Self-love training is a lot like potty training.
Sure, you can go full Tarzan and run sh*t-caked through the jungles, reeking up a one-mile radius with your foul stench, orrrrr, you can learn how to practice basic hygiene.
The same can be said for emotional regulation. The only difference is that a lot of us weren't taught how to manage tumultuous feelings or situations.
Tempers rise, tears start flowing, words go flying - or don't at all - and before we know it things have been said or done that can't be unheard or unseen - whether it's too much or too sharp, poor emotional regulation skills can lead us down a downright disastrous path.
As someone who experienced a lot of emotional dysregulation in my years, I can attest that learning how and when to express myself with maturity has become a superpower.
I no longer feed into toxic relationships.
I no longer suppress, deny, or avoid accountability for my feelings.
I no longer withhold my truth for the sake of what someone else might think or feel, lash out with "brutal honesty" that was really just cruelty, or keep things to myself in an effort to show face, be brave, be strong, or not appear to have issues.
If you struggle with healthy emotional expression, this post's for you:
Before diving into the process for emotional regulation, I want to discuss how to recognize when we've got emotional dysregulation behaviors and the golden rules to healthy emotional regulation that we should be honoring.
Healthy emotional regulation doesn't mean that every thought, feeling, or perception needs to be shared. On the contrary, it means recognizing when something is and is not for sharing, and how to go about sharing it in a way that is both clear and receptive to feedback.
If you struggle with expressing your feelings, you probably justify it with one, or more, of the below statements (or so many others that I'm not including):
- "My feelings don't matter."
- "Sharing my vulnerabilities pushes people away."
- "Sharing my feelings makes me look weak."
- "No one cares what I'm going through."
- "Speaking up will only cause more problems."
- "My truth will hurt their feelings."
The first problem with justifications like these is that they minimize your authenticity, which, in turn, keeps misaligned relationships and behaviors in your life out of your fears of abandonment or peer invalidation.
The second problem is that they assume the people in your life don't have your best interest at heart - which may be true, and leads back to the first problem whereby you should want to remove those types of people from your life since they don't truly care about you if they don't want the best for you.
Emotional regulation is hard for a lot of people because we're often taught to keep the peace at our own expense, rather than potentially rock the boat for the sake of self-expressive authenticity.
And that pattern makes it so, time and again, we shut down or ignore our intuition, engage in argumentative or reactive communication styles, and betray our spiritual guidance system with defensiveness or suppression.
The reality is that by practicing healthy emotional regulation skills we build self-trust, eliminate misaligned relationships from our path, and cultivate deeper connections with those who matter most to us.
But if you've been operating from a space of emotional dysregulation, it's hard to recognize when and how to express yourself. You might find that you live in a pattern of avoiding the reality of a situation because you just don't know how to otherwise operate authentically within it.
So before we dive into the do's and don'ts of how to emotionally express yourself once you've decided "now's the f*cking time," let's look at the 5 golden rules for what makes an emotional regulation moment healthy:
- CALM & COLLECTEDSpecifically in regards to expressing anger/disappointment/and other negative feelings - especially to those you care for - healthy emotional expression should be conducted in a calm and collected manner. With people you care for, there's no reason to fight. Arguments are disagreements, not fights. Fighting happens when emotional dysregulation takes over, emotions become heightened, and self-care/care for others goes out the window.
- IF IT'S FOR THEM, EXPRESS ITNot everything you think and feel needs to be shared. But if what you're feeling comes down to how someone's actions or words have an impact on you, and you cannot, and should not, adjust your life around their inconsiderations or behaviors, then expressing your feelings to that person needs to happen.
- IF IT'S FOR YOU, IT'S YOUR CHOICEIf you're realizing that you have feelings about a situation, but you also realize that it's more of a you issue than a them issue (e.g. your friend isn't texting you as often as usual, but you know that's because they're busy with their new baby) then the choice to share is up to you; however, if you choose to share, you should express that feeling with the preface that it's a you issue and not a them issue. Vulnerabilities are safe to share with the people who're meant for us. They can create deeper bonds. But don't expect your issues to be solved by someone else.
- IT'S NOT YOUR JOB TO MANAGE PEOPLES FEELINGSIf you find yourself avoiding conversations because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings, or you don't want to hear an answer you think they'll give you, remind yourself that you aren't in charge of other people's feelings and you shouldn't go around making assumptions about their potential responses. If something matters to you, express it; and if that person can't handle it, that's for them to learn how to regulate.
- SEEK UNDERSTANDING OVER SOLUTIONSNot every expression needs to come with a solution, for you or for others. Emotional regulation is all about connecting with community, which can only happen when we seek to understand one another. There's a time and a place to communicate for the sake of expressing carnal feelings (rage, fear, sadness, grief, etc.), but more often than not, emotional regulation skills are used in moments where we're seeking common ground and understanding, not finding solutions (though sometimes that's a perk to the convo).
In summary: remain calm, recognize when an emotion is for you to work through individually or with someone else, it's not your job to manage the feelings of others, and seek understanding.
Pretty simple stuff when you lay it out.
Now let's move on to how to process difficult feelings that often lead to emotional dysregulation.
I use a simple, 6-step process for when I feel overwhelmed, upset, sad, depressed, etc., to quickly work through my feelings and guide myself back to the primary meaning of the golden rules: do I share this moment or not?
I went through two phases of emotional dysregulation before I learned what's healthy: the first was where I didn't share anything - I got walked all over, I kept my tears to myself, I had zero boundaries, and zero interest in being vulnerable with anyone; the second phase was where I shared everything - no filter, no thought to it, just spewing what felt honest in the moment.
Both phases were wildly dysregulated. Where the first phase was built from my childhood household, the second phase was a direct reaction to that experience and me trying to seek safety through vulnerability.
The problem with the first phase was obvious: I didn't have a single relationship in my life where anyone truly knew me.
The problem with the second phase took me a little longer to realize: not everything I felt or thought was expressed in a healthy manner, or being shared in worthy relationships.
Because I was so dysregulated, I was building relationships with people who were equally dysfunctional. The outcome was sheer toxicity, with me in overreactive mode and them often feeding off of that with an empowered sense of self-expression, but with equally no sense of sensitivity or grace in delivery.
Therapy and research led me to realizing a quick and effective way for me to regulate my emotions and properly decide what and how to share without living out of reactivity.
Tying back into the diarrhea metaphor from the title (Why this metaphor?! I don't know. But is it effective in remembering how to manage difficult emotions? You betcha!): much like you wouldn't sh*t in public, you shouldn't be sharing difficult emotions the very moment they pop up - until, of course, you feel regulated and able to do so with graceful composure.
Find a safe, private space where you can calmly let loose your emotions and then do what comes naturally - let 'em ripe. Pay attention and honor whatever comes up for you. In that way, you can get the reactive expressions off your chest without taking it out on others.
[NOTE: Once you've gotten the hang of healthy emotional expression, this part can usually be done quickly and internally, without the need for walking away to a private space. That said, sometimes you may find that privacy is exactly what you need in order to productively process what to and to not share, and what is and is not important.]
Is it even possible to contain one's diarrhea? I don't know, I've never tried. But I can tell you this much: it sounds like a horrible idea.
So it is with emotional expression.
Whatever you're feeling so deeply, deserves your full expression. Only after its been fully felt can you think clearly about what caused that emotional reaction from you, what you need to personally regulate versus what someone else needs to know about their own behavior, and how/if you want to go about addressing it with another person.
Don't look away from your feelings; don't shame yourself, deny any parts of them, or otherwise gaslight yourself out of experiencing the feelings in all their fullness.
Stay present with the moment.
Healthy emotional regulation is about more than just processing what and how to speak your truth; it's about honoring your entirety.
So while you're expressing yourself (while you're crying, screaming, or raging out), remain with it while you reach a place of acceptance and understanding within yourself.
Don't leave the scene too soon for the sake of speeding through it. There's probably an encore, if not an after party, of residual feelings.
[NOTE: The better you get at emotional regulation, the easier this process will be. What once may have taken you a good hour to process, could transform into a few minutes. But that comes with practice and patience as you learn a new way to allow yourself authentic expression.]
So. Diarrhea metaphor, yea?
After you've poo-ed your guts out, you wipe yourself up with love, right? There's typically no aggression, no hatred, no scratches of regret, no self-loathing smacks of disgust.
Why would there be, right? What's there to loathe about a natural human experience? And cleaning yourself up afterward is a basic act of self-care.
The same could be said about human emotion.
Once you've expressed all there is to feel, it's time to clean up your energy with some loving gestures that remind you that you deserve to be cared for. Even if you choose not to share the emotion, you still deserve self-care after having experienced the full weight of it.
You just let loose some tough emotions that you otherwise didn't wanna address. Now it's time to give yourself hugs, and tissues, and maybe some cheese...
No one, not NO ONE, wants to see a toilet slathered in goopy diarrhea. The same is true for emotions.
Not everything you just experienced is meant for everyone else to witness.
Take stock in what's important and do away with what isn't. Your emotions don't define you, but the reflection period afterward sure can, so be sure to clear yourself of the junk that was just part of the "expression" period.
Only about 5-10% of what you just processed actually matters. Figure out what that stuff is and leave the rest in your safe space.
What do you do after going to the bathroom? You wash your hands.
What do you do after going to the bathroom for diarrhea?
You wash your hands, maybe wipe the sweat off your brow, get put on some fresh clothes if things got out of hand...maybe you even put on some slippers and call it a day, sign out of work early due to "illness," and login to Netflix for some chill time...
The same goes for expelling difficult feelings.
When we express easy feelings, we don't need much self-care to move on with our day. But when we process difficult feelings (feelings that might bring up past trauma, or make us bawl our eyes out, or leave us scared of an outcome we know we have to face), we need a lot more self-care than usual.
Give yourself proper emotional hygiene after dealing with the heavy stuff by reminding yourself that you're loved, that you deserve goods things, and that fresh clothes and comfort thigns are just a few feet away (hopefully).
[NOTE: When you're new to emotional regulation, it's good to have a reward system or otherwise ritualize your aftercare. Setup an at-home spa treatment, take a bubble bath, go for a hike in nature, or whatever else helps you get back to feeling safe. It's all about rewarding your brain for choosing to process something it otherwise was so used to avoiding.]
But it's a great metaphor to have in your back pocket when you realize you're being triggered into a reactive state.
Triggers do NOT justify immature, unhealthy reactions. But they are a natural part of living with mental health struggles. For that, emotional regulation is the key that helped me understand that while I will most likely always have a PTSD symptoms in my life, what I don't have to have is poor reactions to life's chaos.
Most of us weren't properly emotionally potty-trained as kids (*hand raise of no shame*), so we leak out emotional diarrhea in all the most inappropriate moments, or worse - we hold it in until we sh*t-explode all over the place.
Keep it simple, kitten.
Learn proper emotional diarrhea maintenance.
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