Emotional self-regulation is defined on the Crisis Prevention Institute Blog as “the ability to monitor and manage our own behavior. With self-regulation, we can calm ourselves down when we’re distressed, and pick ourselves up when we’re low.”
Successful management of our emotions does not mean suppressing them, denying them, or pretending that we don’t feel them. It means managing our response to our emotions. A key part of this is understanding what is happening: what emotion am I feeling? (emotion-labeling). Where did it come from? What provoked it? (a trigger) …and then choosing the best response rather than being overwhelmed or out of control as an automatic response to the emotion. The Emotions Doctor compares identifying an emotion with a “diagnosis”. When we correctly identify an emotion, then we know how to “treat” it, or manage it.
Like we said in last week’s post, the act of naming an emotion has been shown to diminish the emotion’s intensity. It gives us the opportunity to “zoom out” from the raw emotion and view what’s happening with our thinking mind. During this cognitive reappraisal (thinking about something from a different angle) we can influence our own emotions and temper our response.
José, who is too young to have developed much emotional regulation, sees one of his siblings get something he wants (but doesn’t get) and bursts into tears, screams and cries, and hits his high chair tray, sweeping a plate off onto the floor. José doesn’t know that he is “angry”, or “disappointed” and “frustrated”. About the best thing that can be done for him at this point is to attract his attention to something that will change his emotional state. When José is a little older, and starts to react to the same situation, his parent might ask if he’s mad, if he wants what his sibling has—acknowledging his feelings and giving him a name for his emotion. He might be able to stop crying and say what he wants. When he is older yet, he may not even cry – he might pout, and ask why he can’t have what his sibling has. Later yet, José might feel a sense of disappointment (and have a disappointed look on his face) and tell his parent how he’s feeling about what is happening. The disappointed look on his face, along with his verbalization of his feelings, is an appropriate response to his emotion. If he can’t have what he wants, he may even practice self-soothing, modulating his emotion even further, by playing one of his favorite games or riding his bicycle.
Much of José‘s tremendous progress with emotional regulation over several years’ time is due to his parent’s guidance, support, and role modeling. We can also help ourselves to progress in emotional regulation by cultivating self-awareness about our emotions, their triggers, and our responses. We can learn to recognize triggers, name our emotions, and employ appropriate responses. Like any developmental skill, managing emotions takes practice and patience. We’re off to a good start, though, if we understand the process of trigger > emotion > response. If additional support and guidance is needed, we can also seek the help of a psychotherapist—someone who is well-trained to supply that kind of support.
One emotion that, un-regulated, can result in especially destructive behavior, is anger. Next week we will delve a little deeper into anger management.