Emotional Regulation 'Name it' to 'Tame it'
In response to COVID-19 the ‘Live Up’ COVID COMMUNITY was set up to support our communities with practical wellbeing resources that can be used for these extraordinary circumstances of social distancing, community lockdown and quarantine. This article is about ‘Taking Notice’ one of the 5 Ways of Wellbeing. Being able to label our emotions is an important step to help regulate them.
Here is a link to a ‘Name it to Tame it’ template that you are welcome to use.
Labelling Emotions
I like to think of emotions as ‘energy in motion’. Like the weather they move through us providing information about how we are going in the world. Emotions are just data and it is our thinking and the meanings we attach to them that make them good or bad not the emotions themselves. Emotion researchers have found the process of recognising, labelling and accepting our emotions can have a powerful effect on calming them down and bringing about a sense of emotional freedom by separating and distancing ourselves from our emotions. It seems that learning to accept our emotions is the ‘sweet spot’ between ignoring them and indulging them.
So here is a little challenge. Record your emotions for a week and see where you live emotionally? There are Apps you can use such as the Mood Meter App or you can use this ‘Name it to Tame it’ template. For each emotion try and broaden your emotional vocabulary and use words that match the intensity and the pleasantness of the emotion. Being able to identify and label them correctly is an effective step in the emotional regulation process.
References and Sources:
Susan David Ted Talk: The gift and power of emotional courage
Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ
Understanding Emotions by Dacher Keltner, Keith Oatley and Jennifer Jenkins
Mood Meter App developed by Marc Brackett and his team of researchers from Yale University.
Here is a link to a ‘Name it to Tame it’ template that you are welcome to use
“Be your own project”