Understand and control your emotions for success in human relations

We know that emotions play an important role in all aspects of our lives. Not only because they affect our overall happiness and well-being, but also because they can determine and change the dimensions of our relationships with other people. The advice "Understand and control your emotions for success in human relationships" is very valid. But how can we do this? 

Being able to understand and control our emotions is a process that affects our relationships with other people. For example, individuals who constantly display negative emotions for no reason tend to have fewer friends and are more reluctant to communicate with others. This inability to control emotions can put your career and health at risk, as well as your relationships with others.

Anger is just one of our potentially destructive emotions. There are other, more subtle but equally powerful emotions that affect us and our relationships. Take, for example, your vague feeling of "dislike" towards someone.  You find it hard to explain why you don't like that person or what is bothering you. But deep down you know that something about that person is bad and boring.

In such a situation, you can start by asking yourself whether this is really about that person or about something else that that person reminds you of. As Freud explained in his psychoanalytic writings, in our interpersonal relationships we often "redirect emotions", that is, we transference. Through the process of transference, we can actually transfer the emotions we feel for another person to other individuals. We can even allow our emotions to be transferred in this way just because they have similar physical characteristics.

Our feelings of jealousy can be subject to similar transference. For example, an acquaintance of yours has achieved something that you would want to achieve and you feel a strong anger and hurt inside. You are not normally this kind of person and you are quite happy with what you have. At this point, if you question why you are harboring this emotion, you may realize that it is again an attributed emotion and that the facial and body features of the person you are jealous of resemble those of your older sister, who was the pride of the family when you were a child by always getting high grades. We can also make strange transference for other behavioral or emotional reasons besides physical resemblance.

Understanding countertransference can really help us to make our social relationships healthier. Let's think again about the "successful acquaintance" figure from earlier: You're jealous of someone in your environment and you've thought long and hard, but you can't find anyone that that person could have reminded you of. So there is no transference in your emotional process.

The jealousy you feel is only due to the annoying behavior of the other person. In fact, most people feel the same way about that individual as you do. In this case, if you are close to him/her, you may want to take him/her aside and give him/her some advice, and if you are far away, you can continue to stay away and be more careful not to be like him/her when you achieve a similar success, who exalts himself/herself and annoys people.

Worry and fear are other negative emotions that reduce the quality of life. One of the most common is to jump to the worst possible scenario in a situation. For example, a close relative has been in an accident and you can't stay positive while they are receiving treatment.

You can't stop thinking about the worst-case scenario, that he or she could be permanently disabled or worse. Or you are going to start a new hobby, but the only thing you can visualize about it is that you will fail in this new endeavor. So you don't want to try and give up. You realize that these negative thoughts are not rational, but this realization does not lessen their impact on you.

It is not always easy to do this kind of work on your own. But by practicing constructive self-talk, you can make significant progress. Once you start to feel a little bit better and feel that you can deal with at least some of these negative thoughts, you can move forward step by step, tackling a little bit more challenge at a time with your improved state of mind.

It's important to note that challenging emotions have their value, and a life without anxiety, fear, anger can be extremely boring. The important thing is to find the balance between all the emotions in our lives. If you use your emotional reactions as a tool to achieve a better understanding and acceptance of yourself, you can grow stronger and stronger day by day.