Emotion management cards

The core function of emotion management cards has never been to help you completely eliminate negative emotions, but to provide you with the lowest-cost "emotional pause handler" when your mind goes blank when emotions arise. There is no need to practice meditation for three months or write thousands of words of emotion diaries. Ordinary people can nip 80% of meaningless emotional internal friction in the bud by spending 2 weeks developing the habit of taking out cards.

The first time I used this thing was last year when the demand for product docking was almost overwhelming. The other party changed the third version of the requirements document in succession, and finally scratched his head and said, "I don't know what the boss wants, you can just publish two more versions and we can try it." My knuckles holding the mouse turned white at that time, and my fingertips touched the emotion card I bought two days ago in my pocket, and took it out. When I came out and took a quick look, I happened to see "irritability: rapid heartbeat, tense muscles, common triggering scenarios are meaningless repetitive work." I suddenly felt relieved at that moment - oh, I'm not targeting this person, I'm just annoyed by meaningless consumption. In the end, I didn't explode. Instead, I smiled and asked him if the boss had changed the direction temporarily. Instead, I spent 10 minutes that day to figure out the real needs, and I lost 3 days of overtime.

The emotion cards on the market now actually take two completely different routes. No one is right or wrong, and they are applicable to completely different people. One is the practical school based on CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). The cards will clearly list "emotion names - corresponding physiological reactions - common automatic thoughts - alternative ideas that can be implemented." For example, on the page corresponding to "anger", it will be written clearly what your subconscious thought "He is deliberately targeting me" is. Automatic thinking can be completely replaced by "He may not have clearly stated his needs at all." The advantage of this method is that it is quick to get results and you can get the solution at a glance. It is especially suitable for people who are usually impulsive and say harsh words and regret later. Several bad-tempered ToB salesmen around me have this method. The other school is the feeling school based on the theory of mindfulness. There is no solution for half of the sentences on the card. They can only write very specific descriptions of feelings, such as "Grief: The chest feels like a piece of cotton soaked in cold water. It is heavy, stuffy, and blocked to speak." This school's view is that "no solution is needed." "To resolve emotions, see them first and you have completed 90% of emotional management." It is more suitable for people who are used to suppressing emotions and often can't figure out why they are suddenly unhappy. There is no need to force yourself to get better immediately. Being able to accurately say what you are feeling at the moment is already a big improvement.

After using it myself, I feel that no matter how good the ready-made cards are, they are not as useful as those handwritten by myself. After all, there are dozens or hundreds of emotions listed on the cards on the market, such as "existential anxiety" and "borderline frustration". How can ordinary people encounter these every day? There are only 12 handmade cards that I encounter, all of which are high-frequency emotions that I encounter at least twice a week: irritability when changing plans to vomiting, grievances about being criticized in public by the leader, guilt after trying for a long time, anxiety about a colleague getting involved with me. On the back of each card, I write a little trick that I have tried that is really useful. For example, behind the irritation page, I write "Go to the corridor to get a cup of hot water, stand there for 30 seconds, and then come back." It works better than any general principle. The most interesting transformation I have ever seen was a girl who works as a designer. She painted her frequent emotions into small emoticons and printed them on cards. Anxiety was an orange cat with fried hair, and grievance was a rabbit with a flat mouth. They were hung on the workstation as decoration. When the boss came over, they thought they were purchased cultural and creative peripherals.

I've heard people say before that this thing is "for people with weak psychology", but I don't think that is the case at all. I was having dinner with a sales friend a while ago, and he said that he put a small handwritten note in his card holder, which said, "When a customer criticizes you, stop for 3 seconds before speaking." Last month, I relied on this sentence to avoid getting into trouble with a customer who had been picking on you for half an hour. I patiently finished the demand, and finally made an order of 200,000 yuan. I earned enough to buy a room full of cards. Oh, by the way, don’t buy a set of dozens or hundreds of pictures. It’s useless. There are only 10 high-frequency negative emotions you can encounter in a year. If you have more, you can’t remember them at all, and they take up space.

To put it bluntly, this little card is essentially a small step you leave for yourself in advance.

When you get emotional, you don't have to insist on saying, "I want to be calm and I can't get angry." You don't have to force yourself to digest all the negative feelings immediately. Just take them out and glance at them, oh, that's how I feel now. That's enough.

After all, the first step in emotional management is never to control, but to see.