantage, you will most likely regard the situation as extremely dangerous. However, if you have additional resources in the form of black belt in karate or bits in a backpack that you know how to use, the level of your fear decreases.

There are cases when you are not so knowledgeable that you cannot calculate whether you have enough resources to control the situation. Then it happens that a person feels confident and calm because of his ignorance and self-confidence. For example, a person is interviewed for a job that he has never done, he does not even know what he may not know, as a result of it he feels calm. In the same situation, a person, who does such work and knows what level of skill he needs in this area, will value his skills and knowledge more adequately and critically and, of course, worry more. The effect is “the more I know, the more I know how little I know.”

If you were invited to an interview to be headhunted to another organization, you will feel extremely confident because you have a job and a large number of resources: your immediate future is secure (you have something to eat, where to sleep, where to rest), and in this confident state you talk to people about whether they can increase your amount of resources and how many times. The level of fear will be minimal. But when you have no work, you are searching for it, there is much anxiety and fear, you are constantly estimating the amount of your resources (think about what you will eat tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, how the situation that you don’t work will affect your professional level).

Our physical condition is also a very important resource. When we didn’t get enough sleep, didn’t eat on time, our body feels bad – we have few resources. If you sleep badly, the next day you will be more anxious. If you had enough sleep you wouldn’t feel anxiety under the same conditions. We separate physiological needs from psychological ones, but when we talk about the need for security, it is important to understand that it is directly related to the amount of resources of the physical body.

After physical trainings, a person feels very calm, and if a person regularly goes in for sports, then his background condition is generally calmer, because the body is a very important resource. If you don’t eat on time, at the level of consciousness you understand well that you just don’t have time, you are busy with something. However, the subconscious mind will regard this situation differently: if you are hungry and do not eat, you have no food. And as a result, the level of anxiety increases. Due to prolonged dissatisfaction with physiological needs, you may notice that a person’s adequacy in behavior is lost. Typically, it happens to people with a leading need for security. People with other leading needs do not have such a strong connection of mood, diet and rest.

Fear. Ways to Cope

Switching off the emotional sphere. There are people who separate themselves from their emotions and live as if they don’t feel fear. If a person switches off his emotions, he agrees with himself: “There is nothing important in life to worry very much.” Accordingly, such people have no reason to really want something or to be very happy. The result is a computer mode when you logically decide what you need and what you don’t need. On the one hand, it helps you live more calmly, because you are not involved in your experiences, but at the same time your life is losing its color. In this case, a person does not understand his fears, he does not notice that he is experiencing fear, the mind blocks these states.

Phobic model of behavior. Such people feel their fears and perceive them as a trigger to give up doing anything. Even if fears are realized, they stop a person from acting. Internal doubts and thinking over all possible scenarios up to the worst, all possible negative consequences (punishments) capture the brain of such people. A lot of energy is spent on this, while the body is prostrated in fear, and actions are not born.

Counter-phobic model of behavior. Such people feel, but do not realize their fears, perceive fear as a command to action. The desired goal is to free oneself from fears that are constantly prostrating and bothering from within. If such a person is asked whether he is scared, he will always answer: “Of course not”. Subconsciously, he creates dangerous situations in his life in order to cope with them and say to himself: “I am not afraid of anything.” At the moment when it is possible to overcome fear and the first dangerous step has been taken, you experience very intense euphoria, at this very moment you feel freedom from fear, so you strive again and again to fill your life with similar events.

People with this pattern of behavior love dangerous, extreme sports. At the moments of extreme peak, hormones are produced and create a feeling of euphoria. The body perceives the unknown situation as dangerous, and throws out all the hormones just to mobilize and anesthetize as much as possible. In such situations the hormonal cocktail will consist of adrenaline, norepinephrine, endorphin, serotonin, dopamine. Thus, a model of behavior is creating “I will always overcome dangers and it will be cool”. Many people consider this type of drive as fullness and brightness of life. Not being able to appreciate other less intensive, but diverse emotions.