Emotional Regulation

When my clients first arrive in therapy, they usually say either . . .

Oh my goodness!  Help me control my emotions!

Or

What emotions?  That’s not really a problem.

When my clients say they want to control their emotions, they are usually asking me to help them turn off their emotions so that they look like the second group.  The second group is often baffled that they have problems since their emotions are so under control.  They often see themselves simply as unemotional people, struggle to locate their emotions, and generally have their emotions as turned off as possible.  This all makes sense because our culture has long devalued and misunderstood emotions, telling us that being unemotional is the goal.  However, neither of these groups is regulating their emotions.

Emotional regulation means that you have emotions (you can feel them physically and name them) and the emotions are usually at a manageable size.

You see, we actually need our emotions—all of them!—in order to live healthy, well-adjusted lives.  If we want a job that makes us feel fulfilled, we will need to have emotions to let us know that we feel that way.  If we want to feel connected to our friends and family members, we will need a range of emotions to help us manage the closeness of that connection.  If we want to accomplish a goal or enjoy a sunset, we are going to need the ability to feel emotions for that feeling of pleasure.  Emotions help us know what we want and don’t want, like and don’t like.  Emotions help us connect to some people and disconnect from others.  Emotions help us engage and disengage.  Without them, life becomes dull.  And frankly, without emotions, we become pretty dull, too.

I usually think of emotions as four-year-olds.  A four-year-old will usually tell you the straight truth, no beating around the bush, no fancy words to distract from the point.  And what happens when you don’t listen to four-year-olds?  They get louder.  They can be awfully good at persistence and volume until the adult gives them attention and finally listens.  If you are super good at shutting them out, then they will shift into physical symptoms until they get your attention.

Your emotions tell you the truth.  You can even have more than one emotion about something because humans are complex and there might be more than one truth.  Perhaps I am anxious, optimistic, and excited about an upcoming event.  Why not?

There’s another way that emotions are like four-year olds.  A young child might think they really want X, but they are happiest overall when they have an adult who listens, takes their desires into consideration, and then makes the best decision for them from the adult perspective.  Your emotions are exactly the same as this!  Perhaps you really want a bigger house and you have some strong emotions about it—both a strong desire and a fear of paying for it.  If you take the time to chat with those emotions, you might find that they just want to be acknowledged.  They might not actually want you to buy and pay for the bigger house.  You won’t know until you take the time to listen.

To regulate emotions, you will need to hear and acknowledge them.  That doesn’t mean they make the final decision.

We need a framework for understanding emotion overall, especially the volume of emotion.  I usually use what Dr. Dan Siegel has called the “Window of Tolerance.” 

Let’s start with the “Window.”  The window is the space where you are fully present.  If you are hungry, you feel it.  If you are tired, you can physically feel how that shows up in your body.  You can feel the breeze or notice the staleness of the air and decide to crack an actual window.  You notice all the different shades of green in nature.  There’s space for thinking about the people around you and what they might need.  When we are in the window, we can notice our emotions, feel them, listen to them, choose how to respond to them.  Potentially, any emotion at all could be present with us in our windows. 

The emotions we feel while we are in the window are at just the right volume so that we are not overwhelmed.

The window is the space where we are emotionally regulated.

When we are in our window, our whole, best self is available to us.  We all have moments when we have a fast response to something and we find we’re embarrassed by the response.  We would love to have done something differently.  We know better.  Those times that we are not our best selves, we were not in our windows.  It is only in our window that we have the neurological capacity to respond in the way that we want to.

No one stays in their window all day, every day.  That’s not even the goal.  Staying present requires energy that we don’t always have.  And frankly, life can easily become too much.  Any time that being present becomes too much for us, we check out.  Our bodies are designed to help us check out.  We are all provided with two systems for this.  We can call each of these systems by several different names.  You can use whatever name makes the most sense to you.

Above the window, we have the sympathetic nervous system.  This is your fight or flight, high energy, anxiety system.  All mammals have this system.  There are several purposes for this system.  It gives us more energy which can help us exercise and stay alert, it can distract us from the present moment, it can prepare us to fight back, it can simply help us push through the day.  It can feel good like a pleasant surprise, vigorous exercise, or high mental focus.  It can also feel nasty like a panic attack, constant anxiety, or fear.  Overall, keep in mind that your nervous system takes you here to avoid feeling fully present to whatever is going on at that moment.

Below the window, we have the dorsal vagal nervous system.  This is your freeze, submit, play dead, low energy, depression system.  All animals have this system.  For reptiles, this is their only defense system.  Imagine a lizard freezing or playing dead when a predator comes near.  This is that system.  This system kicks in when the sympathetic nervous system gets tired.  These nerves are wired into all of the organs south of the diaphragm, hence the troubles with digestion.   This system causes us to feel depressed, low energy, low mood, and shut down, unable to respond.  However, this same system can also feel positive, like the happy lethargy after a large holiday meal, a peaceful meditative state, or the warm calm after a good workout.  This shut down system has the effect of distancing us from the present moment, helping us coast through life in a low energy mode when it’s too hard to be in the window.

I want you to know that there isn’t one, right place to be.  It’s okay to be out of the window and not fully present sometimes.  When my physiotherapist is working on my ankle and it hurts tons, I don’t want to be fully present to the pain.  Honestly, what would be the benefit to staying fully present in that moment?  I can stay partially present enough to respond when she wants me to switch legs, but still let myself check out a bit so that I’m not focused on the momentary pain.

There are absolutely times that we do need to feel our pain and other emotions that we’d rather avoid.  Remember, it’s only in the window that we have neurological access to our whole selves.  Only in the window can we be well-connected to other people.  When we need to spend time in the window, we can use grounding tools and other strategies to help us take a step closer to the window.

There are a couple of pieces about emotional regulation that I really hope you notice here.

There isn’t one right place to be.  There isn’t one right way to feel.  Anxiety and depression are not “wrong.”  They are tools that all of our bodies use to help us escape reality.  And yes, sometimes it’s okay to escape reality.  The key is balance.  If you are stuck in anxiety or depression, then we want to help you find more balance so that you aren’t stuck there all the time.

Another key point is about emotional intensity.  You might have heard that you are supposed to feel your emotions, as though simply feeling them would be good for you.  That’s true, but we need to add on a little more information there.  The key is that we need to feel our emotions within the window.  When emotions are big and loud and overwhelming, we go shooting out of the window.  We might feel emotions there, but we will simply spin and feel miserable.  Again, in order for it to be helpful when we feel our emotions, they have to be at a volume we can tolerate.

This is where counsellors come in handy.  One of the things that a counsellor can help with is helping to regulate emotions so that they are at a volume that doesn’t send you flying out of the window.  In therapy, you can learn to gradually begin to regulate your own emotions so that they can remain at a reasonable volume more often, allowing you to stay in your window longer.  I think most people would agree if they understood their emotions and could keep them at a reasonable volume, they wouldn’t be so bad.  Let’s try it together!