Emotions are necessary. They help us to motivate into action, to react quickly when thinking is not an option, and to connect to others. However, unfettered emotion can also be damaging. So how do we regulate emotion?
Well, to begin, it can be very difficult for many of us. We may be fighting biology; some people are just wired to be more emotionally driven than others. We all fall in different places along the spectrum of the logical and emotional mind.
We also can’t expect to regulate our emotions if we don’t possess the tools to do so. Like anything else, emotional regulation is a skill to be learned. We also can’t expect that we will easily alter our emotional response if our current behaviors are reinforced by our environment; if emotional outbursts help us get what we want we will probably continue to do so.
Being moody or irritated, not having the desire to put in the work, or feeling emotionally overwhelmed can all impede our ability to regulate emotions. And emotionally overwhelmed is a pretty common occurrence these days. So if you are having trouble with regulating emotion right now, that could well be the issue.
Many will also subscribe to feelings like “I’m just an extremely emotional person” or “emotions are bad and should be avoided”. These ideas (which are not factual) will lead to trouble regulating emotion on two opposing sides of the spectrum. Remember, neither extreme emotional response nor avoidance are regulated; we want something in the middle.
Pay attention to these potential challenges to emotional regulation. Pay attention to extremes or repressing of our emotions. And understand that emotions do not exist in isolation; emotions are influenced and can influence environment, ourselves and others. That is a lot of power, treat them as such.
Emotional regulation is a corner stone of our Food on the Mind Emotional Eating Skills Group. Everything we do comes down to better regulating our emotions and the impact that can have on our behaviors and actions around food. Whether we are focusing on exercise, movement, mindfulness, or specific skills each segment of our session will in some way deal with an improvement in emotional regulation.
This is the last day to sign up for the first cohort of our group. Today and tomorrow we wrap up our intake calls and Monday morning we get started. If you are ready to make a change, or want to see more about what this entails, click the button below.
