11/03/2025
Emotions/Emotion Regulation.
Emotions are crucial in navigating everyday life. Many of life's problems can be solved or eased by better emotional awareness/regulation.
"I need a drink after that"
"The day I've had.."
"She made me so angry"
"He had such road rage .."
"It's like treading on eggshells coming home from
school/college/work''...
Emotional awareness is key to emotion regulation.
Emotion regulation is a core relapse prevention skill.
Not needing to change the way we feel with anger outbursts, unhealthy lifestyle choices :drink, drugs, feeding our feelings, overeating, spending, shopping, gambling, other forms of self harm/unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Most of us have a more than reasonable grasp on emotional literacy.
We know that we need the so called ' negative emotions' as much as the feel good 'positive emotions'.
If we've never experienced sadness then we wouldn't know joy.
[ ie :the movie Inside Out and its sequel].
Yet still we go about our day, or many of us do - blaming external issues for rising levels of stress, overwhelm, reactivity.
It doesn't have to be this way.
[Image credit : Brene Brown who adapted the seminal work of Wilcox, Plutchik & Zinker]
