We’ve all been hit by the ups and downs of life. Some of us experience huge emotional waves along with those, and even fewer of us have learned to ride them. Emotions on their own are ineffective. Just like any other of your senses, sight, sound or smell. Emotions without the capability to process are overwhelming data points. We are made to interpret this emotional data. Unfortunately most of us have learned to deny the emotional mind and focus solely on the logical mind. With that, comes the idea  of good and bad  emotions. We begin to think that some feel good, well one feels good, leaving  the rest in the dangerous and ignored category. Imagine only seeing the color pink. Or only responding to the smell of flowers. I think we’d be in some danger. I think we’d find ourselves mismatched and smelling pretty disgusting before long. Emotions are the same way. They are data. Information about what’s moving around  in the psyche. The psyche is the bridge between the internal and external worlds. Therefore, processing and in turn regulation are necessary. 

Emotional regulation starts with emotional identification. I recommend starting with a few basic emotions. Happy. Sad. Mad. Scared. Think of a time when you felt this way. What did it feel like in your body? Where is it? Warm or cold? Tight or loose? 

Now for that feeling and that location together in your mind. When I feel a tight squeezing in my chest I am scared. When I feel a loose warmth in my belly I am happy. Use as many descriptors as you can and be specific about where it lives in you. 

Next is the processing part. Different emotions mean different things.  Sadness is a message from the outside in or from the inside out that something is missing in your life. Anger indicates a root of passion. Fear illuminates danger. Happiness is a sign that things are going the right way today. Now we tie the two together. That emotion you identified in your chest, the tight squeezing, that’s fear. Fear says there is danger somewhere. And with that we begin to regulate.

Regulation means to control or supervise by an external standard. Emotional regulation means that we hold our emotions up to the light of something other than our own selves. For instance, if we recognize we feel that chest squeezing, I’m in danger fear when we enter the grocery store, it’s up to us to decide if this is actually the standard at which we want to live. Is the grocery store  in fact dangerous? Not do “i” think it’s dangerous.  What part feels dangerous? Am I worried about others perceptions of me? Is this truly the standard in which I want to live by? It is through this questioning and answering that we begin to breakthrough the logical mind’s quickly built connections , which often are false, and choose to instead build the person we want to be.  

Once we embrace  the truth and the root, that the store nor the people’s perceptions of me are not dangerous. The emotion will subside within 20 minutes. The data has been collected. We are free to move forward. The 20 minutes inside of that time can be tough however. Letting go of an old belief is hard when a new belief hasn’t had time to set up yet. It’s is in this in between space that coping skills and self care and compassion are necessary. This is the place for deep breathing, for sharing your new narrative with a friend, for self-validation, and grounding. On their own these techniques leave us lacking and wondering what we missed, Dreading the next time the data alarm of emotion goes off.

Emotional regulation is a process that truly has the benefit of giving you highly personalized immediate feedback about you and your relationship to the world around you. A life without emotion is cold and hard. A life without emotional regulation is exhausting and chaotic. Just like with any other skull, learning takes time and practice but has an rewarding payoff.