Emotional Regulation

Emotions play an important role in our design as humans. Many of us have been taught that emotions are irrational and burdensome, however, research on human behavior and emotion find feelings to be functional ! Emotions send important signals to us about our needs as humans and often activate behavior that prompts us to overcome obstacles, protect ourselves and establish or maintain relationships.

While emotions have a purpose, we don’t always respond to our feelings effectively. Because of stigma and the discomfort emotions can induce, many of us try to avoid, escape or numb our emotions. The irony of these approaches is usually it makes our emotions bigger and instead of feeling our feelings we get consumed by them. Emotional strength or resiliency is not about the absence of feelings but rather how you manage them.

We can’t control what we initially feel much of the time but we can control how we respond to our feelings. All emotions have a cycle and how we respond can have significant influence on the longevity of our emotional experience. So how can we respond rather than react to our feelings? Increasing our emotional problem-solving, mindfulness and distress tolerance skills.

Check Facts vs Feelings: Differentiating between justified and unjustified emotions.

Opposite to Emotion: Sometimes we have to act opposite to how we feeling in order to get unstuck from unpleasant emotional experiences.

Self-Soothe: Developing positive practices that increase our ability to tolerate and recover from emotional distress rather than add to it or prolong it.

Mindfully observe your feelings and emotional triggers without reacting. What are your feelings urging you to do? Is this action supportive of your goal? values?