From the author: We all want our lives to have as few negative and as many positive emotions as possible. It seems that this is what happiness consists of. We all want to have as few negative and as many positive emotions in our lives as possible. It seems that this is what happiness consists of. It is unlikely that happiness can be reduced to a simple mathematical formula, where the numerator is positive emotions, and the denominator is negative. However, we can create for ourselves a life situation where positive emotions will prevail over negative ones. If you ask us to list positive emotions, we will readily name them all: joy, pleasure, enjoyment, excitement, ecstasy, etc. The same goes for negative ones : shame, sadness, despondency... We experience positive emotions when we feel good, and negative emotions when we feel bad. This scheme is familiar and understandable - like a ciliate from a scientist’s experiment, swimming away from salt water into fresh water, we try to leave a situation in which we feel bad, as negative emotions signal to us, and find ourselves in a place where we will feel good. However, life is much more complicated. than just two drops of water: with salt and fresh water. It is not always possible to leave a situation in which we feel bad. For some reason, a person continues to work in an unloved job, live with an unloved person, or even in a situation of violence. Negative emotions can already go off scale, all the sensors and indicators are screaming - get out of there, it’s bad, it’s dangerous! Sometimes a person really listens to the “instrument readings”, and sometimes... Yes, sometimes he prefers to “turn off” these very devices. Psychologists use the word “dissociation.” A person dissociates, separates his emotions from himself, ignores them. These “devices” seem to be located somewhere separate from himself. Then the psyche, in order to show the person himself that the situation needs to be changed, also involves the body, somatics. Sometimes, when analyzing the client’s psychosomatic symptoms, it becomes clear that these symptoms arise in him in certain situations in life, in certain circumstances. One of my clients, suffering from high blood pressure, told me that when she goes to her work in the morning, she feels as if a huge weight is falling on her shoulders. The most interesting thing is that she did not connect her work and hypertension. Later, when she spoke in more detail about her work, she described a lot of negative stories, we managed to “pull” out of her anger towards some colleagues, and other emotions that she suppressed, as if she separated them from herself, did not allow herself these to feel emotions, or rather, to let them into the field of consciousness. However, what to do if a person, even realizing that he feels bad at this place of work or with this person, still does not want to change his life situation, preferring an unhappy life filled with negative emotions , and even diseases that cause precisely this situation, changes. If it’s not about you, but about someone else, then nothing. This is the choice of the person himself, even if we really want to help him, to save him from suffering, this usually does not work. Our “eye-opening” to another person about his situation, he either ignores or agrees with our assessment of the situation, but throws up his hands, saying that he cannot do anything about it. But, what if we are talking about you? If you yourself feel at a certain impasse, you understand that something needs to be changed, but what and how is unclear! Or you even understand, but are afraid or have doubts. Maybe something can be changed within the situation itself? How to “desalinate” this drop of salt water? Perhaps I will gain better qualifications and work better; or will I talk to my husband again and he will change? Anything can happen. People do change, and your boss or an angry colleague may quit, and you will breathe easier at your job. But, still, what to do if you feel that something is wrong in your life,? :)