3 Tips to Regulate Your Emotions, Part 1

[00:00:00] Hey there, and welcome to Heal with Grace.
[00:00:03] I'm your host, Grace Secker, and I'm a holistic, licensed therapist and nervous system coach
[00:00:08] who believes that the chronic and often unseen symptoms you're living with are a sign of
[00:00:12] something deeper going on.
[00:00:14] A sign that your nervous system needs attention.
[00:00:17] In each episode, I'll share the science behind the most common chronic health disorders
[00:00:21] plus holistic health tips using mental, physical, and spiritual practices.
[00:00:26] You'll hear what I've learned in my journey and the true stories from our trusted guests
[00:00:30] so you can feel less alone in your experience and give yourself grace no matter what you're
[00:00:34] going through.
[00:00:36] So without further ado, settle in and get cozy.
[00:00:38] It's time to heal with grace.
[00:00:40] Today, I'm going to talk about what emotional regulation looks like or really kind of tips
[00:00:47] on how to do that.
[00:00:49] But first and foremost, let's talk about what emotional regulation is.
[00:00:53] Emotional regulation is the ability to respond to one's emotions in a way that is appropriate
[00:00:59] and healthy for that individual in that situation.
[00:01:01] Now, it's a little bit abstract, a bit of a definition, but let's talk about it because
[00:01:06] the whole idea is learning how to respond to your emotions, not whether to feel
[00:01:11] them or not or how to feel them or what to feel.
[00:01:14] It's truly how you respond.
[00:01:16] Our emotions are innate.
[00:01:18] We are going to feel.
[00:01:19] We are going to have emotions.
[00:01:20] Even if you think you're an avoider and you don't feel, you have them.
[00:01:24] They're just not readily available or conscious to you.
[00:01:27] You're not expressing them.
[00:01:29] So the whole point I want you to understand is it's really about how to respond to your
[00:01:33] emotions, again, not whether we're going to feel them or not.
[00:01:37] And so, first of all, let's talk about the categories of people how they feel or
[00:01:41] don't feel.
[00:01:42] And I've just kind of termed these, to be honest, lately, have feeler and an
[00:01:46] avoider and there's a wide spectrum, right?
[00:01:48] You might not fit either category exactly, but feelers are people that might
[00:01:53] feel, that might seem like they don't have control over their emotions.
[00:01:56] They're just always emotional.
[00:01:58] I say that with that sarcastic tone because that's what society tells us
[00:02:02] that emotions are bad and to be emotional is not okay.
[00:02:05] But I want to talk about that a little bit more.
[00:02:07] So feelers, again, might be those people that just feel a little bit more.
[00:02:11] They might be the person that cries in a movie.
[00:02:13] Avoiders might be sitting next to that person like, I don't feel any emotion.
[00:02:17] I mean, I can understand how that scene could be sad, right?
[00:02:20] But I'm not sitting here like feeling at all.
[00:02:22] Emotional regulation looks a little bit different for each.
[00:02:25] So one thing I want to note about avoiders is that it's not that you're
[00:02:30] not feeling, it's just that you're not expressing the emotion underneath.
[00:02:35] And so what often happens sometimes with people that feel like they don't
[00:02:40] feel is that every so often you're going to have a time where basically
[00:02:45] your body, your nervous system says, I can't keep stuffing them down anymore.
[00:02:50] It needs to come out somehow.
[00:02:52] And so that might come out in things like anger, frustration, irritability.
[00:02:57] And that's kind of the surface level of expression.
[00:03:00] Usually what's underneath those types of reactions are emotions.
[00:03:06] And then we just have to kind of figure out how to name them,
[00:03:10] figure out what's underneath the surface.
[00:03:12] So I'm going to talk about three different ways that,
[00:03:16] three different tips to help you emotionally regulate.
[00:03:19] One, one of the biggest ones is being able to feel without
[00:03:24] being attached to that feeling.
[00:03:27] So you might have heard the term non-attachment.
[00:03:30] And what that really means is we allow the full spectrum of emotions.
[00:03:35] We allow happiness.
[00:03:36] We allow sadness.
[00:03:37] We allow joy, fear, anger, grief because they're all valid.
[00:03:43] Now that's most likely not what we all have been taught.
[00:03:46] Because more often than not, especially just in terms of being in society,
[00:03:52] we're taught not to feel the bad emotions, the negative ones.
[00:03:56] And so what I'm saying is actually from a very conscious and unconscious place.
[00:04:02] You have to really step into the idea and the belief that truly, truly,
[00:04:06] all emotions are okay.
[00:04:08] They're all acceptable.
[00:04:10] Doesn't mean that it's not going to be hard to feel some of them.
[00:04:14] Fully understand and believe that sadness is just as okay to feel as joy.
[00:04:21] And there's not one that's better than the other.
[00:04:24] Then when you feel them, we work on non-attaching from them.
[00:04:28] Meaning you kind of see yourself, so I had this practice of picturing my emotion
[00:04:34] almost like outside of myself.
[00:04:35] And I can see it, I can see that, I can see feeling it.
[00:04:38] So for instance, sadness or even joy, feeling connected to it is completely okay.
[00:04:44] But what happens when we get so bogged down into it is that we get so
[00:04:49] attached and usually there's judgment on top of that attachment.
[00:04:53] Usually, if it's not conscious then it's unconscious and
[00:04:56] we're thinking, I shouldn't be feeling this.
[00:04:59] I shouldn't be feeling this.
[00:05:00] Why am I feeling this?
[00:05:01] Why can't I get out of this place?
[00:05:03] All the types of judgments and criticisms on, criticisms on yourself.
[00:05:07] Those judgments and criticisms about the fact that you're feeling or
[00:05:11] maybe a certain emotion actually just makes it worse and creates more
[00:05:15] suffering, creates more of that negative emotion, if you will.
[00:05:20] And that's how it gets stuck in your body.
[00:05:23] Literally gets stuck within the cells of your body and
[00:05:25] stresses out your nervous system.
[00:05:27] Because when we don't allow ourselves to actually be okay with the feeling that
[00:05:31] we have, with the emotion that we have.
[00:05:34] Another thing around this is working on not fully understanding where it came from.
[00:05:40] Now I have all four working backwards and understanding why am I feeling this way?
[00:05:44] What's going on?
[00:05:45] How did this get triggered?
[00:05:47] That's totally okay.
[00:05:49] Just don't want you to get so bogged down in it to try to figure it out.
[00:05:54] Because when you do that, when you try to figure out why you're feeling this way,
[00:05:57] what's going on, why are you frustrated?
[00:05:59] Why are you irritable?
[00:05:59] Why are you angry?
[00:06:00] Whatever it is, and you're trying to figure out,
[00:06:05] instead of actually just allowing it to be there.
[00:06:08] Then you're working on justifying it.
[00:06:10] You're saying, well, okay, if I can figure this out and
[00:06:12] I can understand where it came from, then it's justified.
[00:06:16] Then it's okay for me to feel it.
[00:06:18] We don't need it to be justified.
[00:06:20] You have the right and you're human to be able to just have emotions come up and
[00:06:25] feel things based on your life experiences, based on what's going on around you.
[00:06:30] You might feel differently than someone else sitting next to you and
[00:06:34] you're both experiencing the same thing in front of you.
[00:06:37] And that's okay, it needs to be okay.
[00:06:39] I need you to take that on in your belief system to let that be okay.
[00:06:44] Okay, so to recap number one is not attaching from our emotions and
[00:06:50] letting them feel, letting yourself be okay with feeling the full spectrum of them
[00:06:55] is going to really help you without any judgment or criticism.
[00:06:59] Because then they can just flow through.
[00:07:01] That's the goal, letting them flow doesn't mean it's not going to be hard
[00:07:05] sometimes totally, but allowing it to flow without getting so stuck and sticky
[00:07:10] and feeling in control or lack of control.
[00:07:13] It's not about necessarily controlling.
[00:07:15] It's about letting it flow through and continuing to move on.
[00:07:19] Number two is sometimes when you don't know how you feel,
[00:07:25] when you're trying to learn how to acknowledge what's going on,
[00:07:28] it's helpful to recognize what's going on in your body.
[00:07:32] So this might be a little bit more towards feelers.
[00:07:35] Well, actually it's both feelers and avoiders.
[00:07:38] So when we avoid the actual emotions and we tend to feel a lot of the emotions,
[00:07:44] but we don't know what they are, we just know we feel something,
[00:07:48] recognizing the sensations within your body can help you identify actual emotions
[00:07:53] because emotions live in the body.
[00:07:56] And sometimes I understand this can be complicated.
[00:07:59] Some people are like, I don't know how to do that.
[00:08:01] How do I, I mean, what is a feeling in my body going to do with emotions?
[00:08:05] I get it. It was hard for me in the beginning as well.
[00:08:08] But when we can recognize things like ansceness,
[00:08:12] control, tightness in your muscles, tightness in your gut, headaches even.
[00:08:18] When someone's really holding and constricting themselves emotionally,
[00:08:23] their bodies take it on.
[00:08:25] So you might have pain within certain muscles or just tight muscles.
[00:08:30] You might notice that you're always breathing from your chest and you're not
[00:08:33] actually getting a full breath in your body all the way down to your lungs.
[00:08:38] And so identifying what's going on in your body helps you then identify certain emotions.
[00:08:44] For example, things like anger, things like sadness, we can hold.
[00:08:51] Our bodies can hold so that anger might feel like heat in the body.
[00:08:56] All right. Sadness might feel like heaviness.
[00:09:00] Joy might feel like a lot more lightness and open and expansive.
[00:09:04] So once you start to recognize a few of those things within yourself,
[00:09:07] those examples, those sensations, you can track them with emotions as well.
[00:09:12] Understanding how to say I feel hot, cold, sticky, tired can be a way that you
[00:09:18] learn how to identify your emotions.
[00:09:21] And then also another kind of back way, if you will, to learn how to
[00:09:27] identify emotions is, especially if you're a little bit more of that avoider,
[00:09:32] take this with a grain of salt because this is going to be more thought-oriented when I'm
[00:09:36] talking about emotions.
[00:09:37] But sometimes we have to take a step outside of ourselves,
[00:09:40] look at the situation I hand from an objective point of view, and be curious.
[00:09:44] Okay. What would be an appropriate, and I say that lightly, appropriate.
[00:09:51] There's no right or wrong.
[00:09:52] What would be typical emotion that someone might feel in this situation?
[00:09:56] I don't really know what I feel right now, but maybe X, Y, and Z.
[00:10:00] Maybe I could understand why someone might feel this or this or this.
[00:10:05] Also asking people how they react.
[00:10:07] So when we can look at maybe what would be an example of how someone might feel in
[00:10:13] a certain situation that you're in, you can try that on.
[00:10:16] Okay. Well, does that fit me?
[00:10:18] Now maybe this fits me.
[00:10:21] And when we can look at certain emotions, you can pick and choose.
[00:10:24] So I usually suggest people Google the feelings wheel.
[00:10:27] It's literally a wheel of emotions and always go to that.
[00:10:33] When you're trying to recognize how you're feeling,
[00:10:35] go and look on that feelings wheel.
[00:10:36] All the words are right there.
[00:10:37] You don't have to just come up with it intuitively if you don't fully understand.
[00:10:41] So see how you can do that.
[00:10:44] Continue to look at them, question, be curious without that judgment.
[00:10:50] Then you can understand maybe more of how you might feel and it's a practice.
[00:10:54] You get better at it as time goes on.
[00:10:57] Number three is learning tools to be with the emotions once you've actually identified them.
[00:11:04] This is probably when we're talking about regulation of emotions,
[00:11:08] how to respond differently.
[00:11:10] This is huge and this is purely based on the person.
[00:11:15] What's going to fit you most?
[00:11:16] So sometimes that might look like moving your body.
[00:11:20] Dance always comes in with this yoga, shaking,
[00:11:24] something body movement to just release that emotion and not let it get so stuck.
[00:11:29] Things like journaling, being creative, creativity is a huge way to learn how to express.
[00:11:36] And again, I want to remind you with these things,
[00:11:38] you don't have to know exactly what you're feeling to be able to express.
[00:11:44] You're just expressing whatever's there and whatever comes out.
[00:11:47] Talking to friends can be really helpful,
[00:11:49] like talk through a situation to then understand how you feel.
[00:11:52] That's a big part of therapy, right?
[00:11:54] I literally just did this this morning with a mentor of mine.
[00:11:58] I was talking through something and I recognized,
[00:12:00] oh, I had no idea I felt about that.
[00:12:03] Emotions started coming up as I talked about it.
[00:12:06] It was really eye-opening and helped me understand that situation a little bit more
[00:12:11] and why I was doing what I was doing because I had a lot of fear behind it.
[00:12:15] So I know that's kind of an abstract example,
[00:12:18] but talking is actually a way to help you identify.
[00:12:21] But then we actually have to feel.
[00:12:23] We can't just talk about the emotions.
[00:12:24] I posted about this yesterday.
[00:12:26] Can't just talk about them.
[00:12:27] We actually have to experience.
[00:12:28] And this is where being with emotions is really important.
[00:12:32] Or I should say learning how to be with emotions is really important.
[00:12:36] And so again, anything that helps you get into your body,
[00:12:40] into those emotions, even if you have to get into it from a thought perspective,
[00:12:44] from a cognitive thinking perspective, that's totally fine.
[00:12:48] We just don't want you to stay there.
[00:12:50] We just don't want you to try and rationalize and justify how you feel.
[00:12:54] We want you to just be okay with feeling.
[00:12:57] So another way to help you regulate,
[00:13:00] to help you be with emotions,
[00:13:02] especially if you tend to feel like you just lose control
[00:13:04] and you just don't even know how to control your feelings,
[00:13:07] is to work on separation.
[00:13:09] Like I said in that first one, non-attachment.
[00:13:11] But this comes more from stepping outside of yourself
[00:13:14] and really looking at the situation to see,
[00:13:18] okay, is my reaction, is my emotion, does it fit the situation?
[00:13:23] Because oftentimes our emotions come from perspective.
[00:13:28] Come from past experiences.
[00:13:30] All of our experiences through life
[00:13:32] shape how we are going to perceive a situation.
[00:13:36] And when we perceive a certain situation,
[00:13:38] that's when emotions come up.
[00:13:41] So for example, someone in a relationship
[00:13:44] who's been left before or who's been cheated on,
[00:13:46] something like that, they might have that perception
[00:13:49] that's going to happen again.
[00:13:50] And so every time their partner does something that they perceive,
[00:13:53] is pulling away or hiding something,
[00:13:55] they might automatically go to anger or upset or jealousy or sadness.
[00:14:00] It doesn't mean it's there, maybe it is sometimes,
[00:14:03] but it doesn't always mean that it's there.
[00:14:06] It just means that that's that trigger.
[00:14:08] That's what's going to emotionally come up.
[00:14:11] So to step outside of ourselves and to become curious,
[00:14:14] means to look at examples, look at what's in front of you
[00:14:17] from more of an objective lens,
[00:14:20] rather than automatically reacting from that old emotional place.
[00:14:25] Really want you to come to your emotions without judgment
[00:14:30] or criticism.
[00:14:31] If you take anything from this,
[00:14:32] which is really the theme of this whole reason
[00:14:35] I'm talking about emotional regulation,
[00:14:38] is to on a foundational level,
[00:14:40] help you understand how to fully accept
[00:14:43] what emotions come up for you.
[00:14:46] And let them be okay.
[00:14:48] It doesn't mean you have to sit in them all the time.
[00:14:50] I actually don't want you to sit and wallow.
[00:14:53] I want you to be able to feel,
[00:14:55] acknowledge, acknowledge it for yourself and be okay with it.
[00:14:59] Okay?
[00:15:00] Meaning just accepting it is what it is
[00:15:02] and allowing it to flow through.
[00:15:04] And then you can move on.
[00:15:06] You don't have to stay in them.
[00:15:07] We don't have to get stuck in them.
[00:15:08] We just have to allow them to be there
[00:15:11] so that they don't get stuffed down
[00:15:13] and then come out in all different ways.
[00:15:15] Stuffed down emotions,
[00:15:17] judged emotions,
[00:15:18] criticized emotions,
[00:15:20] get stuck in our bodies,
[00:15:22] come out anywhere from anger,
[00:15:24] irritability, mental health,
[00:15:26] physical health,
[00:15:28] especially when we're talking about
[00:15:30] nervous system dysregulation
[00:15:31] comes out in all types of things.
[00:15:34] Fatigue, brain fog, migraines,
[00:15:36] gut issues, all the things.
[00:15:38] So emotional health is such an important part
[00:15:42] of nervous system dysregulation.
[00:15:44] I can't stress it enough
[00:15:45] because it's often overlooked.
[00:15:47] Emotional regulation is so very much
[00:15:49] so overlooked when we're talking about the nervous system.
[00:15:53] So let this be a reminder
[00:15:54] that to have that be a part of your focus
[00:15:57] on your healing journey,
[00:15:58] especially when you're learning
[00:15:59] about the nervous system.
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[00:16:28] Thanks for listening
[00:16:29] and I hope this brings you hope on your journey.