Struggling with emotional overload? Learn how you can better manage and regulate your emotions with these five powerful steps from MEGA SELF.
We have all been there. Something happens and we react. We may not like how we reacted, but in the moment, we couldn’t help it. It felt like we had no control over our emotions, they just took over.
Reacting to our emotions and being triggered is something that happens to all of us. And when it does, our decisions and thought process tend to be impulsive and it’s easy to go into catastrophic thinking. We make decisions based on how we feel in the moment (and that can be irrational), rather than what would serve our true values.
One of the 8 Wonders of Wellbeing is Emotional regulation – I feel it’s so important that we teach both kids and adults how to regulate challenging emotions and move through triggers in a healthy and empowering way.
By having tools for emotion regulation, we can learn how to witness our emotions as they come up. This allows us to then respond to our emotions rather than letting them drive erratic and usually unwanted behaviour.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. – Viktor Frankl
Here are 5 steps to regulating emotion:
- Practise the pause – when you feel an intense emotional sensation in your body, PAUSE. With practise you will teach your brain a new pathway and it will become easier.
- Notice sensations in your body – My heart races and I clench my fist when I am triggered. What sensations does your body alert you to? Start writing down sensation you feel in your body every time you feel triggered, and you will soon learn how to read the bio feedback of your personal operating system.
- Use a tool to regulate your nervous system – deep breathing or tapping will send safe signals to your brain. This step in such an important one – we need to let the brain know that it is safe.
- Release the emotion – We all release the energy of emotion in different ways. Cry, shake, move, tap. Often people leave this step out but any emotion that has not been released will get stored at a cellular level. This emotional energy will build and turn into stress and other disturbances physically and emotionally.
- Respond in a way that is aligned to your values – Do you need some time out before you can respond? Do you need to sit with the experience before you make a decision? How can you now respond to the challenge in way that feels empowering and aligned to who you choose to be.
This is PROJECT MEGA SELF.