MY SECRET WEAPON* (*EMOTIONAL REGULATION)

One of my professors in grad school is so well established in the mental health field that he has fans throughout the community and his books are regularly used in other programs’ curriculums. I often find myself sitting on Zoom, furiously writing down things that probably should have been obvious to me, but had never been presented in such a succinct and digestible way before. One of those moments happened when he was talking about coaching high-powered executives--one of the many things he does in his expansive career. He said that these people are clearly smart and talented but their inability to properly emotionally regulate gets in their way. They end up having difficulty interacting with other people because they aren’t in control of their reactions, and this prevents them from achieving their full professional potential. I found this fascinating. We spend so much time as a society focused on perfecting professional skills but rarely find the encouragement or resources to focus on our emotional ones.

I wrote about emotional regulation back when I had a Patreon, but I feel like this is such an important topic that it deserves to be revisited. Whenever I post any content on my social media about how much emotional regulation has changed my life, I find people asking me how I learned how to regulate my emotions. It doesn’t come naturally for many of us. I used to live in fear of how I would react to things. My reactions and emotions felt so out of my own control. Unfortunately, my memory isn’t strong enough to provide a step-by-step guide of what I changed and when, but upon reflection, a few things stand out to me in my journey.

The first was simply learning that emotional regulation exists. I discovered it was possible to actively work on having more power over my own emotional state. Being wildly emotional or overly sensitive weren’t stuck personality traits I had to accept. Once you know this, you can start to do things to create more space between your reaction and your response. For example, a few months ago, I was trying to take my contacts out of my eyes, and it wasn’t working due to a combination of dry eyes and long nails. This tapped into a deep-seated fear of mine that my contacts will get trapped in my eyes and I will never ever be able to get them out. In that moment, I felt my body start to tense up and I knew that it would be easy to let myself panic. Before that panic took over though, I took some steps to calm myself down. I remembered to breathe and tried to relax my body. I reminded myself that I have always been able to get my contacts out before, so chances were high I’d be able to do it again. It was almost like I was negotiating with another person who wanted to take over my brain if I hadn’t interfered.

I’ve also had to do this when I can’t find anything that feels good to wear. I used to have days when getting dressed caused me to have a major meltdown because I either hated how everything looked, hated how everything felt or was suffering from a combination of the two. These incidents would ruin hours of my day and made me have a negative association with clothing and my body. Now, when I start to struggle to find things to wear, I don’t let my mind take the same mental leaps as before. I don’t go down the rabbit hole of assuming everything I own is TERRIBLE and all clothes look DISGUSTING on me. I work to not tense up my body as I continue to try things on until I find something good enough. I recognize that I would rather preserve my emotional state than find the PERFECT outfit on a day when feeling like I look my best might not be attainable.

Another large component of my emotional regulation was learning to give people the benefit of the doubt. Whereas before certain comments might have set me off and made me either feel badly about myself or angry with someone else, I have gotten better at not taking everything at face value. I will take into consideration that 1) someone might be in their own bad mood, which is impacting their perspective, 2) my initial interpretation might not be correct anyway and 3) I don’t have to believe everything other people say about me. My sense of self has strengthened as I’ve gotten older and I find it easier not to be swayed by other people’s opinions or behavior. How can you come for me if you don’t even understand who I am? A hurtful comment is only hurtful if I let it hurt me (something I didn’t always know to be true).

Emotional regulation isn’t something that happens overnight, but it is something that gets better with practice. I have enough experience now that if I feel an intense emotional flare-up at an inopportune time, I don’t assume that I must give into it and let it steamroll my day. I can take a step back and ask myself: Do I want to follow this feeling right now? Or is this something I can come back to and process later in a safer space? Because regulation is not annihilation. I am not trying to avoid or extinguish my emotions. I am trying to be strategic about when and where I process them--if they are even worth returning to at all. (Many, like my fear of my contacts being stuck forever, are not.)

It would be disingenuous to not also credit my older age and psychotropic medication for helping me get better at all this. I’m not sure that a 23-year-old, unmedicated Allison could have reached this level of emotional control without significant external help. The good news is that this help exists. Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) is a great modality for helping people learn to regulate their emotions. It includes certain tricks like putting your face in ice water to help snap people out of intense emotional states. Learning different breathing techniques can also be useful to help calm our minds and bodies down if more cognitive based approaches don’t work as well for you. While individual or group therapy is always the gold standard, it’s not realistic for many people, so if you are struggling with this, I would recommend looking at what free or affordable resources are available online to help guide you. This is not something you have to figure out on your own.

Emotional regulation is more important than most people think because it impacts every area of our lives from our internal world to our interpersonal relationships. It is also challenging to learn how to do. Some of us are predisposed to struggle with it more than others. But let this be a reminder that while other things clearly deserve our attention and energy such as school and work, so too does our emotional state. It is not helpful to be the best at something if no one wants to work with you.

xoxo,

Allison

If you are interested in learning more about my professor, Lou Cozolino, and his work, click here!