From the author: EQ Tools is a series of articles devoted to how to develop your own emotional competence in general and hone your emotion management skills in particular. Here you can see the starting and previous article in the series. In this article, I invite you to consider how the EQ tool described in previous articles can be transferred to your specific emotions. As examples, I propose to take the most common emotion of a modern person - irritation. The essence of the first tool is the ability to contact an emotion - to accept its existence, strength, influence on you in your life without trying to control or manage. Without assessing it as negative. Step 1. Emotional radar. Give yourself several places or situations in which you experience different forms of aggression (irritation, anger, anger, etc.). This could be communication with an employee, communication with a loved one on a certain topic, being in a traffic jam or queue and similar places. After immersing yourself in such a place, ask yourself whether you have experienced aggression in any of its forms. And if it was, your task is to say to yourself any phrase that would reflect the fact that the emotion (in itself) did not lead to catastrophic consequences: - the world is still spinning - my head is in place - my ears stick out wonderfully on my head - the surname in the passport is distinguished by enviable constancy. The essence of this exercise is for you to practically develop a calm and even attitude towards a specific chosen emotion (in our case, anger). Step 2. Behavior analysis is tracking your own behavior at the moment when you experienced an emotion (essentially, tracking exactly how the emotion affects you). What options could these be: - tore out the hair on his head - splashed with saliva - boiled like a kettle - puffed like a steam locomotive - stood in a stupor - cursed at the top of his lungs - frantically looked for a way out of the situation - tried to make up for the impression of demonstrating his emotions - blamed/ responsibility for the situation on the other person. Again, for the first EQ tool, it doesn’t matter at all what kind of behavior you chose - the important thing is that you tracked the influence of the emotion on you).Step 3. And finally, you need to assume exactly how your emotion wanted to help you. Here, it is worth clarifying that this is the most difficult thing - after all, often the answer comes as follows: “no way.” If this is what happened, that's okay - when you create your emotional map, you will have the answer to this question. For now, it is enough to focus on the fact that every emotion has some kind of positive message addressed in your direction. Next article in the series You can subscribe to my articles and blog notes here Do you want to learn how to manage your neurosis on your own? Take an online psychocorrection course individually or in a group!