Theory of emotional relativity. Practical guide to the development of awareness and emotional intelligence - Inna Zakharova 5 стр.

Earn respect. To feel his worth and respect for himself, a person strives to be a perfectionist, to be a super-professional in some narrow field. So that no one would even have the thought that such a person cannot be respected. I will be irreproachable and people will be forced to respect me. By definition, it is impossible not to respect him, because he only does what works. He works more than others, everything is fine, if you turn to such a person, he will always do everything clearly and on time. Everyone respects such a pronounced professionalism, even those who do not like him: I do not like this person, I will not communicate with him. But he is worth respecting him. For a person with such a strategy of behavior, the highest values are professionalism, principles, rules, discipline.

Values and Anti-values

Anti-values  this is exactly the opposite of values. If support is a value to me, then pressure will be an anti-value. Attention is a value, ignoring is an anti-value, strength  weakness.

Sometimes we find ourselves in conditions that create even more urgency in need. It is as if you want to drink and get into a dessert, where there is not even a shadow nearby, then you want to drink even more.

It also happens with psychological needs. For example, you need some attention from a person or a group of people, and instead you get complete disregard. Or you want praise, approval in order to feel your value, for this you do some work, and in return you get criticism. It turns out that in addition to the fact that you did not satisfy your need for love, you also got a greater deficit in this need.

For example, the anti-value of security is uselessness and waste of time. We are talking about situations where you, moreover, do not get the resource you were counting on, but also lose what you had. A common case: you go to an event to get a resource, for example, a weighty opinion or some new information, and when you come, you do not receive an authoritative opinion or useful information, but you spend money and your time (money and time are values from the need for security). As a result, you got uselessness and a waste of time and money, you feel no more relaxed as planned, but more anxious  the need for security has become even more urgent because you have just lost your resources.

Weakness, inability to influence, helplessness are examples of the anti-values of the need for respect. Usually we meet with them when life circumstances are irreversible or the opponent is much stronger than us.

What do we feel at the thought of a possible encounter with anti-values? Disgust. We do not want to meet our anti-values, we want to maximize the distance from them. For example, if you have a leading need for security and you have to communicate with a person whose level of knowledge is much lower than yours, most likely you will experience arrogance, which includes disgust. When information is very valuable to you (informed means warned), and a person cannot be its source, you feel a security risk because you are wasting time, instead of this conversation you could be at home and read a book, such time would be of great benefit for you.

This is called a values conflict. It can be inside one person or in the relationship of people. In such cases, we say: I dont understand how you can live like that!

That is why we want to have close people with whom well have common values from a high priority list, everything else is not so important, there is always the opportunity to come to an agreement. When something very important does not coincide, when it is a value for one partner, and it is anti-value for the other one, it is impossible to go through disgust that arises, it will be so strong and create such a great distance that you cant even start a relationship with this person.

For example, one person has a need for respect, and values of autonomy, independence are at a high level of priority, while the other one has a leading need for love, and communication, closeness is very important for him. If you dont realize these differences and do not control your feelings, then the following situation may arise: when one strives for greater intimacy, the other will move away due to the feeling that his boundaries are violated and he loses autonomy. One calls the other 5 times a day, wanting to be closer, to be initiated into all the circumstances of the others life, and the other gets angry every time, because it looks completely different for him. It seems he is controlled by your partner and has to report about your working day every time, which means that he is losing his independence.

When we face anti-values, we have not only disgust, but also other emotions. If we are talking about the need for security, when we meet the anti-values of this need (lack of money, a situation of uncertainty, pressure, any direct danger), fear always arises sharply. When we face anti-values of the need for love (ignoring, criticizing, condemning, humiliating), we feel shame. When faced anti-values of the need for respect (injustice, lack of obligation, weakness, lies, evasion, irresponsibility) a strong anger arises.

When the situation of meeting with anti-values has passed, we experience sadness or feelings that contain sorrow (resentment, guilt). It is explained by the fact that we did not get what we needed, besides we created a deficit for ourselves, made your own life even worse than it was. When we face any anti-values (pressure, ignoring, injustice, etc.), there is always the temptation to relieve ourselves of responsibility for what has happened and shift it to another person or to the situation as a whole. However, the sadness that inevitably arises in such cases always tells us: Something, that YOUve done, havent led you to the result, you havent received or even lost your value. A good understanding of yourself will be that youll understand what exactly valuable you wanted to get.

For example, you wrote an article and received a critical statement towards it: It is dull, there is nothing in it that would attract the attention of the reader. This criticism deeply hurt your heart. At the moment of this criticism, you are likely to feel shame (awkwardness), and then sadness (in its purest form or as part of resentment, guilt). What makes you so sad? What didnt you get or lose? This is a question that needs to be answered within yourself. In this example, we are talking about a person with a leading need for attention. When such a person expresses himself creatively (writes an article), he is subconsciously motivated by the satisfaction of psychological needs  to receive praise, admiration, attention. But in the end, instead of them, he receives criticism that deprives the remnants of self-love. It hurts. Realizing such things, you should rethink your motivation and set a conscious goal for writing an article. For not just getting praise as a result of writing an article, but for expressing in it what is really important to you. And then you will get satisfaction from your work, and it wont be important to you how it will be met by others. Thus, self-respect appears and when you find it, self-love will also become greater.

Three Types of Joy

1. Calmness

When we meet the values that relate to the need for security (support, knowledge, financial resources), we feel joy, it seems to confirm: You do everything right, go ahead, do it again. If it comes to security, then joy will be in the form of calm, lightness, relaxation. When you are in your fortress, there are people around who will support you, you know and possess information, there is enough money in your account  you are calm.

Three Types of Joy

1. Calmness

When we meet the values that relate to the need for security (support, knowledge, financial resources), we feel joy, it seems to confirm: You do everything right, go ahead, do it again. If it comes to security, then joy will be in the form of calm, lightness, relaxation. When you are in your fortress, there are people around who will support you, you know and possess information, there is enough money in your account  you are calm.

2. Pleasure

When we meet with values relating to the need for love (intimacy, communication, compliments, attractive appearance), we will also feel joy, but in this case it will be in the form of pleasure, enjoyment. When you look at a picture that you like, you feel pleasure, when you communicate with a person who you like, you feel enjoyment.

3. Satisfaction

When meeting with values that relate to the need for respect (strength, justice, integrity, honesty, responsibility), we feel joy in the form of satisfaction. When you see your cool results that required commitment, you feel deep satisfaction from the work done.

Lets look at the table and find out what a person with the leading need for security wants to be eager for and what he wants to get rid of.

Security

According to the list in the table, you can notice a values conflict, for example, stability and diversity, or care and freedom. Any diversity implies changes, except in situations when you, having diversity, choose the same. Care, however, implies a connection, and therefore, dependence on another person, and in this case, there can be no talk of complete freedom. There are special relationships with value rules. They are very necessary in order to understand how others should and will act, but I dont want to act according to the rules myself, as this means a lack of choice and diversity, which are also values. When there are no rules, its also bad  chaos (anti-value) arises, you dont know from whom and what to expect. It turns out that such people need rules and clear instructions, but they themselves violate them.

It turns out that a person with a leading need for security is often very controversial and indecisive, constantly doubting.

The list of values of a person with a leading need for love, acceptance, attention is given in the table below. There are practically no contradictions inside this table. With the exception of sincerity and image, often the image involves a certain embellished look. It turns out that a person with a leading need for love highly values sincerity, but does not want to show himself real.

Love

The third basic psychological need is respect. The values of a person with a leading need for respect are practically the opposite of the values of the need for love.

Respect

There are also practically no conflicts in this list, with the exception of a couple of justice and injustice. As justice is always subjective and is determined basically by systemic rules, it happens that, in an effort to restore justice, people with a leading need for respect are often not fair according to other people.

Lets remember that all three needs are important for each of us, and look at all three tables with values. You may notice multiple conflicts. For example, autonomy satisfies the need for respect, but denies communication, which is very valuable for satisfying the need for love. And the availability of options, which is so important for satisfying the need for security, means evasion and unwillingness to make decisions that do not satisfy the need for respect. Only a good understanding of yourself, clear internal priorities and conscious goals allow you to resolve these internal conflicts and find the necessary balance among your needs. There are possible value conflicts in the table below. Columns indicate needs, and rows indicate conflicts.

It turns out that we are all constantly in a state of internal conflict. To resolve this conflict, we need emotional competence. Only emotions can show us the truth about ourselves if we learn to hear and understand them.

How to Define your Values?

Anything can be valuable to you if you have an emotional response to this (phenomenon, object, creature). If you have skipped a beat inside, then you have some relation to this phenomenon, action or event. You somehow distinguished it from others. So a connection has developed between you and something, this concerns you more than anything else.

For example, you come to some event and the first thing that impresses the most you is the beauty around: God, how beautiful it is here. We conclude that you are touched by the appearance of things, style, you pay attention to beauty, which means that it is in your system of values. And most likely, if you ask yourself the question What do I feel?, the answer will be I feel pleasure, I am so pleased, comfortable, I feel good here. Accordingly  what is your need being satisfied now? For love, because everything is so beautiful.

And if at the same event you say: God, how comfortable it is, how fresh, what are comfortable sofas  this is more about comfort, about security. However there may be variations. If you are sitting on a comfortable sofa and cannot relax, then most likely there are some other factors, values and anti-values that affect your condition. But if a comfortable sofa is enough for you to relax and do what you want, most likely this indicates that you have a body psycho type and it connects to the need for respect.

Ways of defining values:

1. In order to understand your values and anti-values, you just need to observe yourself in everyday life, note what you are emotionally reacting to, what response you have to different situations.

If something feels unpleasant, you dont want it that means you have met with an anti-value, and something opposite to it will be a value.

The criteria that we rely on when choosing purchases also tell us a lot about our values. A person with a leading need for security will choose a mobile phone out of the criteria: the model should be modern, but not too modern; it must be expensive, but at a discount; it must have a certain status, but not stand out much (so as nobody will ask questions for what money it was bought, what taxes you pay, etc.). At the same time, it is important to be at a higher level when you put the phone on the table and feel support among people from whom you want to receive support. Pay attention to the conflicting values. Many functions, features, bells and whistles, time saving, additional features, bonuses  its all about security.