Priscilla Xu

Reading time: 3 minutes

I grew up in a Chinese culture. Even though my parents are pretty open-minded, I am not encouraged to identify my needs and emotions.

Do parents usually ask if you are staying warm, sleeping well, or having enough money to spend? They typically don’t ask you what your current emotions are.

When you ask your friends what emotions are, each person has their answers. During my undergraduate psychology degree, there was a module on your current emotions in my clinical psychology course. Unfortunately, it did not know what the answer was.

Therefore, I postponed answering this question.

I crossed from Asia to the USA, then to Europe for school. The culture shock and difficulty fitting in taught me to hide my genuine emotions and not show them. I lacked proper self-knowledge, leading to painful social rejection experiences. This caused me to go down a spiral. It forced me to learn what emotions are.

Emotions are a gateway to understanding your internal needs.

The internal needs can be needing friends to support your hunger or wanting to pursue more work. Sometimes in life, our life can be operating roughly. We ask ourselves where the confusion is coming from. The answer is unknown. The next steps are so blurry.
So many people, like me, are missing the puzzle of comprehending emotions.

I reflected and imagined a scenario.

I am applying to the University of Florida online. The deadline was tomorrow. I felt my hands sweating, my muscle tensing, and my heart beating faster. I was still checking my last documents and was scared I wouldn’t accept them. So, I brewed coffee to increase your alertness and concentration to continue the spell-check revision.

What emotion is this?

Emotions have a Structure and Rhythm.

The psychological understanding of emotions are

• The trigger is the deadline approaching
• The body sensation is heart beating
• The thoughts are “I am scared of not being accepted.
• The behavior is brewing the coffee. There are actions that I do to regulate my emotions.

The emotion I labeled was anticipation. At the same time, some other people can label it as fear or anxiety.

3 Characteristics to Help Your Regulate Emotions

Knowing the characteristics sets a correct mindset starting point to learn regulating skills.

Emotions are Subjective

Everyone has their interpretation of their emotions. Therefore, be nonjudgmental about your emotions. Everyone has a rich internal world.

Contrary to human nature and running away from danger, accepting your thoughts and emotions to stop the spiral.

Suppose I sweep my emotions under the rug. In that case, it will lead to mental health issues. It will also cause self-sabotaging behaviors, such as staying up late. A part of my psyche screams at me for my attention to process the emotional pain. Like my leg is broken, I need time to process and heal from the physical pain.

Emotions have informational Value

Every emotion has its purpose. Through years of revolution, our emotions help us to avoid danger and survive.

• Fear: alerts you that there is danger
• Happiness: your life motivated to live
• Sad: you lost something you care
• Anxious: it alerts you that you have uncertainty in life and you need to plan something about it
• Anger: you are mistreated and want to stand up for yourself.
• Guilt: you did something wrong, and you want to do it better next time

Multiple Emotions can Exist at once

While grieving my past of moving across different cultures, I often mind myself crying when I am grateful.

Recently, crying has been a method of releasing the fuel of the inner critic and fear of abandonment. The feelings are a combination of fear and sadness that equates to hopelessness.

Other more complex emotions are also combinations.

• Happiness + trust = love
• Expecting + trust = Hope
• Trust + surprising = curiosity
• Happy + expecting = Optimism
• Sad + threaten = jealousy

Adding effort to your emotions makes you fall down the spiral

The common thing to do is run away from my authentic self.

Everyday activities could be blocking your thoughts. They include giving up, screaming, excessive video gaming, drinking, staying in bed, and buying many things.

Drinking coffee can alert me in the short term. However, it won’t make me more likely to be accepted into the school. I’ll have to think critically about what the admission officers want from a student. This requires me to be in a calm, regulated state.

My actions regulated me in the short term but did not bring me a long-term outcome.

The spiral will start if I continue adding attention fuel, following the problems and thoughts, and worrying about my poor performance. Then, the body will feel very drained.

My thoughts tell me a failure will happen. Self fulfilling prophecy kicks in. My failing expectations lead me to act poorly during the school application.

This can spiral down even more and go into an emotional storm.

Do not fall down the spiral of the emotional cycle.

Regulating your emotions starts with labeling them cognitively.

Intervene your emotions when you notice your thoughts.

When I realized that the university deadline for application was close by, I felt my sweaty hands. I know your body sensations and thoughts about messing it up and getting rejected. I decided to be aware of my thoughts but not react to them. I continue to review my work and imagine the thoughts are just passing by like clouds. The emotions start to decrease because attention fuel is not added to the kindling thought.

To gain better control of your attention, focused monitoring meditation is a great method. It helps you train yourself to be aware when you wander off. You also practice grabbing your attention back to your breath.

Slowly, by meditating and increasing my ability to control my attention, I can also develop the skills to

• Focus when you need
• Have a third-person perspective on your actions and thoughts, then decide on what actions to take
• When an environment is harsh, see the silver lining.
• Feel more in control of life
• Stick through challenges and see your future.

Learning to regulate my emotions has made me a calmer and more grounded person, but the journey is truly lifelong.