The Toxicity Toolkit – Breakout Topics 1 – Emotional Regulation

Breakout Topics- Emotional Regulation

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Emotional Regulation

Taking the reigns (Post from 1/1/2022)

We all experience emotion. Emotions are so powerful we feel them with our bodies, and they strongly affect our thoughts. Left unchecked, if we allow our emotions to control our thoughts for a long time, our emotions can start to change the ways we think, and eventually change our personalities.

Becoming who you want to be requires emotional regulation, and I’ve experienced far too many people who do not take responsibility for their own emotional regulation. Here are some important things to know about emotional regulation.

You are responsible for regulating your own emotions. It’s not anyone else’s job to calm you down, pacify or soothe you, or make you happy. In fact, no one else can. Even if someone’s trying to calm, soothe, or please you, ultimately it is up to you whether you allow the efforts to “work.” While it’s true that the behaviors and choices of others can affect you, and your emotions, how you work through those emotions, and which behaviors you choose in turn are entirely up to you, and you are responsible for exercising control over the intensity and duration of emotions, as well as the behaviors these emotions inspire.

You decide whether to behave from an emotional or a rational place.

Emotional regulation gets better and easier with practice.
Emotional regulation enables you to focus on the outcomes that you want, and avoids defensiveness.
Negative emotions are a part of life and you will not die from them. Distress tolerance skills enable you to experience a negative emotion without feeling the need to lash out or seek personal validation above outcomes.
If you’re not taking responsibility for regulating your own emotions, you expose the people around you to your toxic behaviors instead.
Emotional regulation requires self-care. It is much more difficult to regulate emotions when you’re out of spoons.
Emotional regulation does not mean dismissing or not feeling your emotions. It means feeling them, and addressing why you are feeling them. It means using techniques to calm yourself when appropriate. It means learning ways of communicating your emotional experiences to others. It means problem solving ways to improve or resolve situations.

Happy Healing!

You’re probably in a cult.

A Quick Tool for Your Kit. (Post from 1/5/2022)

Have you ever noticed the connection between your emotions and your behavior? When we, as humans, feel something, it makes us want to behave accordingly. When we feel happy, we may want to smile, or share a hug, or sing out-loud. When feeling sad, we may feel compelled to cry, or isolate ourselves, or seek attention. When we feel angry, we may want to behave aggressively.

Emotional reactions, when we are using our reacting brain rather than our analyzing brain, tend to be toxic more frequently than responses using our analyzing brain.

One skill you can train yourself to use is actually doing the Opposite Action to the behavior you feel compelled to do.

If you feel like isolating, seek comfort in company instead.

If you feel like hitting something, hug.

If you feel like yelling, speak calmly and gently.

Doing the Opposite Action will retrain your responses. It’s hard at first, and it’s awkward, and it actually requires a fair number of spoons, but it gets easier with practice, and it trains your reacting brain to choose different responses.

Different responses, also affect the emotion itself, and discomfort you may feel. Like all things in The Toolkit, practice makes perfect.

I acknowledge that this skill isn’t for EVERY emotional response. Sometimes our emotions are accurate, and it’s important to feel them.

This skill is important for when you are having an intense emotional urge to behave. Let the intensity be your flag that something is up, and enlist your analyzing brain to help you in the moment. Question the accuracy and intensity of the emotion. Ask yourself what you want to do and why. Then choose what to do instead. Choose behaviors that give you spoons and lead to the outcomes you want.

Happy Healing