Self-control 2: How to control your emotions and destiny?

Chapter 10 Put the impulsive devil in a cage (2)
He drove me to the west coast road, opened the car window, the wet sea breeze blew in, hit my face, stuck my eyes, and at that moment I entered the illusion: the distant waves became Ferocious, tall and fast, it rushed towards the shore.At the same time, the road behind the car caved in section by section, like a scene from the end of the world.In desperation, I clenched my fist and shouted, "shit!"

Suddenly Smith stopped the car and looked at me calmly. I woke up like a dream: I was swearing again, and this time for no reason.At the same time, I also know what I should do, as Smith said: "Sometimes we need 5 minutes or 10 minutes to regain our sanity, but sometimes it only takes 7-8 seconds. We just stop for a while, stop Think about it, this does not delay the matter, and then scold them after you figure it out—or stop scolding and give each other a chance to think, wouldn't it be better?"

Emotional Self-Management Course
give yourself 8 seconds
Count: Count before opening your mouth, you can count, you can also count sheep, count to 8 seconds as much as possible.At this point, do you feel the anger go away?It's at least not as high as the first second.

Find 8 more reasons: If you still want to swear at this time, tell yourself that you can use words to attack the other party, but you need to find 8 more strong reasons.Look for it now, don't hesitate, and if you can't find it, stop the urge to curse because you just issued the rules - there is no good reason to go to war.

Think about yourself: look at the other person, look, he also looks angry, so quickly think about your own problems.What if it was your fault and the other party had no flaws at all?What if you misunderstood each other?These possibilities are high.

Reversing the consequences: You must go through the movie in your brain first, and imagine the result after you speak.He may walk away aggrieved, or he may launch a fierce counterattack.Then, you will be the focus of people's eyes.Whether you win or lose, there is no way to restore your image.

Looking for a step: Is it okay to find a step for the other party?Rather than just designing how to save face.If you can always handle disputes with this mentality, even if you are impulsive occasionally, your attitude can conquer the other party and add points to your charisma.

◎Who is manipulating behind the crazy shopping

Basically everyone has a shopping habit (except those who are obsessed with money), especially women, and some women are particularly crazy when it comes to shopping.Usually, they have more money, more leisure time, less material pressure, and are easy to accept new consumption concepts. The combination of these factors makes them synonymous with irrational consumption.

Moreover, their irrational behavior is often extremely exaggerated, and many times it is difficult for even themselves to estimate. We call these people "shopaholics".

Impulsive Spending Emotions - Is "Shopaholic" Just a Love to Spend?

In fact, most of them suffer from mental illness.Unrestrained and rational shopping is a kind of pathological possession of material, because she may not need those goods, and the "shopaholic" insists on buying them home, even if she empties her wallet.They regard shopping malls and supermarkets as the places they must go to every day, just like they need to lie in bed and sleep every day. If they don’t buy anything for a day, they will feel very empty.

There is a girl in Wenzhou whose mistakes are unforgivable.Because her boyfriend worked overtime and couldn't spare time to celebrate her birthday with her, she actually spent 10,000+ in one go-isn't this their future property?Another girl, because her boyfriend confiscated her bank card during the shopping festival, frantically maxed out her credit card and bought a hundred pairs of shoes of all kinds to put in her car.

Is the slogan played by the merchants so attractive to buy?of course not.Her reason was to control her "bad" behavior of shopping in order to anger her boyfriend.

So, who is manipulating them behind the scenes?

Many psychiatrists have warned against this "shopaholic" behavior: they think it is a serious symptom of psychological deviation.According to their analysis, many female "shopaholics" like to buy things that are mostly related to their own appearance decoration, such as hats, shoes, cosmetics, gold and silver jewelry, etc.

There is nothing wrong with buying these things. If it is too much, and even a deformed shopping mentality appears, it is a quirk that endangers physical and mental health.Many women who are keen on shopping say that they bought a lot of items that are left unused at home, and they don’t use them at all or they don’t like them after using them once or twice, but they just want to buy them, and they still don’t care about them the next time they see such items. Don't hesitate to pay for them - the satisfaction of the shopping process far exceeds the results after shopping.

"I like the feeling of being surrounded by colorful wrapping paper, very satisfying."

"If I don't buy it, I feel very insecure."

"What other people have, I don't have. This is a great backwardness."

"Even if you don't buy anything, it's good to enjoy the process of swiping your card."

After the behavior of shopping is manipulated by out-of-control emotions, it will become an outlet for bad mood.Whenever I encounter problems—such as quarreling, being reprimanded by the leader, or having conflicts with colleagues, I have to spend money on things to calm down.They lack self-esteem and self-confidence, and feel empty inside. They must shop to make themselves happy and fill up the time they can't pass.

Impulsive Shopping Spree - Three Stimuli

emptiness
"Shopaholics" are usually those who are mentally lonely and damaged physically and mentally, such as single women who have lost their love, housewives, and fashion beauty lovers.These people are spiritually empty and urgently need social approval without shortcuts. They will rely on shopping sprees to solve their spiritual emptiness.In addition, the current credit card consumption model is popular all over the world, which has also contributed to the development of their "illness".

emotional vulnerability
At the same time, more and more products have begun to make a big fuss about how to show the charm of women, and marketing has become more clever, direct and effective.Some people who are emotionally fragile, fond of fantasy, and more romantic will be moved by the symbolic meaning of these commodities.Therefore, they inadvertently pay special attention to these products, so as to purchase a large number of items that can beautify their image for social activities and other occasions at any time.Such as handbags, necklaces, perfumes, some special symbols and so on.

slave of the senses

Some advertisements set up in shopping halls and the screens and audios played will cause a strong sensory impact. Most women who like shopping often cannot withstand the temptation, triggering their urge to shop wildly.

However, unrestrained shopping will not make people happy forever, but will cause great pain after the happiness expires.One of my company employees, O'Malley, once had a period of consumption to make up for happiness. She lost her love during that time, in order to let herself completely forget about that man—to be precise, the pain of missing was too strong. O'Malley chose to spend all her money.After the monthly salary arrives, she spends it all within three days, leaving only the living expenses of the current month.

She made a consumption list for herself, densely filled with the things she bought in 3 months:

Mobile phones: 6, 4 are lying in the drawer every day, never looked at;
Jeans: 21 pairs, she only wore 2 pairs later, and gave away the other 19 pairs;
Cosmetics: as many as 35 kinds, a total of 97 bottles and cans. She decided to throw them away less than a month after buying them, because they were not suitable for her skin.

Others include 13 cards, 2 laptops, 19 books, 3 hair dryers, 62 tops, 18 skirts, 28 pairs of socks, 6 portable tables (all will be given away later), 3 coffee pots, and hangers 14, 30 pieces of underwear... There are 12 full pages in the back.

O'Malley said: "I was really a fool at that time, but there is no medicine that works for fools. Now if someone is still addicted to online shopping every day, or spends money when he is upset, she will regret it so much that she will kill herself in the future. Because it has nothing to do with taste in life, it has to do with our ability to control our emotions."

"Taste" is often a shield for people-"I have money, I love shopping, that's it, this is my way of life! You don't like shopping because you have no money, you are jealous of me, you are looking up to me, that's why Denigrate me!" Sounds legitimate and impeccable, but what if 2/3 of what a person buys is useless?Such irrational behavior must require reflection.

If we want to correct the behavior of "crazy shopping", we first need to correct it psychologically. We must cultivate an inner sense of normalcy, build a sense of fulfillment in life, enjoy work instead of relying on shopping for enrichment, and improve self-confidence in the face of various situations. .Only in this way can the "emotional disease" of impulse shopping be cured.

Emotional Self-Management Course
reverse thinking

Shift your focus: You must first change your focus, find another meaningful and more exciting life in your life, to attract your subconscious emotional needs, invest all your abilities on it, and then shift Open the wrong release channel.The premise is that you must be fully aware of the need to do so, rather than just trying briefly, and then continue to return to the impulsive "cage" and smash everything in it.

Reverse thinking: Suppose, if you really can't control it, or don't want to control it at all, what will happen to your life?With unrestricted demands, you could find your family bankrupt, or lose your job and the trust of others.This is the bad consequence that you see in reverse thinking, and then you know what to do.

Alternative strategies: do other meaningless things, or do other less harmful but equally uncontrollable behaviors to achieve impulsive compensation, divert the brain's attention, and release impulsive emotions on a relatively acceptable platform. Temporarily avoid the reality of contradictions.This can only be used briefly, in the end you still have to face your true heart.

◎The lethality of "trivial skin"
From the perspective of classical aesthetics, only tragedy can create a more infectious hero. In this regard, there are a lot of shaping in literary works all over the world.It seems plausible that the impulsive person feels tragic all around him when he acts impulsively, so he sees himself as the hero—"My impulsiveness is an act of justice!"

Why do you say that?
You can observe people who are on impulse.They quarrel with others and make their point, like monologues in a play; they get angry, slam doors, kick over chairs, get short of breath, and roll their chests up and down, which is the action in a play.The process of these impulsive behaviors makes them feel like they are putting on a drama.

"How heroic I am, I'm alone, I'm defending something!" But for his real life, this can only be a complete tragedy.Only when he calmed down could he realize the result.

(End of this chapter)