Студопедия

Главная страница Случайная страница

КАТЕГОРИИ:

АвтомобилиАстрономияБиологияГеографияДом и садДругие языкиДругоеИнформатикаИсторияКультураЛитератураЛогикаМатематикаМедицинаМеталлургияМеханикаОбразованиеОхрана трудаПедагогикаПолитикаПравоПсихологияРелигияРиторикаСоциологияСпортСтроительствоТехнологияТуризмФизикаФилософияФинансыХимияЧерчениеЭкологияЭкономикаЭлектроника






Emotions and Your Actions






Finally, yet another aspect of emotions is your behavior or the things you do when you feel certain emotions. In fact, many scientists believe that emotions were put on this earth to help animals take action and do things to promote their own survival. For instance, the emotion of fear helps motivate you to avoid dangerous things, like poisonous snakes, lions, and bears. The problem, of course, is that many of the things humans are afraid of now (like public speaking, garter snakes, going outside, or feeling negative emotions) are not likely to kill us. But, fear still does have great survival value even now. If you didn’t feel any fear, for instance, you might not move fast enough to get out of the way of a truck barreling toward you as you cross the street.

Most of the other emotions also help us in many ways, even if we are not always aware of this. Sadness when you lose someone or something important to you can help you to take the time you need to soothe and care for yourself, and it can also (if you express sadness to others) get you some help and social support. Anger can motivate you to take action and change harmful situations. For instance, if the folks in Parkersburg, West Virginia, had not felt indignant or angry about the pollution of their drinking water from a huge factory nearby, they probably wouldn’t have taken any action (which resulted in a class-­action lawsuit and the cleaning up of the water system), and they would still be sipping Teflon-­related compounds with their morning coffee.

As you learn about emotion regulation skills in this chapter and in others, it’s important to remember four very important points (we reiterate here some of the important points Dr. Marsha Linehan made in her 2007 video Opposite Action: Changing Emotions You Want to Change):

· Different emotions come along with different action tendencies.

· If you change your actions, you can change your emotions.

· Emotion regulation is all about changing your behavior, your actions, and, in some cases, your thoughts.

· You can’t change your emotions by sheer force of will (if you could, you probably wouldn’t be reading this book, and we probably wouldn’t be writing it!).

Exercise 4.3 Relating Emotions to Your Actions

Using this table, write down different types of emotions that you experience, including both positive and negative emotions, and note the types of actions that often go along with these different emotions. There is an example in the table to get you started.

Emotion Name Thoughts
Anger Irritated voice tone, yelling, moving quickly, clenching fists, talking quickly and loudly
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Figure 4.1 How Emotions, Thoughts, and Actions All Influence Each Other


Поделиться с друзьями:

mylektsii.su - Мои Лекции - 2015-2024 год. (0.006 сек.)Все материалы представленные на сайте исключительно с целью ознакомления читателями и не преследуют коммерческих целей или нарушение авторских прав Пожаловаться на материал