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I’ve heard from many of the listeners of the show that they’d like to be more skillful with the way they experience and deal with difficult emotions.

We all feel unpleasant emotions and sometimes they can really get the better of us. 

In addition to just feeling awful, fueled by these feelings we then often act in ways we later regret – like emotional eating, saying unkind words, physically acting out, or turning to substances to numb the pain.

If you can relate, then this post is for you. Read on.

The good news is there is a way to move through these difficult feelings so that you actually get more in touch with yourself and later appreciate (rather than regret)  the way you decided to act (or not act) at the time.

This process is called emotional regulation and it’s all about helping us to be driven to action (or inaction) by our values, rather than by our emotions. 

There are four parts to The One You Feed’s model for emotional regulation.

The first part is to Realize You’re Triggered. 

By triggered, I mean, that you are feeling an unpleasant emotion.

This may sound obvious or too simple of a thing to do to merit its own step in this process but it is an essential step and one that has to happen in order for anything else to go right.

Once we notice and acknowledge that we’re feeling triggered, we can begin to work with the feeling(s) and thoughts that are going on inside of us. But if we don’t notice that we’re triggered, we often jump right to action, sometimes without even realizing that we’re being driven by a bad feeling. 

For example, let’s look at a couple of scenarios around emotional eating.

Scenario #1: You might notice that you’re feeling sad and so you think – I’ll comfort myself with food. 

Scenario #2: The first thing you might consciously notice is that you are really craving a piece of cake. From that point on, you are addressing the craving for cake – should you have some or not, can you resist the temptation. It’s all about the cake at this point –  or is it?

If you were to back up a minute and connect with your emotions, you might have first noticed that you were feeling bored and blue. And what’s a quick fix to stop feeling bored and blue? The serotonin and dopamine boost that comes with eating sugar. So, the first thing that surfaces into your consciousness is the action of eating something with sugar in it. Blowing right past the unpleasant emotion and right to action. (And, an action that you might regret later.)

This applies to any action that would serve to numb or discharge a difficult emotion. If you feel an impulse to act, pause first and check-in with yourself to see if, in fact, you are actually feeling a difficult emotion beneath that inclination to do something. 

At this point, it’s important to commit to non-action until you’ve worked through the 4 steps of this model of emotional regulation.

You may experience strong emotion when triggered and though it can be uncomfortable, know that you can be emotionally uncomfortable for these 10 minutes or so. Emotions aren’t emergencies. As Julie Simon puts it:

“Stop, slow down, and make the conscious choice to delay gratification for ten minutes. Say to yourself, “I am willing to be uncomfortable for ten minutes so that I can reach my goals.” Remind yourself, “I can endure discomfort for a short while. It’s not a root canal or childbirth!”

So, part 1 is to Realize You’re Triggered. Literally say to yourself, “I’m feeling ______”. 

At this stage, you may know the name for the emotion or you may just know that you feel bad. Either way, acknowledge it by filling in that blank. 

The second part of the process is to Feel/Address the Emotion.

After you Realize You’re Triggered, you might then sense that the feeling(s) can be really intense and you can feel overwhelmed or hijacked by a strong surge of unpleasant emotion(s). In this case, you’ll want to engage in some form of self-soothing practices.

If you can remove yourself from the situation that triggered you at this point, that can be really helpful. 

Here are some ideas for self-soothing practices according to Julie Simon:

• “Breathe deeply
• Snuggle up with a beloved pet
• Listen to comforting music, uplifting audio messages or affirmations
• Read comforting passages
• Play a musical instrument or sing
• Do yoga or stretching exercises
• Take a walk or hike in natural surroundings
• View or create artwork
• Write about your feelings
• Meditate”

Once you feel less emotionally overwhelmed, you can move into a skillful experiencing of your emotions. 

The following exercise, RAIN, will help you to do this. 

Maybe you already know about RAIN – but are you actually doing it? For it to work, you have to engage with it so I’d encourage you to bring it into your life at moments of strong emotion.

RAIN

Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture

1. Recognize: Ask yourself, “What emotions am I experiencing in this moment?”  Go ahead and say to yourself, “I feel (name your emotion(s).” 
2. Allow: Give yourself permission to feel all of these feelings and sensations. Breathe through them. A helpful phrase can be, “It’s ok to feel _______.”
3. Investigate: Get curious about your experience with the emotion. Pay attention to your bodily sensations. Just notice what you’re feeling. What does it feel like to feel angry? Where is the emotion showing up in your body? What bodily sensations are you experiencing? Tightness in your chest? Clenching at your jaw? Do a mental body scan to find out.
4. Nurture: Bring some kindness and compassion to your experience. Pretend you are a mother talking to her child, or an older version of yourself talking to your present self. A benefit of this step is to create a safe psychological space in which you can work. Some helpful phrases can be “This feeling belongs” or “I’m so sorry you are feeling sad” or “It’s understandable you would be angry right now”. 

Former guest, Tara Brach, teaches the method RAIN as a way to experience difficult emotions.

Now that you’ve made skillful contact with your emotion(s), you are better able to identify and work with the thoughts that exist. And that is what part 3 in the process will help you to do. 

Part 3 is to Untangle Your Thoughts.

As in part 2, there is a specific exercise here that will help you to untangle your thoughts. But before jumping into the exercise, it’s important to understand the framework you’re working within.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy explains the way we process life experiences through the framework of Activating events, Beliefs, and Consequences.

A​ctivating event → ​Be​liefs → C​onsequences

The ​activating event​ is the instigator in the equation. It’s any kind of stimulus which you perceive that goes on to activate a series of thoughts and emotions within you.

Then, there’s the belief​ – i.e. what ​you think about​ the activating event or situation.

Following the belief, come the ​consequences​. The consequences are the emotions you feel and/or the behaviors you engage in as a result of the activating event and belief. 

Putting it all together: something happens, you have a thought about it and then you have a feeling about it or you take an action on it. A  → ​B  → ​C. 

Ok, on to the exercise to untangle your thoughts: Cognitive Journaling

This is modeled on a method devised by Richard Ragnarson.

I’m going to pair this exercise down to its core components. If you would like to know more about how to practice Cognitive Journaling in your own life, I help people do that through The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program and you can schedule a free 30-minute call with me here https://ericzimmer.coach/ to see if the program might be a fit for you.

Cognitive Journaling 

1. Step 1 is to write down the consequence; in other words, write down the emotion or behavior you’d like to reflect upon. 

(Note: We’re working backwards through the  A → ​B → ​C equation in this exercise, starting with “C”.)

1. Step 2 is to describe the activating event; in other words, write down a description of the instigating situation. 

1. Step 3 is to find out the belief. To do so, write down the answers to the following questions to discover what the activating event meant to you: 

1. What did this event mean for me at the moment?
2. Why did I feel this emotion or behave that way?
3. What did I think following the event that could have caused that feeling/behavior?
4. What was my thought at the moment of the event?

1. Step 4 is to challenge the belief; in other words, using a perspective of doubt and skepticism, question the validity of the belief.  To do so, write down the answers to the following questions:

1. Is it based on sound logic?
2. Is it falsifiable?
3. Is it useful?
4. Does it make me more flexible or is it rigid or extreme?
5. Do I have proof of it?
6. Is the belief useful?

If your belief is good, each answer should be a yes. If you answer even one no, you can go on to ask these questions:

1. How can I demonstrate this?
2. Does this belief help me feel good and achieve my objective?
3. Is this fear really that terrible? What’s the worst that can happen?
4. How likely is my projection?
5. Why should things not be like this?
6. Is it really possible to have the world go according to my wishes?

1. Step 5 is to form a replacement belief. Here you’ll brainstorm up to three new beliefs that are flexible, logical, helpful/supportive of your wellbeing, falsifiable/objectively true/congruent with reality. 

1. Ask yourself, “what is an alternative thought that can I think?”
2. For each thought, determine if it fits with the activating event and identify what emotion it causes in you.

Part 4 is to Act According to Your Values.

Now, it’s time to determine the “right action” for the situation based on your values (rather than your emotions). This approach is called ​Values Based Action​. 

In their book, Emotion Efficacy Therapy, Matthew McKay and Aprilia West explain Values Based Action this way:

“Values-based action (VBA) is defined as any behavior that is in alignment with or expresses value for the context of the situation. VBA is an alternative to acting on painful emotions. ​VBA can also be defined as behavior that takes one’s life in a direction that matters, that’s in alignment with what feels important and right for the situation. ​Clarifying values across life domains is the first step to being able to identify VBA in the moment of choice.

1. Step 1: ​In your journal, identify your core values that guide (or that you would like to guide) your life’s decisions.

1. Step 2: ​Consider the situation at hand and list which value(s) apply or are relevant.

1. Step 3:​ Identify specific values-based actions that allow you to express yourself —in the moment of choice—in a manner consistent with your values.”

When working here to determine “right action”, it can be helpful to take on the voice and perspective of a wise older version of yourself, a kind friend who also holds you accountable or a loving yet firm parent.

The goal of The One You Feed emotional regulation process is to help you work more skillfully through the space between the moment you feel triggered and the moment when you decide to act (or decide not to act), so that you can ultimately act according to your values, rather than acting according to your emotions.

If you would like to have your values drive your actions rather than your emotions – in other words, you realize that having your emotions run your life will not lead to the quality of life you’d like to have – then this process will help you get there. 

Would you like some additional help in applying this 4 step model to your life? 

I help people every day to do just that – and more – in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program. 

In this program, I work 1-on-1 with you to help you uncover what is standing between where you are now and where you’d like to be in your life. Then we work together to create and implement a plan to get you to your goal. 

You don’t have to go it alone and some would argue that you can’t. Whether it’s me or someone else in your life, having someone to support and guide you on the path to a better version of yourself – and thereby a better life – can be the difference between another failed attempt and a new reality for you.

You can learn more about the program here or go ahead and connect with me for a free 30-minute call to see if we’re a fit here.

Wishing you all well.

There can be two wolves at battle within you when it comes to actually making changes and moving forward in your life – and one of them can be hidden deep within you, out of plain sight where you could otherwise recognize and work with it more skillfully.

Let me explain.

Let’s say you decide to move forward in your life – to make a change, initiate something new or make your life better in some important way. 

Then you are hit by resistance. 

Doubts flood your mind, your inner critic starts yapping away, you feel blocked, conflicted and struggle ensues. Perhaps you self sabotage or maybe you just don’t take any action at all despite the fact that you really want the change. 

Nope – I haven’t gotten to the hidden wolf that’s working against you yet. Stay with me.

Perhaps the problem genuinely seems to be in the circumstances surrounding you: you lack the resources you need, the risks are too high, other people start interfering and make it hard for you to move forward and get even some small semblance of momentum. 

Maybe you want a great relationship, but you just can’t find the right partner. Or, you want a better job, but there aren’t any good ones. You want to be at a healthy weight but you just can’t shake the extra pounds around your midsection. 

Circumstances appear to be out of your control. Opportunities seem to be limited, or non-existent. 

You really want your life to be different and better in some specific way – you can envision a better life with more of what you want and less of what you don’t want.

It just doesn’t seem to be accessible to you because making real, substantial change and sustainable progress doesn’t happen even when you try your best.

Let me introduce you to your hidden “bad” wolf:

“Resistance to change does not reflect opposition, nor is it merely a result of inertia. Instead, even as [you] hold a sincere commitment to change, [you] are unwittingly applying productive energy toward a hidden competing commitment. The resulting dynamic equilibrium stalls the effort in what looks like resistance but is, in fact, a kind of personal immunity to change.”

Competing commitments.

That’s what this article from The Harvard Business Review calls your two battling wolves. 

Consciously, there’s something you want and have committed yourself to. Subconsciously there’s something else you want and have also committed yourself to.

The hidden wolf is lurking there, just under the surface of your consciousness, keeping you locked in inertia. 

The key to unlocking this inertia starts in bringing this subconscious commitment up into your consciousness so you can examine it and decide where (or if) it belongs in your life.

Here are a couple of examples from the HBR article.

Jane’s stated, conscious commitment has to do with turning around her department at work. She wants to do that. She’s committed to doing that. However, Jane lets things slide too often and is not proactive enough in getting people to follow through with their tasks. As it turns out, Jane is also subconsciously committed to not setting full sail until she has a clear map of how she gets the department from here to there. She assumes that if she takes her group out into deep waters and discovers she is unable to get them to the other side she will be seen as an incompetent leader who is undeserving of trust or responsibility.

Next, take Mary, for example. Mary’s conscious commitment is to distribute leadership by enabling people to make decisions. Despite that, she doesn’t delegate enough and she doesn’t pass the information she has on to people she distributes leadership to. Her subconscious, competing commitment is to having things go her way and being in control and ensuing the work is done to her standard. She assumes that other people will waste her time and theirs if she doesn’t step in. She thinks deep down that others aren’t as smart as she is.

Now, back to you. 

Maybe you want to make more money but you were taught early on that money is the root of all evil. Your subconscious commitment to being a good person (as it has been defined for you)  is keeping you locked in your current financial situation. 

Maybe you’d like to assert yourself in some way and draw clear, firm and healthy boundaries. But you also have a subconscious commitment to not creating separation with those around you and being nice and accommodating and helpful has been your modus operandi pretty much your whole life. 

How do you know if competing commitments are at work in your life?

Pay close attention. Would you like more in some area of your life but it feels out of reach? Do you self sabotage? Are you engaged in some form of perpetual procrastination? 

Mary O’Malley says that any thought that tightens you is not the truth. It’s from the conditioned self. When you consider your life through this lens, does tightness show up inside you? Do you feel like there’s an invisible block that exists between where you are and where you want to be?

These competing commitments can be barriers to realizing our fullness. 

They aren’t the only barrier, but they certainly can be one of them. 

How do you go about relaxing your barriers and questioning/dissolving your limiting competing commitments and beliefs?

I’ll teach you. 

The key to unlocking this inertia is to start bringing this subconscious commitment up into your consciousness so you can examine it and decide where (or if) it belongs in your life.

So, how do you do that?

By picking an area of your life and engaging in the following exercise of inquiry and exploration.

For some people and for some areas of life, doing this as a solo exercise works great. For others, working through these questions with a coach – someone who exists outside your own head and who has the skills to help guide you through mental blocks or biases – can be the key to unlocking your subconscious, accessing and identifying your competing commitments.

Ok, here are some areas of life you might consider:

My body • My health • My work • My financial situation • My sexuality • My circumstances • Handicaps, injuries, illnesses • My family • My relationships • Life • Death • The past • The future

To start, pick one and ask yourself these questions (which are based on the ones found in this HBR article), filling in the blank with the area of your life.

You might allocate some time to do this – to sit with these questions and see what comes up for you. Journaling can be really helpful here, too.

Let’s use work as the area of life and someone named Elisabeth (not a real person) as an example.

1. What would I like to be different about the work I’m engaged in? (so that I could be more effective or so that it would be more satisfying?)

In other words:

What precisely do I want in this area of my life? What do I want more of? Less of?

For example:

Elisabeth would like to devote more time to the work she does. Right now, she only devotes 5 hours a day to work. She knows if she worked 8 hours a day, she could be more successful.

2. This dissatisfaction with the way things are or wanting things to be different in this way implies something about you. What commitment does it imply?

In other words:

Why do I want that? What is the purpose behind my vision for this area of my life?

For example:

Elisabeth is committed to making her business a success. She is a high achiever.

3. What am I doing that goes against that commitment? What am I doing, or not doing, that is keeping my commitment from being more fully realized? (The answer to this question reveals your undermining behavior)

In other words:

What exactly do I need to do to achieve my answer to question #1? Am I actively and consistently doing those things now? If not, what am I doing instead that is preventing me from my desired outcome?

For example:

Elisabeth tends to take long breaks during her work day. She ends up meeting or talking with friends for longer than she planned.

4. If I imagine doing the opposite of the undermining behavior, do I detect in myself any discomfort, worry, or vague fear?

In other words:

What do you think would happen if you did not do the behavior(s) you identified in question 3? If you did the opposite of the undermining behavior, what would worry you about this?

For example:

Elisabeth worries that if she doesn’t actively work at staying connected with the people in her life, they will lose touch and she will become isolated.

5. What does this worry imply that you’re also committed to?

In other words:

By engaging in this undermining behavior, what worrisome outcome are you committed to preventing? The resulting answer is the competing commitment, which lies at the very heart of a person’s immunity to change.

For example:

Elisabeth is committed to connecting with others and being a good, dependable friend.

Bingo. There’s your competing commitment.

So, now what? Where do you go with it from here? How does this help you move forward?

Well, we’re not quite done yet.

Here’s how the HBR article puts it:

“Competing commitments should not be seen as weaknesses. They represent some version of self-protection, a perfectly natural and reasonable human impulse. The question is, if competing commitments are a form of self-protection, what are people protecting themselves from? The answers usually lie in what we call their big assumptions—deeply rooted beliefs about themselves and the world around them. These assumptions put an order to the world and at the same time suggest ways in which the world can go out of order. Competing commitments arise from these assumptions, driving behaviors unwittingly designed to keep the picture intact.

People rarely realize they hold big assumptions because, quite simply, they accept them as reality. Often formed long ago and seldom, if ever, critically examined, big assumptions are woven into the very fabric of people’s existence.

Only by bringing big assumptions to light can people finally challenge their assumptions and recognize why they are engaging in seemingly contradictory behavior.”

So, the next step is to identify your big assumption(s) and it’s a critical next step.

If you think metaphorically, up until this point, we’ve cut the weed off at the ground level. But if you stop there, the weed just grows back. You’ve got to pull it up by the roots and it’s the same way with beliefs. They’ll keep reappearing if you don’t go down underground into your subconscious mind and pull them up for examination.

And I will teach you how to do that.

It’s important to know that these blocks, barriers and sources of resistance are natural and automatic. Everyone faces them. They’re part of how the mind works to try and keep us safe and not something to get down on yourself about.

If, deep down, we are holding on to some sort of unresolved fear or pain – if we think there’s some sort of danger, it’s only natural that our minds would conspire to protect us, to keep us safe.

The key to moving forward rather than staying stuck is to identify, investigate and re-define competing commitments and underlying assumptions or beliefs.

So, let’s find out about Elisabeth’s underlying assumption.

To do this, we invert her answer to question five and make it into the beginning of a sentence that is an assumption. So it would read:

I assume that if I was not dependable and useful, available when my friends need me or want to connect with me, they will find other friends and I will be left alone.

As it turns out, most of the time, her friends call needing to vent or process or seek advice from her because of something going on in their lives. This, combined with her desire to be a dependable shoulder to lean on, leaves her feeling like she has to hustle for her worthiness in these friendships.

Ah ha. The weed has now been dug up by the roots.

But it would be a mistake to stop here. Continuing with the metaphor, what will we plant in its place?

A process of questioning your underlying assumption and then trying some different, more skillful approaches will help you form new more accurate and helpful beliefs.

That’s work that we can do together as part of The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program. 

Click here to learn more.

If you’re interested in going deeper into this work together, you can book a free 30 minute coaching call to see if the program might be a fit for you.

Whether or not you’re interested in taking that step, I’ll close this post by offering some questions you can continue to ponder, to sit with, and explore within yourself surrounding whatever underlying assumption(s) or belief(s) you have uncovered through this process of self inquiry.

The following questions come from the work of Lion Goodman:

• What has been the advantage of having this belief? How has it served me in my life? What did I get or gain by having this belief? What did I avoid by having this belief?
• What would be different in my life if I held a different belief?
• Would I be willing to try on a different belief? Who would I be without this belief?
• What belief could I replace it with that would be more positive, beneficial, and empowering in my life?

In one of her dharma talks, Tara Brach introduced the inquiry, “Who would you be if you weren’t blaming anybody anymore? Am I willing to see myself and/or others differently?”

I have heard Glennon Doyle pose the question, “How would our lives transform if we stopped being so afraid of pain? What if we decided we were strong enough for it and stopped hiding from it?”

I hope this post has been helpful for you in some way.

Wishing you well.