Self-regulation

How do you handle your anger?  Or your fear, or anxiety?  Or grief and sadness?

Once you are self-aware of your emotions, the next useful skill to build is emotional self-regulation.  Here you gain a measure of control over the difficult emotions, which when left unchecked, cause distress and illness. And relational havoc. 

Self-regulation is the ability to return to a state of well-being and joy after a challenge.  It is often referred to as “self-control.”  An example is heading off a strong emotion like anger before impulsively acting on it, say with violence or road rage.

“Someone who has good emotional self-regulation has the ability to keep their emotions in check. They can resist impulsive behaviors that might worsen their situation, and they can cheer themselves up when they’re feeling down. They have a flexible range of emotional and behavioral responses that are well matched to the demands of their environment”

Andrea L. Bell, LCSW, SEP goodtherapy.org

The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me.

viktor e. frankl

The neuroscience of self-regulation

In the self-awareness post, we pictured our emotional state as a balance, or a teeter totter.  It is strong emotions on the left, especially anger, fear and sadness, that are the most difficult to regulate for many people.  

Any one of these “big three” can easily overwhelm our emotional state, strongly tipping us into a “joyless” distressed state.  It can be a sudden trigger (road rage), or a much slower long-lasting “burn” (contempt for your spouse).  Either way, it puts our autonomic nervous system into the “fight, flight or freeze” state.  The ill effects on both physical and mental health are well known.  Several parts of the brain go offline to conserve energy for the “fight” or “flight,” including the right brain relational part.  The “freeze” reaction has been documented in MRI studies to virtually shut down the whole brain.

Here is a simplified neuroanatomy lesson to illustrate.

Our emotional state, represented visually by our emotional seesaw, is located in the middle part of our brain called the “limbic system.”  The trigger for danger originates in the amygdala, which acts like a smoke detector.  When it detects a potential threat to self or others, either fear or anger are intensely triggered, typically resulting in flight (fear) or fight (anger).  This is illustrated by an acute tilt to the left in our balance. The two red bars illustrate two critical brain parts that go offline – the prefrontal cortex up front, and the hippocampus below and to the back. 

The prefrontal cortex is our “executive centre” where we exert our will and our self-control (it’s the last to mature in teenagers). When it goes offline we are likely to exercise poor (or no) judgement. The hippocampus is where memories are processed for long-term storage. When it goes offline, memories become disjointed or even suppressed, sometimes leading to the subsequent flashbacks of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Learning to self-regulate

In a healthy family, children learn the early skills of self-regulating. Parents help them sooth and to restore equilibrium. When learned it childhood, it helps young adults mature and gain self-control. However, in many of our stories, childhood was marked by unmet needs, or frank abuse. Here learning this skill as an adult becomes a key to thriving in work, love and leadership.

Counselor, author and speaker Chris Coursey, in a new book, The Joy Switch, describes brain exercises and habits that helps people bolster their self-regulation skills. He likens the fight or flight state to the “airplane mode” of your cell phone. It shuts down the ability to relate well with others, or even be civil. Through his organization, Thrive Today, he and his wife Jen teach 19 skills.

In his book, he teaches four basic steps, to flip the “joy switch” back on, bringing the shutdown circuits back online. He uses a C A R S acronym:

C – connection: I connect with  the  people, thoughts, and situations that stabilize me.  

A – appreciation: I remember and appreciate the gifts that make me smile and feel loved.

R – rest: I catch my breath, take some deep slow breaths, and quiet myself to feel calmed.

S – shalom my body: “Shalom” is Hebrew for peace. I practise exercises to infuse peace throughout my body and soul.

And music can do wonders to help restore peace. Check out this video by Sidewalk Prophets:

Self-control and spiritual disciplines

Jesus and His followers spoke and wrote a lot about the virtue of self-control. Peter, a rough and tumble fisherman turned preacher, after encountering Jesus later wrote an algorithm for thriving:

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.

2 Peter 1:5-7

We already saw the benefits of faith in a previous post. Here there is growth toward a great life, where Peter promises the steps that, “Will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive!” Vs 8

Another early follower of Jesus who himself had a prideful anger problem was Paul (known as Saul in his early life as a lawyer and scholar, and a hater/murderer of Christians). His encounter with Jesus was through a vision and he became a world changing missionary. To one of the churches he planted, he wrote this about self-control:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Galatians 5:22-23

Here is access to a supernatural infusion of self-regulation skill and peace, that will help us in our journey to maturity and Christlikeness (our standard for greatness).

Barriers to self-regulation

Here are some known barriers that keep people joyless and in states of relational and creative shutdown:

• Threats to selfhood (rejection, ongoing bullying, loneliness)
• Offence and unforgiveness
• Unmet core needs (any of the four core needs)
• Adverse childhood experiences and unhealed trauma (unprocessed pain)
• Unresolved grief and loss
• Perfectionism
• Addictions
• Narcissism (self love and pride)

If you struggle with these, we encourage you to get help.

Joy restored

When we learn to self-regulate with practise, we can more easily return to a positive state, shown by our seesaw tipped down on the right side by delight, trust and happiness, filling our “joy bucket.”

Here we are more creative, energized, connected, and purposeful. Our senses are enhanced. Colours are brighter, tastes and smells are more delightful. We are more connected to our Maker.

This is what neuroscientists now call “integration” and is the mark of a maturing brain. Paul spoke of that 2 millennia ago in Romans 12:2: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.“

Compassionately,