What Is Emotional Regulation?

Emotional regulation is not about avoiding difficult emotions or staying calm all the time.

In this video, you'll learn what emotional regulation really means, why it matters for nervous system health, and how developing awareness can help you respond to emotions with greater flexibility and self-compassion.

Transcript

So what is emotional regulation? What does it mean and why does it matter? Emotional regulation doesn't mean never feeling difficult emotions. It doesn't always mean being calm, Positive, Held together. Emotional regulation is the ability to experience emotions while staying connected to yourself. It means having the capacity to notice what you're feeling, Understand your responses in the moment and also to offer yourself support. Many of us were never taught this. Instead, We may have learned to suppress emotions, Push through, Distract ourselves. But emotions are not problems to get rid of. They are information, Signals of our internal experience. Working with the nervous system can help us understand that our ability to regulate our emotions is connected to feeling safe and supported. When we feel overwhelmed, Our capacity can become a lot smaller. A helpful question that you could ask yourself during challenging moments is, This emotion trying to communicate? So rather than, How do I make this go away? Through awareness grounding breath, Movement, Supportive practices. We can gradually build a greater capacity to be with ourselves through a wide range of emotional experiences. This is really about being able to stay connected to yourself despite what's happening around you.