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In poker psychology, emotions are seen as symptoms of suboptimal psychological states. Alexey Exan13 has an excellent video series on psychology, which will be useful to all players, regardless of their experience and knowledge. In this article, we will consider emotions from the point of view of general psychology, namely the mechanisms of formation of negative emotions.
1. Understanding emotions in classical psychology
Emotions are a special kind of mental processes or states of a person, which are manifested in the living of any significant situations and events by an individual.
They play a crucial role in the life of every person, allow us to regulate our activities. It is emotions that determine the degree of satisfaction with life situations and are a reflection of a person's attitude to the world around them.
2. 4 components of any emotion
Any emotion you experience consists of 4 components.
Let's look at them in order.
- An experience is a reflection of a person's own psycho-emotional state. It is individual – each person lives an emotion in his own way.
- The physiological component is thebody's reaction to emerging emotions. For example, with fear, heartbeat, breathing increase, increased sweating appears.
- Muscle reactions - with anger, teeth can clench, fists can clench with force, and with anxiety, a lump forms in the throat.
- The expressive component is the expression of emotions using facial expressions, psychomotor means (bouncing, etc.) and sounds (laughter and crying, screaming, etc.).
All these components are actively included in the work both when experiencing positive emotions and negative ones. As a rule, negative emotions in life are manifested and felt much more strongly than positive ones. This is because negative experiences are more specific and volatile, less holistic.
- For example, fear occurs in an instantaneous experience, is able to stop, is felt by the whole body and sometimes has an indefinite nature of origin, a person does not understand what exactly he is afraid of.
Many psychologists say that negative emotions are vivid signals that our body needs a reset.
3. 6 main negative emotions
Let's analyze the main negative emotions and their impact on a person's personality and life.
Anxiety
Psychology defines anxiety as an experience aimed at the future and, as a rule, it is associated with a premonition of danger or failure. Any instability, disruption of the usual course of events can lead to the development of anxiety. It is this that prevents the brain from developing. Over time, anxiety develops into increased anxiety, and it leads to the formation of panic attacks in humans and significantly complicates everyday life.
Fear is
a basic and evolutionary emotion that motivates a person to avoid danger. It is important to remember that when danger is real, fear plays an important role. But often our psyche directs this emotion to imaginary situations that may not happen at all in the real world. Fear can paralyze the will, a person, even knowing that there is no danger, continues to be afraid. The human brain at the time of living with fear can hardly switch to something positive, it is set up to fight and takes a lot of strength and resources.
Anger
A protection emotional reaction is recognized as the strongest and most destructive emotion a person can experience. In a threatening situation, anger is useful because it allows you to mobilize, overcome an obstacle or danger. But, in cases where anger is excessive, a person becomes aggressive and this emotion does not help to solve the problem, but generates unnecessary conflicts and negatively affects well-being and health - sometimes leads to heart disease.
There are two types of anger:
- Explosive – aimed at others, manifested in aggressive actions, insults, etc.
- Implosive – directed at oneself, expressed in self-criticism, blaming oneself for constant failures, self-harm (mental or physical).
Resentment
A difficult emotion that occurs when experiencing unjustified expectations from someone else, sometimes from oneself. Resentment consists of anger at the one who caused you suffering and pity for yourself as the injured party. If a person often feels resentment, they tend to hide it, preventing others from thinking they are vulnerable. Resentment is a bright signal that allows you to understand that there has been a violation of psychological boundaries and a person must learn to correctly identify them for others. Failed psychological boundaries are not living your life to the fullest. Ignoring this fact and constant resentment will only lead you to constant expectations of something from others or from yourself, which will constantly be destroyed. Do you want to live your life like this?
Shame
is a form of anger towards oneself. This emotional reaction, when properly lived, gives a person the opportunity to correct, and through the recognition of a mistake, further growth and development.
Guilt The
more complex emotional response is guilt. An experience that is formed on the basis of resentment, incorrectly lived anger and other emotional reactions. Guilt is a discrepancy between ideas about oneself and one's real image. The feeling of guilt can be compared with the poison of slow action, it significantly inhibits a person, is based on negative attitudes about himself, a sense of hopelessness, since a person is a bad person for himself. The psyche thus tries to adapt to a difficult situation in order to survive it with the least damage. That is, instead of focusing on the root cause of the situation and ways to eliminate obstacles, a person thinks that nothing will work and it is not even worth trying – after all, he is the main culprit of everything that happens.
Guilt can have many causes:
- Parental prescriptions (here the feeling of guilt is passed down from generation to generation);
- Imaginary guilt about the fact of my birth (I was born at the wrong time, I was born in vain, my birth ruined the life of my parents);
- Guilt in front of all the unfortunate ones (I live too well, and someone is starving);
- Existential guilt (for not showing enough of myself, did I do the best I could in this life? Did I do the best I could for others? Sometimes these are religious issues (have I served God enough?);
- Real guilt in the past (a person could do something unpleasant for others, but could not then realize it and correct it and carries this guilt all his life);
- Guilt for constantly committed harm (a person constantly commits acts for which he blames himself, but cannot stop, for example, overeating, aggressive acts towards others).
Guilt is sometimes a very convenient emotion, with its help you can take responsibility for what is happening and continue to live according to the same scenario. Another question is, will there be a development in this scenario? But, guilt, like other emotions, has a positive side - guilt towards other people develops compassion, empathy, teaches the ability to stand in the place of someone who has been harmed. A strong sense of guilt leads to repentance, and this, according to the Christian religion, is one of the main processes leading to spiritual growth.
The main thing is not to dwell on the feeling of guilt for too long. It is necessary to realize your guilt, repent, openly admit the mistake to yourself and others, as well as develop principles (facets of personality) that will protect you from committing similar acts in the future. After all this happens, you need to reinforce your boundaries and let go of the blame for the past, as having guilt in you is the easiest way to manipulate you.
So, negative emotions with improper living are a huge load lying on the brake pedal, which prevents your train from moving forward.
If when reading this article, some emotions were about you, then their number is the volume of your work. Do not close your eyes to them, especially if they are strong enough and you have been wearing them for a long time. There are many ways to work on yourself from a psychological point of view, but the easiest and fastest is to contact a professional in this field. After all, what can be more important than being happy and holistic?
