“To heal trauma, we need to develop tools that help us reconnect with our bodies, regulate our emotions, and feel safe in the world. These skills empower us to take an active role in our own recovery.” – Peter Levine, Ph.D.

In this fourth piece of a five part series (Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 here) on the fundamental tools that should be in our self-care tool chests when we come from relational trauma backgrounds, we explore yet another proverbial drawer: emotional regulation tools.

What do emotional regulation tools even mean?

I gave a high level overview of this in my first piece in this series, but, to reiterate again, emotional regulation refers to the ability to manage and respond to an emotional experience in a healthy and adaptive way. 

It involves recognizing and naming, understanding the signal value of, and managing one’s emotions in an adaptive way (aka: functional and healthy way) to navigate life’s ups and downs effectively.

This skill is crucial for maintaining mental and emotional well-being, allowing us all to handle stress, maintain relationships (versus destroying them), and achieve personal goals (not to mention have some sense of equanimity as we move through our days).

So emotional regulation tools are the practices, interventions, and skills that help us achieve this.

Now, let’s add some more tools to your proverbial toolbox right now by exploring some concrete tools for each of those primary tasks I listed – recognizing and naming, understanding the signal value of, and managing your emotions in an adaptive way.

Tools for emotional regulation.

1. Naming emotions.

One of the first steps in emotional regulation is to accurately identify and name your emotions. This process, often referred to as “emotion labeling,” can help bring clarity and understanding to how you are feeling.

• Why this matters: By naming your emotions, you can better understand what you are experiencing and why. This self-awareness is the foundation for managing your emotional responses effectively.
• A tool to enhance naming emotions: Use one of my favorite tools – The Filing Cabinet of Feelings. I’m not talking about an actual filing cabinet, but rather an imagined one. Specifically, a filing cabinet containing four major drawers: Sad, Mad, Glad, and Scared, the four meta categories of emotions that then contain hundreds more specific emotions. For instance, when a therapy client of mine is struggling to guess or name how they’re feeling, I invite them to consider which of the four major drawers their feelings could, at that moment, most likely be filed under. This usually helps by giving us a starting place to work from. Try it the next time you’re struggling to name exactly how you feel. Check in to see if the general sense of your experience is one of sadness, gladness, madness, or are you scared? And then, once you identify the major drawer, pull that file out further and see what the sub-folder might be. Under mad, is there “irritated”? “Annoyed”? “Enraged”? Etc.

2. Understanding and respecting the “signal value of emotions.”

Signal value simply means the information contained. In other words, emotions are not random; they carry significant information about our internal states and our interactions with the external world. When we learn to pay attention to what information our emotions hold, we’re better equipped to take action.

• Why this matters: Understanding what your emotions are trying to tell you can help you address the underlying issues causing those feelings. For instance, anger might signal that a personal boundary has been crossed, while sadness might indicate a loss that needs to be mourned. You’ve now got more information to take the next appropriate steps.
• How to practice: Let’s take that anger example and flesh it out. First, we have to understand and honor that anger’s signal value means that we have a need that’s not being met or a boundary that’s being crossed. So, for example, if you’re walking away from a conversation with your sister-in-law and are feeling irritated/annoyed/grumpy but you don’t know quite why, check in with yourself: notice your anger and get curious about what may have happened in that interaction. Did she somehow cross a boundary of yours? Did you have a need in that relationship that didn’t get met? Is your anger a sign you may need to have a follow up conversation and/or set a boundary with her moving forward?

3. Tolerating Big Feelings.

I intentionally capitalized the B and F of Big Feelings because for so many of us from relational trauma backgrounds, this is how it can so often feel. Capital B. Capital F. Our feelings feel huge because of the intensity of our triggers and the lack of our capacity (for now at least) to tolerate them. 

• Why this matters: Learning tools to help cope with (and not react to) those big feelings allows you to process and integrate these experiences healthily, decreasing the emotional intensity and potentially reducing damage that may have come from acting out on those big feelings.
• How to practice: Here’s a highly effective tool derived from DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy):
• TIPP (Temperature, Intense Exercise, Paced Breathing, Progressive Muscle Relaxation) is a DBT distress tolerance tool designed to quickly reduce intense emotions. Change your body temperature by holding your face in cold water, engage in short bursts of intense physical activity like running in place, slow down your breathing to a steady pace, and practice progressive muscle relaxation by tensing and relaxing each muscle group. These steps help to calm your nervous system, release emotional energy, and reduce physical and emotional tension.

4. Appropriately expressing emotions.

Expressing emotions appropriately (versus lashing out inappropriately) is essential for maintaining healthy relationships and achieving emotional well-being. This involves communicating your feelings in a way that is honest, respectful, and regulated.

• Why this matters: Appropriate expression of emotions helps prevent misunderstandings, reduces interpersonal conflict, and promotes emotional intimacy. It also allows you to assert your needs and boundaries effectively, preserving relationships versus damaging them.
• How to practice: In one of my older posts here I shared a wealth of non-violent communication tools like framing conversations for success, pacing, and validating techniques. Please check out that older post for tools to support your “appropriate expression” of your emotions.

Now, this is just a handful of the hundreds of emotional regulation techniques you can supply the “Emotional Regulation Drawer” of your self-care tool chest with. 

But my hope in sharing this post is that you see how multi-dimensional this drawer is: this drawer is about naming emotions, understanding what information they contain, tolerating them, and then, from there and if necessary, appropriately expressing needs or wants around them.

Again, this is likely not education those of us from relational trauma backgrounds received when we were young so I truly hope even this high-level overview feels helpful for you to hear.

Now I’d love to hear from you in the comments below:

What’s one of your favorite emotional regulation tools?

If you feel so inclined, please leave a message so our community of 30,000 blog readers can benefit from your share and wisdom.

Finally, as you contemplate beginning relational trauma therapy to recover from your own trauma symptoms, I would strongly encourage you to work with a licensed mental health professional who is also trained in an evidence-based trauma modality (like EMDR).

If you live in either California or Florida, and you would like tailored, expert support, either myself or my talented team of childhood trauma clinicians at my boutique, trauma-informed therapy center – Evergreen Counseling – can be of support to you. 

Please just book a complimentary 20-minute consult call with our center’s clinical intake director and she can match you to an relational trauma therapist on our team who is the best fit for you clinically, relationally, and logistically (and it very well may be me who is the best fit for you as a therapist!).

And, no matter where you live in the world, sign up to be the first to know when my comprehensive multimedia online program, Overcoming Relational Trauma: The Course, launches in January 2025.

Finally, if you’re still not sure if this content applies to you, if you’re still not sure if you come from a relational trauma history and may deal with childhood trauma symptoms, I would invite you to take my signature quiz – “Do I come from a relational trauma background?” 

It’s a 5-minute, 25-question quiz I created that can be incredibly illuminating and will point you in the direction of a wide variety of resources that can be of further help to you.

Plus, when you take the quiz, you’ll be added to my mailing list where you’ll receive twice-a-month letters from me sharing original, high-quality essays (with accompanying YouTube videos and audios you can stream) devoted to the topic of childhood trauma recovery and where I share more about me as a person, my life, and how I’m deep along on my own childhood trauma recovery journey.

My newsletters are the only place where I share intimate glimpses into my life (including photos), the resources that are supporting me, the things I’ve discovered that delight me, words that are uplifting me, the practices that nourish me, etc. 

So please be sure to sign up for my mailing list whether or not you want to take the quiz as it’s the best way to be in touch with me and hear all the things I only share with my newsletter subscribers.

So thank you. 

And until next time, please take such good care of yourself. You’re so worth it.

Warmly, Annie

References

1. Selye, H. (1998). A syndrome produced by diverse nocuous agents. The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 10(2), 230-231. https://doi.org/10.1176/jnp.10.2.230