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Hello and welcome back to Ryan about a podcast with me, Paulson Victoria. We are carrying on with chapter 4, Emotional Regulation, and this is How to Be You by Ellie Middleton. Just before I discovered that I was an autistic ADHD, when I knew my previous diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and agrophobia, didn't accurately describe my experience and was therefore looking for other examples. I went through a phase of being convinced that I had either bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder, BPD. This was because so many of my struggles came from the intensity and up and down nature of my emotions. I have always felt as though I'm either really happy or really sad, with not much in between. And bipolar and BPD were the only explanations for this roller coaster of quickly changing, intense emotions that I'd ever heard spoken about. Since my light bulb moment, I've discovered that these diagnoses don't actually fit my experience and that the differences I have in my emotional regulation abilities are actually down to being an autistic ADHDer. ADHD means that I struggle to regulate my emotions in the same way that other people can, and being an undiagnosed and therefore unsupported, autistic person in a world that was never designed for me meant that I was frequently driving myself into states of burnout, during which I'd feel my emotions even more intensely. Since sharing my story online, I've heard about so many people going through the same journey of thinking their challenges with emotional regulation were down to a mental health condition or different type of neurodivergence before discovering their autism and ADHD, and maybe it's even something you can relate to too. In this chapter we will explore what is emotional regulation, which systems have affected the way we think about emotional regulation, how can we support ourselves with emotional regulation? 5 things to consider putting in place for your emotional regulation. We as a society are not used to seeing public or outward displays of emotion, and this is something that needs to change. Although some emotions might be uncomfortable to experience, they are all completely valid and the normal part of being a human being. Completely valid and the normal part of being a human being. What is emotional regulation? Emotional regulation is defined as the ability to recognize, understand, and effectively manage your emotions and reactions to different situations. Psychology today describes it as the ability to exert control over one's own emotional state, which may involve behaviors such as rethinking a challenging situation to reduce anger or anxiety, hiding visible signs of sadness or fear, or focusing on reasons to feel happy or calm. As someone who experiences these differences in emotional regulation, I have always felt my feelings really deeply and struggle to keep them under control. For you, this might show up in ways like being prone to losing your temper, experiencing rapid mood swings, having trouble steering your emotions, and so feeling stuck or unable to make yourself feel better when experiencing negative emotions. Spiraling into intense sadness when one small thing goes wrong. Feeling really overwhelmed by your emotions. Having very intense periods of sobbing when feeling unhappy. Having a hard time focusing on anything else but emotions or an emotional situation. Finding it difficult to calm yourself down even if you know the situation isn't that significant. Having reactions that other people might deem out of proportion to what has happened or been said. In an article for Attitude, Dr. Russell Barclay explains that emotional dysregulation, I personally don't love the use of the word dysregulation, because it suggests that we have a deficit or disorder when under the neurodiversity paradigm, we would instead say that we just have differences in our emotional regulation, has been shown to uniquely predict the following social rejection in children with ADHD, interpersonal hostility, and marital dissatisfaction in adults with ADHD, greater parenting stress and family conflict in parents of children with ADHD, greater stress in parents with ADHD, road rage, incidences of driving under the influence, and crash risks during driving, job dismissals and workplace interpersonal problems, dating slash cohabiting relationship conflict, impulse buying, poor finances. Although a lot of the examples above make emotional regulation differences seem like a complete curse, which they often can be. I've personally always said that my ability to feel things so deeply is both my biggest blessing and my biggest curse. Yes, the bad or negative feelings feel really bad, but that means that I feel the good or positive feelings really intensely too. This can show up in ways like feeling really intense joy when listening to my favourite music, being overwhelmed with pride and happiness when my loved ones achieve something, loving and caring for my friends and family so deeply. Getting really excited about things that other people might deem small. Feeling really happy when engaging with my special interests. Sometimes differences in emotional regulation, for example, autistic people, can even show up in us appearing to have no emotional reactions in situations where they would be expected. This might include not crying when something sad happens because we might take longer to process things, not smiling when we feel happy because we don't show our emotions in the same ways as neurotypical people, not responding to other people's emotions in the same way that other people would because we might struggle to understand and recognize nonverbal cues or facial expressions. Not being able to identify how we feel about something because of alexophymia, which is defined as the inability to recognize or describe one's own emotions. Barclay puts some of the emotional regulation difficulties that ADHD have down to what he calls emotional impulses, EL, and believes that it is, therefore, linked to the hyperactive slash impulsive nature of ADHDers. Emotional regulation challenges are not currently part of the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, but it is becoming more and more widely recognized that this is a major part of the experience of ADHDers and otherwise neurodivergent folks. Research has shown that emotion regulation differences are prevalent in ADHD throughout the lifespan, i.e. ADHDers of all ages, and are a major contributor to impairment. Again, not a huge fan of impairment, maybe we could reframe this as major disabling factor. The same study suggested that these emotional regulation differences might arise from our difficulty in orientating towards recognizing or allocating our attention to emotional stimuli. As well as ADHD as experiencing differences in the way we are able to regulate our emotions, it can be a very common experience for a whole range of neurodivergent people. This includes those with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, as mentioned above, as well as autistic people, dyslexic people, and people with depression. Remember that if the way that you think, learn, behave, communicate, process information or feel emotions diverges from social norms, you are neurodivergent, and therefore anyone who experiences emotions differently falls under the neurodivergent umbrella. Which systems have affected the way we think about emotional regulation? I think a big part of what we fail to remember about emotional regulation is that emotions are a natural part of being human, even the big, messy, difficult, or unpleasant ones. In the Western world, especially in British culture, we have been taught to keep a stiff upper lip and control our emotions to an almost impossible degree, especially when it comes to negative emotions. The general consensus seems to be don't show any emotion in any circumstance, no matter how much you're struggling or what you're going through. On the one hand, we're encouraged to open up about our mental health and talk to people, but on the other hand, we're frowned upon if we ever answer the question, how are you? with anything less than good thanks, or even fine. This, however, isn't objectively how we should be able to regulate our emotions, and certainly isn't the case in all cultures. As Jasmine Johal, she her autistic content creator explains, South Asians live in and thrive in community, so it's very normal for us to process our feelings with and around our loved ones and not shy away from our emotions. In particular, displays of grief in South Asian communities can be very overwhelming. Of course, grief is a very intense emotion in any culture, but it's the norm for grieving South Asians to wail loudly and excessively at home, at the temple, at the funeral, to release their emotions in the most cathartic but heartbreaking way. There are no awkward glances from others in attendance, just the utmost empathy and understanding of what has been lost. The sniffles I've heard at English funerals in comparison are quite jarring to me. But I understand it's just different cultures responding in the only way they know or have been taught. This also links to some further characteristics of white supremacy culture as defined by Tema Okun. You can find more on these characteristics in What Defines Our Views of Executive Functioning, page 19. The first of these is objectively, which assigns value to rational or logical thinking, while invalidating and shaming anything considered emotional. This means that anybody who shows or expresses emotions or is thought to lead with their heart is seen as wrong or lesser, even when faced with a situation that is bound to cause or trigger a lot of emotion. Objectively undermines the fact that emotional intelligence is a very real and valuable skill and that, as human beings, we are naturally complex and emotional beings. How objectivity affects the way we see emotional regulation and executive functioning. Objectivity means that we see those who outwardly express emotions as irrational or illogical and therefore defines what we consider to be emotional regulation versus dysregulation. We often do not consider the circumstances or situations that might be causing someone to be emotionally dysregulated, even when the emotion shown is a perfectly valid response to those circumstances. In the diagnostic criteria for ADHD and autism, we don't allow for subjective experiences or reasons why people might be struggling. For example, if someone is going through an especially hard time, they might find task innovation, planning, or organization particularly difficult, or have a whole load of emotions that feel too big to regulate, but this reasoning behind differences or changes isn't considered. Second, fear of open conflict also impacts the way we think about emotional regulation. In order to further protect each other's individual comfort in cultures where white supremacy is prevalent, we often experience a fear of open conflict. Disagreements are often not voiced, and those who do voice concerns are often silenced, in order to keep the peace. This means that if somebody does raise an issue that causes discomfort, the most likely response is to blame the person for raising the issue, rather than to look at the issue which is actually causing the problem. This can result in labelling emotions as irrational, calling people different if they speak openly about issues that are caused, insisting that people prioritize being polite over being honest, and having strict unspoken rules about what should and should not be spoken about, all of which is especially difficult to navigate as an autistic person. How fear of open conflict affects the way we see emotional regulation and executive functioning. Neurodivergent people might feel as though they cannot raise concerns or questions about the way things are done or express their emotions visibly, for fear of it being seen as seen to be causing conflict. When people do ask to be accommodated for their executive functioning differences, when people do ask to be accommodated for their executive functioning differences, they might be labelled difficult or disturbing the status quo. Tone policing often comes into play here, where politeness is valued over the importance of the topic somebody feels strongly about. This might lead to somebody being considered to be emotionally dregulated rather than taking on board their concerns. In my opinion, the way we perceive emotional regulation is also very closely tied to misogyny and our patriarchal society. Women and people marginalized for their gender are often called irrational or emotional if they outwardly express their emotions, while sultaneously being socialized under a patriarchy to be soft and gentle. We are considered to be less reliable or professional because we are more likely to outwardly express our emotions than cis men might be. However, it is not just women and people marginalized for their gender who lose in a patriarchal society. We all do. Under patriarchy, men are typically expected to display only harder emotions, such as anger, and to suppress any softer or empathetic emotions. These societal expectations can shape all our perceptions, of which emotions are acceptable or appropriate for us to feel and express. And we're led to believe that an outward display of more vulnerable emotions like sadness, fear, or anxiety is weak, with men who express these emotions even being considered feminine. The result of all this is that women who considered Women are considered to be weak or overly emotional, and men are left without the tools or language to be able to feel, process, describe, and express their emotions in a healthy way. How can we support ourselves with emotional regulation? I think there are two big things to remember here. The first is that there is no such thing as a bad or wrong feeling. Although some emotions might be uncomfortable to experience, they are all completely valid and a normal part of being a human being. Sadness is a perfectly valid response to an upsetting experience. Anger, when expressed in a safe way, is a good reminder of when something doesn't align with us, and anxiety is our body's way of letting us know that something is important to us. There are no emotions that we should aim to completely eradicate or just never feel, because all emotions serve a purpose. We don't need to shame ourselves for having a human reaction to our circumstances. This is particularly true when we live in a world where there is often a lot to feel, upset, angry, or anxious about. We are living through a cost of living crisis, watching wars unfold before our eyes, while witnessing the effects that the climate crisis is having on our planet. We see injustice all around us and we are exposed to it in a way that humans have never been before, thanks to our almost constant use of social media, smartphones, and the internet. It is to be expected that we might be feeling some kind of way about all of that. And it's important that we do. The second thing that I think it's important we remember is that it's okay to show our emotions. We don't have to hide everything away and spend our whole lives pretending that everything is fine and we're completely unbothered and unfazed by everything that is happening around us. Opening up and outwardly expressing our emotions can feel scary and vulnerable. But in the words of Brainy Brown, staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection. Personally, I am a big crier. I think it's particularly down to my struggles with emotional regulation. Particularly down to my communication differences as an autistic person, and particularly down to the fact that I'm living in a world that is almost always overwhelming for my neurodivergent brain. Whatever the reason, the point is that I cry a lot. Many of the times that I'm crying, I don't actually need sympathy or support or anything at all from the people around me. For me, it's not a sign that I'm distraught or breaking down or having a really awful time. It's simply my body's way of communicating that there is a lot going on right now. But because we've all been socialized to hide our emotions whenever possible, we've somehow learned that if somebody is crying, it must be something really bad for it to have gotten to the point that we aren't able to suppress these their tears. This means that when I cry, most days, often the people around me at the time don't know how to respond. They assume that something really awful has happened, so they might stop and stare, ask me if I'm okay, or make a big fuss. In reality, I don't want this fuss. I just want to be able to communicate in my own way, even if there are artists involved. We as a society are not used to seeing people used to seeing public or outward displays of emotion, and this is something that needs to change. Below are a few ways that we can start to make that shift happen, whether that's as the criers, ourselves, or the people around us who know it's okay not to bat an eyelid at somebody openly expressing their emotions. A list of things that are absolutely fine. Crying in public, flapping your hands when you experience a lot of joy, asking to have some time out to process your emotions when they become overwhelming. Admitting that you're having a hard time instead of pretending that everything is A-OK. Needing to use tools such as the emotion sensation feeling wheel to work out which physical feelings in your body relate to which emotions. Having a hard time regulating your tone of voice when your emotions are high. Asking people, how are you? And then when they reply with the usual good or fine, asking again, but really how are you? Feeling and expressing anger in safe and non-hurtful ways, like screaming into your pillow or ranting to a friend. Not being able to immediately get over something or somebody that has upset you, and needing to take some time to process it. Actually feeling your feelings rather than thinking that you have to suppress them. Tip 16. five, four, three, two, one. A big factor in feeling our emotions are impossible to regulate is that we frequently get stuck in our heads. Especially when you have a busy, hyperactive brain, it's incredibly easy to get stuck in a spiral of ruminating thoughts going over and over the situation. What you did say, what you could have said, what you could have done differently, what the other person might be thinking, how you might have been misunderstood, what the outcome is going to be, and so on, and so on. The impulsive and hyperactive nature of my brain, combined with the trauma I have from growing up as an undiagnosed and unsupported autistic person means that I frequently get caught up in these rumination cycles. To pull ourselves out of this spiral, we can use a mindfulness technique to force our awareness out of our busy brains and into our bodies. I know, I know, mindfulness feels very wishy-washy when you're a black and white, literal processor and feels completely unattainable when you're a busy-brained ADHDer whose thoughts are constantly racing around at a million miles per hour. But trust me when I say that this is very simple, very logical technique is a game changer. When you notice that you're stuck in a busy brain rumination spiral, you're going to do a really simple grounding exercise called 54321. This means identifying and listening, five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. Doing this helps shift your focus away from any anxiety-provoking thoughts and into the present moment. As Calm, the mindfulness and meditation app explain on their website, the 5-4-3-2-1 method works because it engages multiple senses, requiring you to concentrate on the present environment rather than dwell on anxiety-inducing thoughts. This interrupts the fight or flight response, calming the nervous system and reduce and reducing symptoms of anxiety or stress almost immediately. By focusing on your senses and the things happening in the present moment, you're letting your brain know that there is no immediate threat and it therefore doesn't need to be operating in fight or flight mode. After all, if there was an immediate danger, like for example, a lion chasing after you, you wouldn't have the chance to stop and think, hmm, what can I taste right now? And so in doing so, you're allowing your brain to recognize that it's okay to down-regulate the stress response. This pulls you away from the rumination cycles and therefore makes your emotions feel a whole lot less overwhelming. Here is a template for filling in your 5-4-3-2-1. So now you have what are five things I can see, and it's numbered going down, and then what are four things I can touch, what are three things I can hear, what are two things I can smell, and what is one thing I can taste. Tip 17. Reframing rejection. It has been reported that nearly one in three ADHDers say that the hardest part of living with ADHD is something called rejection sensitive dysphoria or RSD, rejection sensitive dysphoria, first coined by Dr. William Dodson in 2017, explains the way in which ADHDers are triggered to feel extreme pain when experiencing any real or perceived rejection. This might show up in response to being teased, receiving negative feedback, feeling like somebody is upset with you, or that you're not good enough in some way. Research has suggested this extreme emotional pain is a result of the differences in brain functioning of ADHDs. It has been suggested that the negative effects associated with rejection or even perceived rejection are not easily processed by the brain, resulting in an intense nervous system response. One example that I gave in Unmasked of how RSD shows up for me is that I will often jump to the conclusion that I am being rejected, even when, in reality, that most likely is not the case. As an example, if two friends were having a conversation just out of earshot, but I just about heard my name being mentioned, my brain would automatically think that they must be saying something bad about me, that they didn't like me, or that I had done something wrong. In reality, it's just as likely, if not more likely, that they'd be saying something positive about me, but my brain always reverts to assuming rejection without taking this into account. Any negative feedback or even neutral feedback that is perceived by our brain as negative feels like a personal attack, a complete rejection, and can completely throw our emotions off balance. This means that an important part of learning to regulate our emotions as ADHD is, and otherwise neurodivergent folks, I think everybody is prone to thinking the worst and perceiving feedback as negative, is finding a way to jump in and stop our brain from racing to the worst conclusions. Or even if they do jump to those conclusions, finding ways to question them and pull ourselves out of it. One way that we can do this is by doing some self-coaching. I first learned about the framework below when training to be an ADHD coach with ADHD works and have found it incredibly useful in getting to the truth of a situation rather than the worst case scenario that my brain often jumps to. The questions that we want to work through are 1. What is the thought that is bothering me? Here you want to be completely honest and braindump all the absolute worst thoughts that are bracing around your brain. It might feel embarrassing or uncomfortable to admit the extremities of your thoughts, but the most honest you can get, the more you're going to be able to actually work on reframing it. Nobody is going to read it, it's just for you. For example, if you've had a slight disagreement with your partner, you might say, I feel like I'm the worst person in the entire world, and no one will ever love me. 2. What proof do I have for this thought? Here you're going to do a list of things that have triggered your brain into feeling that way. That might be, my partner is upset with me because I forgot about our anniversary. 3. What would be the result of me choosing to believe this thought? Next, you're going to list out all the things that happen as a result of you choosing to believe the thought that your brain is providing you with. This could be, I feel bad, I will pull away from my partner, I will cut myself off from other people, I will beat myself up about it, I will start to doubt all my other relationships, etc. 4. What is the absolute worst case scenario if this 4 is true? How would I deal with that? Here you're going to indulge all your brain's chaos and write out what would happen in the absolute worst case scenario. Hopefully, in doing so, you will see that even if it does come to that, which is incredibly unlikely, you will survive. This takes the power away from the big scary thought because we can see that it wouldn't be the complete end of the world. For example, your worst case scenario might be My partner breaks up with me and I deal with that by giving them some space. Going to see my friends, going to stay with my parents for a few days, running myself a long candlelit bath, or screaming my heart out to break up songs. No judgment here. 5. What is the opposite thought that I could choose to believe instead? After indulging those anxious fantasies, we're going to write down the complete opposite thought of our original one, which by this point might seem a bit more rational. If our original thought was, I feel like I'm the worst person in the entire world and no one will ever love me, the opposite would be, I am a good person, and I am loved. 6. What proof do I have for my opposite thought? Finally, we're going to list all, yes, all, the proof we have for this new thought. In doing so, we can look at the situation more rationally and see that, okay, we might have made a mistake. And okay, our partner might be a little bit upset with us for a while. But in the whole grand scheme of things, everything is going to be okay. We're not a terrible person, we aren't going to die alone, and the world isn't going to end. To quote one of my absolute favourite sayings, which I actually have tattooed across my back. It's just a bad day, not a bad life. Tip 18. Sampling sobriety. By Lewis Middleton, ADHD and autistic social media manager, and my little brother, very proud sister moment. I've been sober for one year and counting. The impact that sobriety has had on my emotional regulation and general well-being as someone recently diagnosed with ADHD and in the process of realizing I'm quite possibly autistic too, has been almost beyond belief. Who would have thought that regularly consuming depressant chemicals would make you feel bad? I always thought that my relationship with alcohol was healthy and never questioned the role it played in my mental health or my ability to regulate my emotions. I could easily stop if I wanted to. Or I've had a stressful week, it just helps take the edge off. Was the message I'd often try and conceive myself and convince myself. However, the reality was that from the ages of 18 to 22, my life revolved around drinking. My weeks used to follow a pretty similar pattern. Monday to Wednesday, I'd be hungover and feeling low. Then, as soon as Thursday evening came around, I'd be straight back to having pints until Sunday evening. I couldn't just have the one or two pints though. I had to pour as many as possible down my neck and get blackout drunk every single time. In December 2022, I started to realize that my alcohol consumption was becoming a problem. It was affecting my relationships with my family, who'd spend their weekends worrying if I was okay and what time I was going to stumble through the door. In myself, as much as I tried to deny it, I knew the way I was living just wasn't right. I decided that I needed to make a change. I had my last blowout on New Year's Eve 2022. I had my last ever alcoholic drink on January 1st, 2023, at 2.30am in Pop World. And from that point, I haven't looked back. Getting through the first couple of weeks was really tough. I'd be sat at home on Friday and Saturday nights wondering what to do with myself. And the 0% beers just weren't hitting the same. But I stayed resilient and kept searching for videos with hashtag sobriety on TikTok to try and reaffirm all the mental and physical benefits people had spoken about. A few people have asked me what helped me stop drinking for good in those first few weeks. So here are some of my best and most practical tips. Give yourself a good excuse not to drink if you're in a social setting. Say you've got to drive home. Say you've got to pick up your sibling up at the airport. People will stop nagging you. Make sure you do something with your mornings when you'd normally be hungover in bed. It'll make you realize what you're missing. 0% alternatives serve a purpose for the first few weeks. You'll find that over time the craving for alcohol will just disappear. Now that I'm sober, I don't have to spend the first half of my week fighting my hangovers. And the subsequent low mood and extreme emotional dysregulation that came with them. I don't have to deal with the deliberating anxiety of opening my banking apps on a Sunday morning to see how many drinks I've bought for complete strangers. And now I can actually do things I want to do with my weekend without being hungover. It's amazing. More importantly, I've noticed that my general self-confidence has increased tenfold. As someone who previously struggled with managing my anxiety, I used to think that I needed to have two or three pints to loosen up and socialize. I've realized that alcohol was just a tool to help me mask. I feel like I can be myself now. I might not be the loudest person in the pub anymore, but that wasn't me in the first place. At the time of writing, I'm 54 weeks sober, and I can honestly say I've never felt better or more emotionally regulated in my life. I'll never touch a drop of alcohol again. The temptation isn't there anymore. Sobriety isn't for everyone. Ideally, I'd be able to drink responsibly and call it a night. But that's just not going to happen for me. As an ADHD with impulsive tendencies. If you're somebody who shares similar experiences to mine or struggles with emotional regulation that is heightened by drinking alcohol, maybe it's time to take a look at your relationship with alcohol and really ask yourself if it's doing you any good. Tip 19. Automatic writing. I've never been one for journaling because similarly to mindfulness it all just felt a bit wishy washy. As someone who is a chronic perfectionist, I felt like I was carefully monitoring what I was putting on the page, trying to ensure that if someone imaginary reader got their hands, hands on it, they would know how mature and regulated and reasonable I was, rather than actually just brain dumping all my raw, uncomfortable, real feelings. However, that all changed when I was introduced to automatic writing by KR Moorehead, they them, a neurodivergent and gender-queer writer and educator, while studying one of their creative writing courses. KR shared with us an amended version of both the Morning Pages technique outlined by Julia Cameron in her infamous book The Artist's Way and a technique shared by Andrew Cohen in The Art of Writing Fiction. As Cohen explains, the practice of automatic writing is a technique by which you might reveal to yourself what is going on in the back of your mind, the stuff you aren't consciously aware of, the stuff of your unconscious, the stuff in a sense that you don't know you know. The idea here is that we're not thinking about how we should be feeling or what we should be thinking, but instead we're letting our actual emotions, however messy, raw, uncomfortable, suppressed, or overwhelming they might be, pour out onto the page. When practicing automatic writing, you're going to set a timer for how long you're going to write. I recommend starting with 10 minutes, but if that feels too daunting for you, you could start with 5 minutes or even 2. It's likely that once you get started, more and more stuff will pour out of you. But we don't need to scare ourselves off by setting too big a target. Once you have set your timer, you're going to begin writing and not stop for the entire length of time. It might be helpful to start with a prompt like, I want to talk about, or I wish somebody understood that. But once you've set off, it doesn't matter what you write, which tangents you head off on, or whether it makes any sense whatsoever. All that matters is that you just keep writing. If you run out of things to say about unlikely with a busy ADHD brain, then you can just write. I don't have anything else to write about, or I have nothing more to say. Or even, this is a silly exercise over and over again until something else pops into your brain. The rules that Andrew Cohen outlines in The Art of Writing Fiction are paraphrased below. It's okay if your writing is illegible or doesn't have proper grammar or punctuation. It's okay if your writing feels clumsy or cliched. It's okay to repeat yourself or even contradict yourself. It's okay to write nonsense or rubbish. It's okay to write anything that you want. It's okay if you go completely off point. But you must write without a moment's pause for the entire amount of time. Set yourself a task of carving out some time to do this automatic writing every day, or even grabbing a notepad and writing at any time as an emergency response when you feel your emotions becoming dysregulated or overwhelming. Tip 20. Why did this upset me? By Josephine Nechtl, she her, ADHD clinical hypnotherapist and rapid transformational coach. When triggers first appear, they can be a source of overwhelm and discomfort, but we can utilize them as a means of connecting and understanding ourselves. I always seek to approach triggers as a mirror. What am I responding to, and what can I learn about myself from this experience? Through this understanding, it's like I am turning a light in a dark room to gain full clarity on what's happening and how I can best support myself. Sometimes we can feel fear when triggered. Fear stems from not having all the information we need. By getting curious, we can access the answers and understanding that places us in a position of power. Understanding gives us the tools to make choices to respond to triggers in a way that feels supportive instead of scary. A trigger isn't an emotional response to something outside of us. We are often emotionally responding in ways that are tied to past experiences. Knowing this gives us an invitation to process and rewire our responses to be relevant to who we are today. The mind is here to move us from pain towards pleasure, and so pushes us into action when we experience a trigger. This is key as it shows that our mind and body are not against us. They are here to keep us alive. What's fascinating is that the emotions are energy in motion. We do not think emotions, we feel them within our body. This is why it is important to meet triggers with a physical movement to disfuse the intensity of that energy. Movement allows the energy to be released, clearing space for us to understand and process what has happened. When you notice that you are triggered, take a shake break. Whether it's your hands or hips, allow that movement to take place. Notice the shift you feel immediately. How great does it feel to make a choice to support yourself here? Next, we want to take a double breath in. Further telling your body that you are here and you are safe. Then take the time to ask yourself the following four questions. What is actually happening here? Identify the reality of the situation and break down what is really going on. What am I feeling as a result? What physical and emotional sensations are showing up for you? What am I reacting to? Which specific part of what has happened is triggering you? Is it something you don't like about yourself? Something that resonates with your past? Or something you feel very strongly about? What meaning am I placing upon the trigger? Is this relevant to who I am today, or an invitation to unravel and resolve this historical response? We have the right to choose always. By deciding to identify and work through the things that trigger us, we are turning what used to be a trigger into a point of being able to understand and show up for ourselves differently. For example, we don't get invited to an event we would love to be involved with. Notice the reaction that takes place? What emotion are you feeling? Where is that emotion within your body? What is the message here? How can you choose to respond to this emotion in a way that supports you? Away from judgment or yourself. Your triggers are parts of yourself that are asking for attention. A curious approach to triggers allows us to understand ourselves and reclaim our power. Remind yourself, triggers are not happening to me, they are happening with me. I hold the right to decide. Emotional regulation recap. Our fourth executive functioning skill, emotional regulation, is defined as the ability to recognize, understand, and effectively manage our emotions and reactions to different situations. It describes our ability or not to exert control over our own emotional state, which might include things like rethinking a challenging situation to reduce anxiety, being able to take a deep breath to regulate our anger, hiding visible signs of sadness or fear from people around us, or being able to pull ourselves out of tricky emotions. There are times when it is helpful for us to regulate our emotions, so that we feel in control of the way we are feeling and can stop ourselves from getting stuck in bouts of low mood or anxious spirals. However, as a society, I believe that we need to be more accepting of visible displays of emotion. It's okay to feel big feelings, and it's okay to show those feelings to people around us, whether they are more positive or negative emotions. In this chapter we have explored what emotional regulation is, the systems which have affected the way we think about emotional regulation, some ways we can support ourselves with emotional regulation, 5 things to consider putting in place for your emotional regulation. Your takeaway box. There is no such thing as a bad or wrong emotion. Some feelings are more positive and some feelings are more negative. But they all serve a purpose. Yes, there are some emotions which might feel uncomfortable to experience, but they are all completely valid and a normal part of being a human being. There are no emotions which we should feel the need to eradicate or shame ourselves for feeling. It's okay to express your emotions outwardly, even if they are not particularly positive ones. You don't have to put on a brave face or downplay your feelings, and you don't have to intellectualize your emotions to the point that you don't even get to have a chance to feel them. Sometimes allowing yourself to fully submit to a feeling is the most cophartic and effective way to process it. Most of the techniques that we can use to help regulate our emotions involve finding a way to pull ourselves out of the automatic spiraling and catastrophizing of emotions that our brains are prone to. This might look like taking a deep breath, pulling ourselves back into the moment, or asking ourselves questions to help rationalize our thoughts and feelings. It's important to remember that even if your emotions are dysregulated or overwhelming, they are still valid. Our aim isn't to shame ourselves for feeling that way to begin with. It's to find ways of making them feel more manageable. Okay, now that was chapter 4 of How to Be You by Ellie Middleton. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and I will catch you next week. Please leave a like and a follow. And if you have any of the books you think we should read next time, then you are more than welcome to go and email us. Bye!