Emotional Regulation for the Uninitiated

Feeling your feelings 101

Much like body temperature and blood sugar, emotional state is one of those metrics that, if unregulated, wreaks serious havoc on your life.

If you grew up without the tools to fully embrace and articulate your emotions, you may be carrying that baggage into adulthood. The idea of anger or sadness being good things may be wholly foreign to you.

If so, feel happy knowing the basic tenets of emotional regulation are really quite simple and within your reach.

Be your biggest advocate

One of my favorite lessons on emotional wellbeing (I paraphrase): There is the necessary pain of living, but so much unnecessary pain we could do without.

Necessary pain is the stuff like backaches, childbirth, grief, the sadness of losing a job, and the sting of stubbing a toe. It is pain you have to feel by nature of being a human.

Unnecessary pain is the pain that we pile on to our plate by way of nasty self-talk and self deprecations. Losing a job you love is one thing, and the sadness of that experience is worth feeling, but continually battering yourself with name-calling like the “biggest-ever idiot,” or depriving yourself of compassion, is unnecessary and unhelpful.