Self-control - what is it in psychology, how to maintain it

Self-control is the ability of the human personality to maintain composure even in emergency situations. Having control over his emotions and feelings, a person does not succumb to general panic and unrest, and does not allow himself to be deceived or offended. He always has a ready response to critical statements, he is calm when others are on the verge of hysteria, he does not give in to emotions, but focuses primarily on reason and rationality.

Definition of the concept

What is self-control? By definition in psychology, self-control is a person’s ability to maintain inner peace and emotional stability with the help of such personal qualities as determination, willpower and courage. An individual with well-developed self-control can think calmly even in critical situations, carefully controlling his own emotions and feelings.

What does it mean to lose self-control? This is a phenomenon when emotions get out of a person's control. In this case, hysteria or stupor may occur, in which the human nervous system is seriously affected.

Responsible approach

A sense of reliability is as important for the development of personality as knowledge of the rules of etiquette and behavior in a certain situation. Responsibility is precisely formed from the inner vision that everything will be fine. Few, unfortunately, are able to feel such strength within themselves. When a person takes responsibility for everything that happens to him, then in case of failure he does not look for those to blame, does not try to shift his tasks that require solutions to someone else.

Responsibility implies a conscious intention to take active steps to achieve a specific result. Self-control helps a person cope with anxiety, pull himself together, and overcome some fears and doubts. Most people, at the right moment, take their will into their fist and act, despite any difficulties.

The difference between endurance and self-control

Self-control and self-control are concepts whose psychological meaning is often identified or confused with each other.

Grit is the ability of an individual to achieve his goal regardless of the size and strength of the obstacle. A person with good self-control activates mental functions responsible for inhibiting emotions that interfere with the implementation of plans. He steadfastly endures hardship and suffering, pushing emotions into the background, ignoring and suppressing them. This is the main difference from self-control: in this process, feelings are controlled, not pushed aside.

For example, endurance allows a person to be persistent here and now, to demonstrate to others his calmness, and after the end of troubles there is a powerful release of negativity in the form of tears or aggression. With self-control, a person expresses his emotions in the process of resolving the situation, but does it adequately, for example, with the help of I-statements: I am upset, I am angry, I am tired, I am angry. At the same time, he continues to do his job, giving his emotions an outlet within decent limits.

How to learn self-control

How to develop self-control? This process includes the use of different techniques:

Ignoring external stimuli. If you plan to do a specific task, then you need to try to focus only on it, without being distracted by everything that is happening around. Street noise, an unexpected phone call, thoughts of “the wrong thing” should not prevent you from achieving your goal. You should abstract yourself from them: close the window, call back after finishing work, interrupt the flow of irrelevant thoughts and return them to the right direction.
Delaying a reaction is another way to maintain composure. Before you react violently to what is happening, stop, take a deep breath, count to ten and back. During this time, it is possible to pull yourself together and give a more adequate reaction.
Relaxation. You should spend at least 10-15 minutes a day lying quietly and focusing on your inner sensations: where is the tension? Try to relax your body completely, including facial muscles and fingers.
Deep breathing is also a self-control technique. Practice breathing evenly, calmly and deeply. In a difficult or stressful situation, when breathing becomes shallow and frequent, try to even it out - this helps you concentrate, relax, and gain time to respond.
Abstraction. This skill allows you to look at a situation from different angles before any emotional reaction is given.

The Art of Self-Control

People often ask me how to incorporate practice into daily life? The answer is relatively simple. Many people will not like this answer, but it is simple - self-control. There are two main types of self-control: first, self-control in what you do; second, self-control in the way you look, listen, smell, taste, touch, and think about things. In other words, self-control in what comes out of you and self-control in relation to what comes to you. Both of these types of self-control require remarkable skill.

Take, for example, self-control in the senses: there is a certain art in how to look and how to listen. One must look so as not to be drawn into greed, anger, or delusion. One must listen in such a way as not to be drawn into greed, anger, or delusion. And so on - in relation to each feeling. This is a certain art. You need to master it without bringing yourself to such a degree of hunger for pleasures when, having lost endurance, you suddenly realize that you are standing in front of an open refrigerator, devouring kilogram after kilogram of ice cream. One must be able to keep the mind fed even when you are starving the defilements of your mind. Relying on concentration helps to master this art. In the texts, control of the senses is often described as a precondition for concentration, but, as is often the case in the Buddha's teachings, these two qualities essentially mutually develop each other.

Try to notice when you look at something - is a lot of attention being spent on it? Are you losing your sense of body? If yes, then this is a sign that you are not looking skillfully. You need to be able to be in the body when you look and listen, and maintain a sense of the breath energy throughout the body. If you don’t succeed, this is a sign that you are either looking with the goal of forgetting about the body, that is, you are trying to be greedy, angry or deluded. Or you are simply careless - and any sight, sound, smell, taste, whatever, takes you by surprise.

This is how most people see, hear, smell, taste, touch and think. They forget about their inner center, and suddenly find themselves focused on something external, trying to get pleasure from grasping sights and sounds and then embellishing them - in order to give them more attractiveness or significance than they really are. Even if the mind is only in a slightly angry mood, a person focuses on the things that cause anger, and then can inflate and multiply it as much as he likes.

As a rule, we are good at this art. We are great at bloat. But if you view the incoming signals from the sense doors as a form of mind food—and the Buddha viewed them that way—you must ask yourself: are you preparing good food for the mind or unhealthy food? Or maybe junk food? After all, we are used to cooking this way. We think we are preparing wonderful meals, but they can make us feel unwell. Therefore, you need to learn a new way to prepare food for the mind.

Information perceived by the senses was mentioned by the Buddha as one of the four types of food for consciousness. It even embraces three of these four types: first, the contact of the senses with their objects; secondly, the intentions behind the feelings (why are you even looking at these things, listening to them?); thirdly, consciousness of the act of sensory perception. These three aspects of perception are what our mind constantly consumes.

A key skill in learning new ways to prepare this food is to pay attention to the breath, and bring the main focus of attention inward. Essentially, when attention moves inside the body, the level of the mind becomes higher. Instead of being on the sense level, the mind is on the form level, which is higher than the level of sense desires. Even if there is a desire to remain at the level of forms, this is a skillful desire, since it raises the mind to a higher level. Your happiness is no longer so dependent on external things, and then you can consider sensual pleasures, looking down on them serenely.

At the same time, you learn how to make full use of what you already have. As Ajahn Lee said, it's like learning to grow your own food instead of taking over someone else's land to grow your own crops on. Learn to develop a feeling of lightness, fullness and freshness directly in the body. Let this be your food. Try to maintain and protect this level of mind. This is the art of looking at things and listening to something, maintaining a sense of support in the body, a feeling of lightness, freshness and fullness, regardless of what is happening outside. This puts the mind on a higher level - and in a much more advantageous position.

When you control the senses in this way, you do not empty the mind. You are just learning how to treat your mind with increasingly better food, to nourish it with greater benefit, without the slightest harm. Sometimes people talk about the danger of becoming attached to jhana as if a huge monster is waiting in ambush on their path. But the dangers of jhana are relatively small. Still, it is much more dangerous to get stuck on the sensory level. If your happiness is based on a certain kind of sensual pleasure, it can lead to all sorts of misdeeds when you try to feed the mind with sights, sounds and other favorite foods. That is why murder, theft, debauchery, lies, and drunkenness are so rampant in the world. Any commandments are violated due to human attachment to sensual pleasures. You will not find anyone who kills or steals because of his attachment to jhana.

So even though it is an attachment, it is more useful. And when your happiness no longer depends on what surrounds you, other people lose some of their power over you. This power is so noticeable in the modern world. Those who want to influence need only wave a red flag: “There is danger there!” Terrorists! They can harm us! We must go to any lengths to stop them!” This is what they convince us of. And if the mind feeds only on external things, you become influenced by such arguments. But when you can step aside and say: “No, I have a source of pleasure, an internal source of happiness that others cannot influence ...” - then it is much more difficult to deceive you.

Thus, the ability to be nourished from within serves as protection for your mind. The pleasures of the outside world will become less toxic to you because you are no longer trying to feed on them. They are still there, but you can learn how to handle them more skillfully, use them more skillfully, trying to make the mind even stronger.

For example, sometimes in your meditation things will not work out the way you would like. In this case, it will be useful to go outside and look at the beauty of nature around you: clouds, sunset, moon and stars in the night sky will help clear and refresh your mind. There is a passage in the Pali Canon where Maha Kassapa, one of the Buddha's most strict and determined disciples, talks about the beauty of nature. His poems constantly repeat lines about how the hills and mountains, washed by rain, and the jungle refresh him, Maha Kassapa. The Pali Canon preserves some of the earliest poeticizations of pristine nature, understanding and recognition of the beauty of wild nature. Such admiration is part of the ability to enliven and delight the mind.

The point of the above is that, as the Buddha said, even something as simple as looking or listening can be developed as a skill. You watch and listen, and at the same time, try to maintain a sense of support within yourself. This is one of the best ways to measure your greed, anger and delusions lurking in your mind and pushing it this way and that. If you notice that the mind is slipping onto a certain subject, then you have discovered the defilement of the mind.

Many Westerners don't like the word pollution. We do not admit that there can be anything polluted in our mind, but when the mind is clouded by passion, narrowed by passion, this is exactly what the Buddha called defilements. The sense of inner awareness becomes unclear and narrowed when attention spreads outward. According to Ajahn Lee, the tendency of attention to spread out to external objects is indicated by the word asava: leakage or fermentation. This type of looking and listening, where your mind goes outward towards the subject, is unskillful looking, unskillful listening. If you are skillful, you can continue to stay inside while looking and listening. If you notice how the mind is spreading outward, then you have learned an important lesson - greed, anger and delusion are still there in your mind. If you want to look at them, here they are. It's only when you see them that you're actually able to do something about it. You may feel in danger of being caught up in these currents. You become motivated to do something about the pollution so that it no longer pushes you here and there. Then you will not throw everything out as before, but will find ways to determine the source of the flood and block it (thus preventing a natural disaster in your mind. - Approx. Transl.).

Then you will find that being within the body form is indeed better food for the mind, a higher level of happiness, a better place to be. You'll want to do everything you can to stay here, no matter what's going on outside. When a forest fire is approaching you from the mountain at lightning speed, you need to stay where you are. You can, of course, move your body, but you need to do it in such a way that the main focus of attention remains inside the body. When life is filled with disappointments, you too need to stay within and not allow the disappointments outside to invade your mind. When cold or heat sets in, you need to be able to find your oasis, a sense of well-being in this very body.

This is why self-control in the senses (“restraint of the senses” - trans.) does not mean emptying the mind. In fact, it is a way to feed your mind with better food, to take it to a new level of pleasure. But you can't have everything at once. If you go for dangerous food, you will miss out on good food. You have to make a choice: either healthy food or unhealthy food. In this sense, self-control is a form of self-restraint. But it's a profitable exchange. After all, you get something better.

Throughout the day, ask yourself the question: “How am I feeding my mind now? And what does this say about my mind? What do I learn about my mind by watching how I feed my mind?” In this case, simply looking and listening becomes part of the practice. If you do this skillfully, it will feed the practice and will support it.

The path gives freshness to the mind not only when you sit with your eyes closed or do walking meditation. When you know how to exercise self-control, you can keep your mind fresh throughout the day. This gives continuity of practice. When you sit down and close your eyes, you are already right here. You don't have to spend an hour trying to pull the mind here like a cat on a leash, because it is already there. After all, before this you have already developed wisdom and insight that protect the mind, keeping it in the here and now. You don't have to reheat them every time you sit down to meditate.

So, consider everything you do during the day an art form, including developing self-control. Sometimes that means not looking at or listening to something that you don't yet know how to handle, like an aspiring boxer who knows he's not ready to fight a world champion yet. But you don’t need to go through life with limiting blinders all the time. You can teach yourself how to look at things that previously caused your anger, or your lust. Do it in a new way, in such a way that these qualities do not arise. If there is something that you feel greedy for, look at the unattractive side of the acquisition: what it will cost to own it and keep it. In the case of lust, reflect on the unattractiveness of the human body: your own and other people. As Ajahn Lee would say, see things with two eyes, not just one.

Also, when you are engaged in looking and listening, keep your center within, here and now, so that you can verify that you are not really involved in the defilements of the mind. Or do you sneak them in, get involved in them? This is why self-control is a reliable test of the mind. The word “check” has two meanings here. Firstly, it means to stop, and secondly, to monitor what is actually happening. If mental defilements are very quiet during your meditation, well, this is your chance to check whether they will resurface during the rest of the day?

It is self-control that gives continuity to practice. If you do this skillfully, your looking and your listening become entirely part of the practice. They can keep you on track all day long.

Pros and cons of self-control

The main advantage of developed self-control is that such a person is able to remain calm, make decisions and act in difficult situations. He does not panic, hysteria or stupor, does not interfere with the thinking of those around him, and does not frighten others with his inadequate state. He can gather himself and gather others, prevent his loved ones from falling into despair or having a nervous breakdown, and helps them control themselves in difficult moments.

Another unobvious advantage is a certain power over people during general excitement. Instinctively, people in such situations choose the calmest person from the crowd and begin to listen to him. Thus, a person who controls his emotions becomes a leader.

The disadvantages of self-control include the fact that people around them do not think about the real state of such a person and the fact that he, too, may sometimes be psychologically uncomfortable. In addition, a person with well-developed self-control is restrained in positive emotions, so it may seem to others that he does not know how to rejoice at all and does not appreciate their efforts when they try to please him.

Contain anger and rage

Often, when faced with injustice, you feel offended. At such moments, it can be difficult to control your feelings and not lose your temper. In psychology, self-control is a double sense of a person. Psychologists say that anger and anger, if not dealt with, can provoke a person to act rashly. Which in a sober mind you can bitterly regret. But how can you learn to reconcile your feelings if you have been treated unfairly? These tips will help you manage yourself:

Mentally count to ten, and then start thinking soberly. By rashly responding to evil in kind, you will not alleviate your condition. Only thoughtful actions will help in this situation.
Perhaps you should talk to your abuser. Try to understand him. He could not have acted with malicious intent, but simply thoughtlessly. If you know about all the circumstances, then it is easier to forgive other people’s mistakes and not be angry with the person who offended you.
If this step is not reasonable in this situation, then it is worth consulting with your parents or more experienced comrades about this.

Make it a rule to share the positive moments of your day with your loved ones. When a problem arises, it will be easier for you to tell adults about it.

When you know that you are being deliberately provoked, it is better to act opposite to what you are being pushed to do. By showing kindness to the bully, you can disarm him. By ignoring, for example, a classmate who teases you, you will most likely ensure that he becomes uninterested in calling you names. If your sister took your things without asking, do not take her things from her in return, but treat her with kindness, offering something else from yours. Next time she will ask your permission to wear something of yours.
If you haven’t had enough sleep or are hungry, then it’s much more difficult to cope with negative emotions. Do not forget about it.
Don't be like a fish caught on a hook when you find yourself in someone else's power. Because anger makes you helpless. Even if you cannot change the situation, change your attitude towards it.

If you don't get enough sleep or eat poorly, it's harder to cope with negative emotions.

If you are constantly irritated, then perhaps the people around you are too aggressive and are used to making trouble. Negative emotions are easily transmitted. Therefore, it is worth changing your social circle.
Exercise is effective in combating negative feelings. Physical activity, even if it is not some kind of sport, but just active games or walks in the air, helps change the content of hormones and oxygen in the blood. And this leads to an improvement in mood.
Favorite music and entertainment can lead you to a state of anger and aggressiveness. This happens, for example, if the films you watch are replete with scenes of violence.

Read more: When a mother or father remarries - what should I do?
Choose movies, music and entertainment wisely.

During attacks of anger, these simple ways to “let off steam” help:

keep a nut in your pocket and, if necessary, squeeze it in each palm, mentally counting to 10;
sing your favorite song;
throw darts at a target;
express everything that is boiling somewhere in private;
pour water into the bath and place several rubber toys there, knock them down with a ball;
beat a pillow or a punching bag;
draw an image of what bothers you or sculpt it, and then tear or break this image.

Examples

A teacher, for example, must have the ability to maintain self-control. When children begin to misbehave in class, trying to disrupt it, the teacher has to demonstrate this quality to the fullest. He must resist the desire to shout or kick the main “ringleaders” out of the lesson, but calmly and firmly inform students about the inadmissibility of such behavior in such a way as not to offend anyone, but also not to leave the opportunity to disrupt the lesson.

Another example of people who do not lose their composure is the military. Often these people have to see things that a civilian would never dream of in his nightmares. But they must remain calm to preserve their own health and life, as well as those of their comrades or personnel entrusted to them.

Doctors are also people with highly developed self-control. Regardless of what the situation is, they must remain sober, continue their activities and ensure the recovery of their patients. Surgeons, resuscitators, traumatologists and emergency medical personnel should have the best knowledge of their condition.

KONSPEKTY.NET

Self-control, which is talked about so much, is an individual trait of a person, manifested in the ability to maintain inner calm under the influence of surrounding factors.

The emergence of self-control is attributed to the creation and strengthening of socio-cultural stereotypes and attitudes that were formed in the family. Simply put, self-control is cultivated from a very early age and instilled in the same way as politeness, table manners and other manners.

Self-control, as a general concept, includes:

- presence of a confident look and calm body movements (“steady hand”);

- quick and accurate reaction, both physical and psychological;

- control over actions and words, emotions (your own and others);

- resistance to any situations that arise;

How to develop endurance and self-control?

Self-control is based on the ability (habit) to control your behavior, speech, movements and emotions. That is, endurance is a formed habit of behaving in a certain way and it must be practiced, or better said, undergo constant training.

The development of willpower begins with endurance - the ability to withstand difficulties and situations, achieve what you would like, and continue to act when everything seems lost.

Who is a self-possessed person? A self-controlled person (one who has self-control) by definition does not allow himself to exhibit impulsive actions - to act on a hot head, to get excited. In addition, he easily controls his mood and does not allow it to manifest itself, either in an excessively negative form or in an excessively exalted positive manner. He also differs from those around him in his endurance and composure.

Short-term irritants are not capable of shaking the strong mental health of such a person, and temporary physical inconveniences (hunger, thirst, fatigue, etc.) do not lead to panic.

As for the positive attitudes that such a person develops, their list is quite clear: the presence of courage, determination, as a collective volitional characteristic of the individual.

Mastering the art of self-control

It’s not for nothing that they say that self-control is an art. To begin with, a person must develop inner confidence and self-control - two necessary layers - on which the rest of the positive personality traits will then be based.

In order to form:

To develop patience, you need to experience inconvenience, endure difficulties, not complain and continue to work.
To develop self-denial (abstinence) and moderation, you need to train the refusal of harmful things, introduce reasonable consumption of food, alcohol, shopping, and other things.
Calmness and equanimity come after conflict situations.
They also help build a sense of balance, self-discipline and resilience. It is better to train these parameters for developing endurance and self-control under the supervision of a more experienced partner.

Loyalty to oneself in scolding situations and refusal of temptations, testing of devotion - occur only in situations of choice. In them, you need to be guided by the voice of your mind, which is already quite strong, thanks to the previous steps.

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