Learning to Ride the Waves: Managing Emotions in Recovery

↑↑↑ How not regulating your emotions looks ↑↑↑

Triggers. They aren't fun. Many of us live large chunks of our lives blissfully unaware that we're letting ourselves roam around, day to day, unhinged & unregulated, like a bunch of filthy animals. You see, I had a situation come up that triggered me recently. It involved a serial boundary breaker in my life, that, once again... Crossed a VERY clear boundary I have set with them. I admit it... I went off on them. I'm not proud of that. I was at my wits' end with the consistent disrespect this person has for my son and me, when me having a boundary in place was meant to keep someone I care about in our lives in a healthy way.

RECENTLY I LEARNED ABOUT THE GAP

And No. Not the clothing company in the 90s, or thigh gaps. Don't worry if you're a little lost trying to equate triggers to these mysterious gaps I've sat in front of us... I'm going to expand. The "gap" is an elusive place that exists directly after a triggering experience happens and right before you react/respond to the feelings the trigger has caused. I literally had never heard of this until I was this many years old... (38)

But there's hope!

And it's actually been an easier process than I anticipated, although working on your mental health includes a lot of digging through stuck past trauma & hurt, this tactic was on the lower end of the game difficulty settings spectrum. I can feel your anticipation mounting, so if you're asking, "Mitchell, I'm sick of just flying off the handle. Tell me how to change!" I got you, and I'm going to break it down for you like this:

Definition:

The "gap" is the space between the rock and the hard place, or the trigger and reaction. Knowing about it and identifying it is half the battle. The other half is knowing what to do with it. The "gap" is where you insert the following:

Self-regulation is the ability to manage our emotional responses, especially in stressful or triggering situations. It’s not about avoiding emotions but learning to navigate them without being overwhelmed.

• Mindfulness: Or, if you've read blogs in the past... I have beaten the term "self-awareness" to death. But that's exactly what we're talking about. The more mindful(aware) of your incoming feelings, the easier it is to spot this "gap" I'm presenting you with.

  
  

• Deep Breathing: And or other holistic/natural, AND HEALTHY coping mechanisms. These are more powerful during our everyday walks than we've been raised to believe. I personally use mantras, affirmations, and a few breathing techniques I've picked up over my recovery years. And get outa here with the toxic masculinity bro, go smile at yourself in a mirror and say something nice, like a real man!

  
  

• Cognitive Reframing: Shifting your perspective can change emotional responses, and pretty much our entire emotional environment. I started by reciting the things I'm grateful for while in a triggered state, and this, absolutely. Changed. My. LIFE. In a relatively short amount of time. Examples: daily affirmations, or listing things you're grateful for. (The advanced class covers being grateful for the "bad" things that have happened to you... But that's for a different blog.)

  
  

Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them:

• Self-regulation isn’t always easy. If you're like me, you've been programmed to behave in certain ways, probably from a young age, so changing this personality trait takes generous amounts of self-grace and... patience.

  • Be kind to yourself through this process. It's going to take time, and sometimes giving ourselves patience and grace can be more challenging than extending it to others. The way we battle this in ourselves is by flipping the script in our minds. Tell yourself you deserve to treat yourself in these more gentle and kind ways, and soon enough, you'll start to believe it. That grace and patience get easier to self-administer after viewing yourself in this way.

    
    

"Self-regulation is a better indicator of success than intelligence or talent." —Laurence D. Steinberg

— Finding that "gap" I mentioned is where most of these things can be done. —

Conclusion:

• Remember: Self-regulation and the techniques I've shared take time, patience, persistence, and self-grace.

  • Just identifying the "gap" is difficult at first. It's like when my girlfriend took me foraging for wild morel mushrooms for the first time. I had NO IDEA what I was looking for. But once I found my first one, they became easier to spot because... well, I knew what I was looking for now. Then the next step was learning how to handle them properly... That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about with our triggers and self-regulation in the blog.

    
    

• Don't get discouraged: The only time/place you can work on how you self-regulate is in that "gap" I keep pulling out of my hat. This basically means that you have to wait until you're triggered to work on how you react to being triggered. But the more you try to see that "gap" and change how you respond, the more you'll be able to naturally regulate your emotions.

  
  

• Report back: I challenge you, yeah, you reading this, to try some of the things I mentioned above. Give it a week and assess your inner self after seven days. Let me know how it works for you either in the comments below, at mitchell@217recovery.com, or stop in to the 217 Recovery Center on Eighth Street in Traverse City. I'd love to hear if this worked as well for you as it did for me, and maybe you can give me tips or tricks, who knows, maybe your flavor's better... (Warning, I'll probably share them in another blog 😉) And don't forget... small steps add up.

Until next time.

↑↑↑ Visual interpretation of the "gap" ↑↑↑