Practising Emotional Regulation
“I can rationalise this, but I can’t regulate it” is something one of my friends said at a meal out recently.
Fast forward a week or two and I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts, Adam Grant’s Work/Life Rethinking series, and he’s guest Rahaf Harfoush, a digital anthropologist (amazing job title) said this:
“Most of us are just - childhood wounds in a trenchcoat - walking around completely dysregulated, smarting from something that happened to us when we were sixteen or when we were six, trying to make rational decisions from activated bodies”.
Once you’ve worked this out, it’s hard to unsee it. From my experience I think you can group people into four buckets when it comes to emotional regulation:
The Ignorant > the majority, who don’t know when they’ve slipped into this state and play out their reactions on impulse
The Aware > most others, those that notice how they’re feeling but don’t know how to manage it yet
The Trying > people who know what’s happening and try to contain their emotional reaction to be more productive. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t but they tend to own it and apologise
The Masters > the minority, a transcendent being who rises above the chaos, who always responds and almost never reacts
Let’s be clear here, emotional regulation is a different skill to say wearing a poker face - one is masking your reaction to avoid immediate confrontation or reveal how you are feeling, leaving others in the dark. While the other is understanding and managing your reaction so that you can choose to respond productively and have a conversation.
Many things can impact your ability to self regulate, you might be tired, hungry, stressed or going through a change. Fight the urge to make an entire story about why you’re feeling what you’re feeling. Self soothing narratives that justify our own worldviews aren’t the most sustainable solutions. Instead deal with the root cause, and work out what you need.
Let’s take envy for instance, this can be a pretty destablising and unpleasant emotion, but if you pause and inspect what’s causing you to feel that way - instead of feeling resentful, you can feel enlightened in knowing that I want what this person has. So now I can invest my time in trying to make that happen for me too. This is a productive response.
As Rahaf puts it. “Just because something is uncomfortable, and disruptive and painful and hard doesn’t mean that it is bad”. The outcome of this discomfort may ultimately be good.
So how can you start to improve your own emotional regulation, here’s a few practical steps you can take, from someone who’s still trying to master it themselves:
Learn to notice when your body is activated, this often takes the form of a sudden shift in mood paired with heightened sensitivity and a jolt of adrenaline. If you’re shutting down or feeling impulsive you may be dysregulated.
As soon as you notice it, catch it and sit with the root feeling - what are you really reacting to here and how will it serve you to act on it? Try writing this down to work through it logically.
Don’t react. Sometimes the best thing you can do in the moment is nothing. Find a way to exit the situation and give yourself some headspace to process what you’re feeling.
If you need help not reacting, try counting to ten, taking deep breaths, sitting up straight, and focus on the facts. If that doesn’t work, excuse yourself and go for a short walk to clear your head.
Don’t fill in the blanks with emotionally driven stories, ask for clarity about what’s happening or what’s been said. You may find it’s a simple misunderstanding.
Ask for more time to process what you think and feel if you don’t feel calm enough to respond productively.
Reset by thinking of a place you feel calm and happy. For me that’s under the trees on the beach at Brownsea Island listening to the leaves in the breeze and the waves roll across the sea.
When you’re ready use your words. Explain how you felt and why, then communicate your needs. Be prepared for someone to take a different view or disagree - this can be a positive step towards clarity.
Practice mindfulness and self care everyday. If you feel good in yourself, you’ll have more of a carefree response to whatever challenge comes your way.
Remember, learning to emotionally self-regulate takes time, and depending on where you are in your journey and how many headwinds you have to navigate, it may take some people longer than others to master this skill.
If you’d like help learning how to move from dysregulated behaviours to productive conversations drop me a DM or email lisa@beboldercoaching.co.uk.
Or if you’d like to listen to the Work/Life podcast in full and find your own solutions, check out Rethinking: Why are people acting like everything’s fine? With Rahaf Harfoush.
