Emotional regulation is an important skill to cultivate, to grow and to practise for coping and stress management. It is an integral part in developing resilience, to meet with the challenges that we face in every aspect and phase of our lives.
Growing up, I faced with a lot of stress in school and my relationships and I wished I had picked up more knowledge and skills that I could apply to help me cope better. Unfortunately, emotional regulation wasn’t a skill that was taught when I was in school. I figure that most of us Gen X-ers and Millenials in Singapore didn’t learn this skill growing up. Fortunately, It is never too late. Because it is a skill, it can be learned, gained, improved and honed and practised. We would be able to reap the benefits soon enough with practice.
This post serves to discuss the role of mindfulness in emotional regulation. I have also written another post about emotional regulation and you can find it here.
What is mindfulness?
You may be thinking about the cliché activity of watching and eating a raisin – an activity that was often used in courses teaching mindfulness in my time. Using a raisin to cultivate and practise mindfulness is one way, but it is certainly not the only way.
I explain mindfulness to my therapy clients as a form of approach, for awareness. Mindfulness involves directing one’s attention to observe with respectful curiosity. Observing means gaining awareness of and looking from a (psychological) distance and curiosity suggests openness and withholding of judgement.
The Role of Mindfulness in Emotional Regulation
Before we can regulate our emotions and our reactions, we need to become aware of them. We can only regulate what we can experience. Mindfulness is that essential element that can point us to where the work is needed. Mindfulness is like the spotlight we direct to what is happening, a spotlight for seeing what is going on with curiosity and without judging it.
Mindfulness is intentional and requires a focus on what is going on currently. When we exercise mindfulness, we are making an active choice to focus our attention on something. This active choosing of where we direct our attention can provide a sense of control and empowerment, especially when intense emotions and physiology could be coursing through our body in the moment.
Mindfulness is also an invitation to pause and notice, and to observe. It is the pause between our automatic reactions and our chosen responses to a stimulus in our environment.
Practising mindfulness requires a willingness to recognise that we are not our emotional reactions, that we need not act on our emotions or urges and that we are having emotional reactions.
We can gain some space from intense emotions that were activated or evoked by certain things going on in our lives. Mindfulness is the posture that allows us to gain that spaciousness.
Mindfulness could be accessed through a deepening of an inhalation and an extending of an exhalation. We get to catch ourselves when we become mindful and aware to what is happening in the here-and-now and that catching can be accompanied when we notice our breaths.
Mindfulness also helps us to recognise the relationships we may have with certain stimulus in the environment (some people may call them triggers) and the relationships we may have with certain emotions and thoughts/ phrases.
A thing to note is that it is not possible to be mindful 100% of the time. In fact, we are not made to constantly observe what is happening in our body or what kinds of thoughts we are having. It is simply, a temporary gateway we can access when we would like to have a brief intervention for emotional regulation, for self-care. It is like an hourly check-in to notice how we are coping in the day. Or it could be a intentional observation when we are facing certain challenging moments in our lives.
Mindfulness in Practice for Emotional Regulation:
Our Physiology
I was writing this post at my desk and I began to notice that I was holding my breath and I was also engaging in shallow breathing. I became more curious and started observing what was happening. When I directed my attention to my head, I observed that my face was a little tensed. My chest felt a little tight when I briefly focused my attention on it. I did not have a name for my experience yet and in that split second, it did not matter. I was there with my body, aware of what is happening. I held off possibly asking several questions “why” whatever was happening was happening: it is what it is.
When I began to be mindful of what was happening, I was able to meet myself where I was at (i.e., holding my breath, shallow breathing, chest tightening). The intervention I chose was simply to take a few deeper breaths to nourish my body with more air and oxygen. I could have been feeling anxious. I could have been nervous about the writing. In that moment, to break the loop of shallow breathing, was to intentionally allow more breath. Such a practice can sometimes prevent a spiral, without naming anything. Mindfulness helped me take care of myself in that moment, without needing to explain why and what.
Mindfulness in Practice for Emotional Regulation:
Our thoughts and stories in our heads
I was on a small holiday with my best friend from school in Western Australia and she had asked if there was anywhere I had wanted to visit. I did and suggested
“The Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk” as a place we could visit. She received it well and expressed her curiosity and interest because she had never been there, despite having visited Western Australia several times.
I however began to notice thought loops in my mind: “Maybe it’s too far. I think she wouldn’t like it. There is nothing there other than that enclosure. It’s too boring for her. I’m so selfish to suggest driving nearly 400km in total for only one thing. We are going to regret it. What if she gets mad at me for going all the way there?”
When I became aware that I was having many thoughts about the destination of choice, I just noticed them without investigating why I was having them. Mindfulness allowed me to observe the stories that I was weaving and telling myself. Mindfulness also helped me recognise that I could be feeling anxious about including a far-off location in a short road trip and possibly setting the stage for discomfort and stress for us.
Observing without judgement also allowed me to have psychological distance from my thoughts and stories. This helped stopped me from blaming myself for thinking a certain way. They were simply thoughts and they were indicating what mattered to me: I wanted us to have a great trip and my values were around prudence and connection. Becoming mindful allowed me to keep my anxiety in check and also the reminders of my values got me to focus on having a conversation with my friend about the itinerary.
To Conclude
We get to realise that we are experiencing emotions, that we are having thoughts, that we are feeling certain urges through mindfulness. Mindfulness is that space to help us recognise that we are not our feelings, nor our thoughts, nor our urges. The psychological distance gained through mindfulness (however small or big) could allow us the opportunity to choose. We can choose to respond similarly to or differently from our automatic reactions (i.e., the emotions, the thoughts, the urges) . This opportunity for choice is where we can engage in emotional regulation.
If you would like to have a walk-through on a particular emotional regulation technique, you could refer to my post on how to lean into our emotions using RAIN.
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