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How To Be Miserable
Human beings have a remarkable capacity to make themselves miserable, as witnessed by such events as England's exit from the World Cup. Such responses to events highlight how we can allow external events to affect our emotions and moods. And so we're not just talking about events such as a car accident, redundancy or divorce.
The World Cup was an event where an outcome didn't meet our expectations. People had created in their minds a dream (ably assisted by the media) of maybe getting to the final. When that dream was shattered they got angry and depressed. A bit like bereavement in fact, only in this case it was a different kind of loss.
As in bereavement one of the responses can be anger, of which there has been plenty. We don't like our dreams being messed with, especially when they link with our identity and feelings of self worth. And who is responsible? Those overpaid underperforming footballers of course. Our trust has been betrayed.
As anyone familiar with cognitive behaviour will tell you, to change your feelings you need to change the way you think. Events themselves do not cause emotions, but our reactions to them. Here are three ways to maintain a stable emotional state:
1. Examine your beliefs and expectations. Update them if necessary so they are realistic. They can be changed with the help of techniques such as hypnotherapy and NLP (neuro Linguistic Programming).
2. Sort out old wounds and negative past experiences. What happened is gone, over. But you may still be reacting to what is in the past (and therefore no longer exists!). Such issues can be resolved with EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), TAT ( Tapas Acupressure Technique) and hypnotherapy.
3. Cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Appreciate what you have around you. Don't wait until you lose something to finally appreciate its value.
Personal consultations are available for people who wish to change their responses to stress inducing situations. Outplacement services to support employees are provided to organisations.
Last updated: 02 July 2010