From the author: Emotions permeate our entire life, add bright colors to it and perform many functions. Emotions are signals given by the body, which are useful to learn to understand and use to your advantage. Especially when the emotion and its intensity do not correspond to the events that caused it. The article was published on February 14, 2010 on the website and also in the magazine “I am the first,” No. 3, 2010 Emotions permeate our entire life, bring bright colors to it and perform many functions. Thus, a feeling of joy indicates a state of harmony, the correspondence of what is happening to our desires or expectations. When we experience joy, we feel increased energy, inspiration, and perceive our surroundings more optimistically. The feeling of fear can constrain, lead to a state of apathy, or, conversely, signaling danger, give a surge of adrenaline, allowing you to cope with the danger and, if necessary, escape from the pursuer. Emotions are signals given by our body, which are very useful to learn to understand and use profitably for yourself. Perhaps someone will object, what do you mean with benefit for yourself? After all, emotions are our individuality, I live and, therefore, I react and this is part of me. But the wind is also a natural phenomenon, which, with the help of windmills and other structures, man has learned to use for his own benefit. And the wind has not ceased to be wind, and nature has no claims. Psychologists and physiologists have devoted many fundamental articles and books to the topic of emotions. Emotions and characteristics of manifestations occupy the focus of attention in many systems of psychotherapeutic work. And I would like to share some of my observations. This will help people who do not have a psychological education, but who strive to harmonize their lives, understand what is happening. So, emotions are the reaction of our psyche to what is happening. Our media provide many signals received through the organs of vision, hearing, smell, tactile sensations, etc. about what is happening around and inside the body. And our brain, analyzing the information, identifying it with existing experience, sends a response signal - a certain emotion. And it, in turn, is associated for our body with a certain set of actions, behavioral and speech manifestations, which can be conditionally classified as positive, neutral or negative. The first stage of mastering the “language” of emotions is fixing our emotional states and determining the emotional states of others and people significant to you. It is important to learn not only to identify emotional states, but also to record their changes. The ability to notice changes in mood will provide a lot of important information about what is happening to a person. Thus, we can expand our understanding of him, the peculiarities of his perception and attitude towards us. For example, there is a one-year-old child in the room, his mother comes in, and the child begins to smile and make sounds welcoming her. What happened in the moment preceding the change in his behavior? The child sees his mother, recognizes her externally, by smell, “reads” her facial expression and mood, his brain scrolls through the existing experience of relationships with her. Based on his emotional reaction, one can determine that his mother is a positive object for him. Thus, a mother who is attentive to the reactions of her infant child, by his external manifestations, unmistakably determines the moment when he needs to be put on the potty. And in this situation, the benefit is obvious: at least less laundry has to be washed. Another situation. In the evening, a family with a three-year-old child receives guests. Guests discuss various events and share memories. While communicating with the child, one of the guests began to sing a well-known lullaby. Unexpectedly for the guests, the child began to cry. The reason for the tears became clear after the father said and tried to calm the child down: “Don’t cry, it’s not time for you to sleep yet. Auntie just loves this song.” Thus, the lullaby sounded for the child as a “signal” about the end of his communication andgetting ready for bed. The reason for his disorder remains not fully clear: whether it is a reluctance to leave the company and deprive of the attention of friendly adults, or the sleep procedure involves his solitude in another room, twilight, or something else that causes his distress. Establishing the true reasons for the emotional reaction to various events require experience, knowledge and skill. But if a person pays attention to his emotional states and strives to restore the causes independently or with the help of a specialist, he gains contact with his “I” and becomes more harmonious in the manifestation of his emotions. A similar procedure for “establishing a connection” between an emotion and the true cause of its occurrence is basis in the process of psychological counseling. Its development and use in everyday life is useful for everyone and opens up enormous possibilities. This is the second stage of mastering your emotional states. Let's look at an example. A young woman came for consultation who was saddened by the deterioration of her relationship with her husband. In her opinion, the reason was that her husband stopped loving her or did not love her enough. I asked you to remember some of the situations in which this manifested itself. It was important to establish “how”, “by what criteria” a woman learns about her husband’s insufficient love and to establish the real source of the problem. During the session, it turned out that whenever a woman begins to express her feelings violently, her husband begins to worry and asks her “not to play around.” After which the woman’s mood deteriorates, a surge of joyful emotions gives way to grief, and then sadness. At the same time, the husband receives a change in his wife’s behavior, whose violent manifestation of emotions he cannot cope with. But he doesn’t pay attention to her mood swings. And even more so, he has no idea about the importance of what is happening for their relationship. When working with the restoration of an individual history of the meaning of the word “don’t indulge,” the woman realized that permission to indulge and the desire to indulge are for her one of the criteria for showing love. It was formed in childhood as a result of interaction with her father, whose love she had no doubt: her father allowed her everything and allowed her to indulge! A similar fact of father’s love was “recorded” by my mother in a conversation with a friend: “My husband loves his daughter incredibly. He allows her to do whatever she wants and pampers her.” The overlay of the phrase of a significant person, the feelings and manifestations of the father, her own feelings and manifestations formed a “criterion of love” that the woman did not even know about. The prohibition on pampering her husband was a signal that “her they don’t love her, because when they love her, they allow her to indulge.” The unconscious criterion had a serious impact on her life, changing and distorting her vision of the real situation. After all, the husband loved his wife and his words rather indicated that he perceived some manifestations of his wife as pampering, without attaching importance to them. But the “criteria” for the expression of love between spouses were not agreed upon. Surely, the husband had his own experience and his own story for this word, and probably for him the meaning of the word had no connection with manifestations of love. After the session, the woman experienced great relief and joy. She shared her discovery with her husband, and he began to treat this word with greater understanding in relation to her. Subsequently, the word “indulge” lost its power and significance. And as a result of 1 session, the woman freed herself from the power of the unconscious criterion of love and realized that she was mistaken in interpreting her husband’s attitude. She understood what is important to her in showing love and how her husband shows his love towards her. So, this example illustrates the principle of a “disproportionate reaction” and the problems that it can create in people’s lives. What is the disproportion of the reaction? In this case, the word “don’t play around” caused a sharp change in emotions from joy to sadness, alienation, which became a consequence of the conclusion that the husband did not love her. The source that caused these emotions and experiences did not correspond to their intensity and the real state of affairs. Importantrealize that in a situation of experiencing “disproportionate” emotional manifestations, a person, as a rule, is captive of illusions, his conclusions often do not correspond to reality. Depending on the characteristics of his emotional make-up and personal life history, he can supplement “wrong conclusions” with new facts and find confirmation for them. A kind of “mind game” takes place. At the same time, real negative emotions arise and real problems are created in relationships with people who are significant to him. As a result of psychological “working through,” a person realizes the true reason for what is happening to him and is freed from this influence. And as a result, he increases his ability not only to realistically see and evaluate the actions of other people, but also to respond to them more adequately. If a “disproportionate reaction” often manifests itself and is accompanied by strong emotional states, it can create serious problems in life. What is the danger of the manifestation of “disproportionate” emotional reactions? Firstly, since the occurrence of disproportionate reactions is based primarily on negative situations that were not accepted person, caused him pain, then their activation also creates tension, crises and conflicts. For example, a woman in situations where, in her opinion, the dignity of a woman is insulted, reacts aggressively to the offender. Such behavior occurs in situations of communication with dominant, authoritarian men who associatively resemble her father. As a result, the reaction of relationships with him, laid down in childhood, is triggered. Such relationships with the boss can lead not only to conflicts, but also to loss of work. Secondly, with disproportionate reactions, the vision of the situation is not fully adequate. A person reacts in a way that is familiar to him in situations that vaguely remind him of what he experienced in the past. In fact, he fights with the “windmills” and “ghosts” of his past. For example, a woman does not have friendly relations with her friends and every time after a period of joy in finding something new friend, there is disappointment in him and a break in the relationship. The reason for the most painful separation, in her opinion, was an attempt to humiliate her or use friendship for selfish purposes. As it turned out, as a child she experienced the pain of her friend’s betrayal. And the circumstances of her life were associated with situations of suppression in which she had to prove her importance and the right to be herself. As a result, new friendships do not develop due to two disproportionate reactions: 1) constant doubts about the sincerity of the relationship due to the expectation of betrayal or use and 2) the need to prove one’s importance, to defend one’s position. These reactions arose and developed into conflicts, every times when her friend's behavior was reminiscent of past situations. At the same time, conflicts arose with people who feel sincere friendship and respect towards her. As a result, communication turns into periodic showdowns and accusations, which ultimately destroys friendship. Each new disappointment strengthens the existing stereotype and reduces the chances of harmonious friendships. Thirdly, negative emotions experienced for a long time and often create a general negative mood, which accordingly attracts similar situations. Also, negative emotions deplete strength, create energy blockages that slow down or block the normal movement of energy and lead to weakening of the corresponding organ, and over time to illness. In the aura of a person who has been experiencing negative emotions for a long time (fear, resentment, anger, anger, jealousy, envy, etc.), darkening, cloudiness, clots, and inclusions of dirty colors appear. Their appearance disrupts the functioning of energy centers. And in addition to diseases, it creates distortions in the perception of reality. This is reminiscent of vision disturbances caused by dirty glass. Therefore, to change the situation, it is important to understand the reasons for their occurrence, understand the origins of the problem and