Building Blocks of Emotional Regulation - A Practice of Noticing
Written by Marla Skibbins
There is a practice in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism called Mindfulness of Feelings, and it may not be exactly what you think it is. This isn’t talking about emotions. It’s pointing to how we take in information through our experiences in sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and mind. When we, as heart/mind/body, come into contact with those senses, we immediately feel that either the experience is a pleasant one (and we want more) or an unpleasant one (and we want less of it or for it to go away. There’s also the potential for a neutral experience, where it is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, and we can tend to actually not notice these experiences.
This framework is helpful when we are looking to regulate ourselves and our emotions/feelings and reactions.
Let's take an easy example. You’re in a meeting, listening to what your boss has to say about a project that you are heading up with your team. Your boss proceeds to discuss how your project is behind and not delivering what was agreed to be delivered. Your heart immediately starts to pound, your stomach gets tight, your mind goes “Oh NO I’m in trouble” and you experience all of this as “unpleasant”. At that moment you can take notice that the information has come into your awareness through your heart/mind/body and is reading to you as unpleasant, and you now have the chance, right in that moment, to regular what comes next.
Returning to our example, if you did not notice all of these physical and mental activities that went down, you might start to defend yourself and your team. You may do this by getting upset, raising your voice, shutting down, being apologetic, or maybe leaving the meeting, stewing about it later, and starting to troll other job opportunities on LinkedIn. What would be different, if you stopped in the moment, noticed all of the activity, and stopped it there? What if you sat with the unpleasant experience, rather than reacting to it? What could be different for yourself, your team, and your boss?
Here is a way to start practicing the notice of feelings in a low-stakes way, to build your skills in regulating emotions and growing in resilience. Pick an activity that is easy and may be done alone. I often choose to do this on my walk. I walk outside without a jacket and notice “Oh it is kind of cold” which is not always a pleasant experience. For me, this is a mild discomfort. I choose to go out in this mildly uncomfortable situation and stay present, allowing my experience to expand. Rather than running back in the house and getting a jacket. Instead, I have the opportunity to reframe and regulate my experience and remove it from an unpleasant experience in my mind. I get to keep walking, noticing my reactions, and in this way, I am teaching myself to expand upon the original experience of unpleasantness and process my reactions more productively.
What’s an activity that you can pull from your everyday life to practice regulating, reframing, and building resilience? Share with us how your experiences are going and how it is affecting your everyday life!