116: How to Actually Regulate Your Emotions

After this, if you want a guided meditation on how to drop into your body, listen to episode 108: Why You Can't Slow Down + Somatic Practice to Show You How. 

To truly regulate your emotions, you need to get out of your head and into your body.

The frustrating thing is that even if we understand this concept on a logical level, we can still be left feeling lost about how to implement it effectively and consistently.

This is because emotional regulation is a felt experience, not a thought process.

You've got to stop thinking about how to feel and instead allow yourself to experience it.

Like jumping out of a plane and floating to the ground far below. You can't truly appreciate the full experience unless you do it. Anything else is just living in our imagination rather than reality. 

So let's take that leap together and learn:

• The brain system that keeps you trapped in your head
• How the purpose of this system can be rooted in trauma
• What your inner child has to do with it all
• The steps to getting out of your head and into your body

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

📝FREE Holistic Skin Picking & Hair Pulling Assessment - Join the waitlist

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Regulating your emotions is about getting out of your head and into your body. And what if it's really hard for you to get out of your head? You ruminate, you overthink, you catastrophize, you're constantly thinking of the future, constantly thinking of the past, constantly thinking about what that person said or what they think. Then in this episode, I'm going to share with you why that's happening. What is the mechanism inside your brain that is keeping you stuck in that cycle and keeping you from accessing your body and truly feeling what you're feeling so you can truly regulate and allow yourself to relax. You're listening to episode 115 of Beyond Skin Picking and Hair Pulling. This is where we get to the root cause of why you pick, pull, and bite at your body. My name is Rafaela Marie. I'm your host. I've healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking, and now I am a coach helping people like you to heal as I did. And as you're one of my listeners, you have access to a very special opportunity, which is an opportunity to share your story with me and to receive guidance and insight and to feel deeply seen, heard, and understood. If you would love access to that, go ahead and click on the link in the show notes. Something we first need to understand about why we get stuck in our heads is something from Richard Schwartz's work, Internal Family Systems. Internal Family Systems is a system that allows us to understand how the human mind functions and organizes itself around emotions and trauma or difficult experiences that we have had in our life. And also how we interact with ourselves. This is not just theory. This is how we have learnt. It's fact, it's how we have learned our mind functions. And what Richard Schwartz found is that we have parts of us that are trying to protect us, trying to protect us from things that hurt us in the past. And the reason why we develop these protective parts of us is because there are certain things that happened to you in your life that were painful. It's a really normal human experience. Now, the important thing to keep in mind with this is that regardless of how good or how bad your life has been, pain is subjective. And this is what Garbamate says. It's not the event that creates the trauma, it's the experience of being left alone with the pain afterwards. And this is where our protective parts come in. We all have had painful experiences. And it doesn't matter if your logical mind goes now, well, it wasn't that bad looking back on it. Now, with now that I have perspective, it really wasn't that bad. I understand. I understand why that happened. I understand why those people did what they did. I understand why those people behaved the way they behaved. It really wasn't that bad. That is dismissive. And it's also an attempt to protect us from actually feeling what we felt back then. And it's because when you were young, you had a painful experience and you were left alone to be in that painful emotion, but children cannot process that emotion on their own. So they find ways to avoid feeling that feeling. They find ways to escape feeling that feeling. And there's two ways we go about this. We either try to alter and change our mood so that we don't have to feel that thing, or we try to prevent the feeling from happening. And this is where we manipulate and manage our life in a way that means that we don't have to feel those feelings. So that means we people please, we overgive, we overachieve, we overwork, we make ourselves smaller than others, we feel inferior, or we feel superior, we put ourselves above others and we look down and we judge. These are all ways that we prevent, we are trying to subconsciously prevent ourselves from feeling insignificant, from feeling like we're not enough, from feeling from the fear of rejection. We've all been rejected before in our life. That's a normal human experience. But if you were left alone with the feeling of rejection when you were young, and if you have many experiences like that, then that is something you're going to carry. And that is something on a subconscious level, your mind is going to try and find ways to shape your life so that you don't have to experience rejection ever again. Now I'm sure you're seeing how this is not super healthy in the long term and how it's potentially holding you back in many ways, like maybe in relationships with vulnerability and such. So there's the preventative side. And then we also have the mood-altering side. And this is where we just think, well, if I just do this thing, it makes me feel better. I don't feel very good, so I'm gonna eat. On a healthy level, most of the things that I just said are absolutely fine. But the reason why they allow us to alter our mood, aside from the fact that I labeled some substances like drugs and cigarettes, alcohol, but then we also have these behaviors like skin picking, hair pulling, nail biting, shopping, over-exercising, and they work because they play off our own dopamine reward system. Now, the overthinking part of you is a protection mechanism. And I want you to know that this part of you is actually a wounded inner child trying to protect you from something, trying to protect you from feeling what at one stage you couldn't handle feeling. And the really interesting thing is that this is all a pattern. And this is a quote from Atopic Habits by James Clear. You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall fall to the level of your systems. You have a system that says, when I feel this way, I overthink. Because overthinking allows you to not actually have to deeply or truly feel what is underneath all those thoughts. And this is where we want to understand the system behind your thoughts. What is it actually preventing us from and how is it doing that? How do your thoughts actually keep the trapped emotion that is within your body stuck and still trapped? What I want to share with you with you is I want to map out the pattern that is happening, because this pattern of overthinking and finding it hard to really get into your body, getting stuck in your head, it's a pattern. It's the same thing pretty much every single time. And when we can build awareness of this pattern and see, oh, that's what's happening. This is this is the pattern that my inner child learned to use to help me to not feel what I'm feeling. And I'm actually going to share this. I'm going to draw it for you. So if you're watching on YouTube, you'll be able to see this. So what I'm going to do for you is I want to draw this out for you. What's a feeling that you struggle with? Maybe it's anxiety, overwhelm, frustration, stress. Probably for most people listening to this podcast, it's gonna be one of those. I'm going to choose anxiety because that is something I believe that everyone who listens to this podcast can truly resonate with. So let's look at how anxiety maps out. We always have a trigger. There's something that triggers us to think of something or feel something. So the question we want to ask ourselves is how do you know it's time to feel anxiety? Maybe it's the second you wake up in the morning. That's like the cue for you to feel anxiety. Maybe it's when it's you think of having that conversation with a loved one or with a coworker or with your boss. Maybe it's when you receive feedback. So I'm gonna create a hypothetical situation for you. How do I know it's time to feel anxiety? It could be when I think about having that vulnerable conversation with a friend or also with a partner if that's more relatable for you. So there's a thought, and that is a brain that I just drew there, just in case you're confused. Now, when we have that thought, how does it make us feel? We feel anxious. And then what happens when you feel the anxiety? It makes us think more about the thing that we're anxious about. What are they gonna say? How are they gonna react? And that just makes us feel more anxiety. And then that just contributes more to the anxiety. So we think more of what if they're not gonna like me? What if they snap me? What if they, what if I'm just overreacting? More anxiety? Am I just making things up? Am I being too much? And that just makes us feel worse. And we think more and we feel even worse. And it just builds and it builds and it builds until it's too much. And we end up chronic skin picking, hair pulling, nail biting, scrolling on our phones, looking for food in the fridge. And really what's happening is we're really just dipping our little toe into the emotion. We have the thought, oh, I need to have that conversation. Oh, that feels really uncomfortable. So we jump back into our heads and think about it. But of course, it's not going to make us feel better, so we feel worse, which makes us spring back into our heads and think more, and then we feel even worse again. We spring back into our heads. So in this scenario, the trigger to engage in this pattern is the thought, oh, I need to have that conversation. Now, the trigger can also be a feeling, or it can be someone saying something to you, or it can be seeing something or hearing something. Any of our senses will hold the trigger, including our own thoughts. That's one of the things that can trigger it too. But then that's going to trigger a feeling, which is gonna trigger more thought and more feeling. And that's the process of this pattern. Because for every pattern, there is always a start and a finish. And in between, there's a process, there's a step to that pattern. And basically, what our mind is looking for is the cue to finish this pattern, to exit the pattern. It's like when you're brushing your teeth, you're waiting for the cue that you're done with brushing your teeth, and that might be by a timer that you have. It might be by the actual process that you brush your teeth. Eventually it just feels right that you're done. Or maybe you'll look at your teeth or you'll run your tongue across your teeth, and you're looking for that indication that you have successfully completed the system or the pattern of brushing your teeth. The same happens on this emotional mental level. Our system is looking for the cue, the indication that, oh, I'm done with this system now. And that's gonna be when you reach a big enough enough state of dysregulation or overwhelm or that crappy feeling. Basically, your system is going, I don't feel shit enough yet, so we're gonna think about this more. How do I feel? Still don't feel shit enough. Okay, gonna think about it more. How do I feel now? Still not shit enough? Right, let's think about it more. It's like, oh, now I feel shit enough. Now this is too much. So let's exit into the next thing, which is usually a mood altering or a numbing behavior, like skin picking or hair pulling or nail biting. So, what does it mean to get out of our heads and into our body then? What does that do for us? What does regulation actually help us with? Because it I'm sure maybe you're seeing in that example is that we're building and building and building the emotion. We're not actually regulating and helping ourselves to process the emotion. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger until it's too much. And then we need to escape it. Now, I want you to consider that this glass of water, this water glass, is like your body. And inside, the water inside are your emotions. And it is normal to always have a certain amount of motion, emotion inside our body. Now, in the example that I just gave you, when we have that thing that triggers us to feel anxious, we're gonna have thoughts that exacerbate the anxiety. So these are your thoughts. And so when we feel the anxiety, we become aware of the anxiety inside our body, we have thoughts and opinions and beliefs about it and stories to tell ourselves about that feeling. And what that does is it just adds a little more emotion into our system. And then we think and then we feel more of it, and we think more about it. We feel more and so we think more. And basically we'll just keep going until the cup overflows. And when the cup over overflows, that's cue to us of all right, that's enough, time to move on. Now, what helps us is if we actually are more in tune with our body, we're more connected to our body, we can notice when emotion starts to shift or build and discomfort starts starts to come in. And when we notice it and we can sip with it, it's like taking a sip of that water. And if we do this on a regular basis and we are able to break that pattern of overwhelming thought, then we are able to actually start to digest the emotion and allow it to flow through us and out of us. But if we wait until we are overflowing with emotion, then it's gonna be really hard. And understandably, you're going to end up in one of those numbing, mood-altering behaviors that we get so frustrated with. Now, most of us had many moments where we had an overflowing cup of emotion when we were young. But we didn't have anyone to help us to actually digest it and process it. And so we found ways, unhealthy ways, to empty it or ignore how full it was. And so learning that today, it can be challenging because we never actually learned, well, how do I, how do I, how do I drink out of this cup? I don't know. I've never drunk out of a cup before. I've never seen anyone do it before. I don't know what that looks like. Because odds are you have never been modeled healthy emotional regulation. Or you have a very few moments where that's been modeled to you. And I want to bring back in just the acknowledgement that this is one of the ways that your inner child learnt to keep you safe from those feelings, keep you safe from those moments that overflowed your cup in a really painful way. And as a child, you had to find some kind of solution. You couldn't find a healthy solution because your healthy solution was to find an adult that could actually be with you and see you and hear you and help you process. But if you didn't have access to that, then you can't do it healthily. Then you find an unhealthy way to do it. But it's better than nothing. The reason why I'm sharing that with you is just to bring a bit of perspective into what's happening inside your mind because we can get so judgmental and frustrated with ourselves. And I am guilty of this too. I am not a guru. I get stuck in my head and I get frustrated and I allow my thoughts to overflow my cup. But I wonder if you're noticing a little bit of understanding for this part of you that overthinks. A little bit of softening, maybe even some compassion or some love, or just a little bit of letting go. And we want to bring that in because the more we the more critically and harshly we judge ourselves for overthinking, for getting stuck on our heads, for not being able to get into our body, the more we're going to block ourselves from that. Because that judgment just adds to the overflowing cup, which adds to the need for your inner child to help you avoid feeling what's there. So, how do you bring yourself into your body? I've actually shared this a few times on this podcast. The first thing is simply to become aware that you are inside a protective pattern, that your inner child feels like it can't handle the emotion that is underneath the thoughts that you're having. You as an adult now, you can handle it. You have the system, you have the brain development and the nervous system to handle those emotions. Your inner child maybe doesn't know that. So just become aware, notice this pattern. Awareness is key. We can't work with anything that we're not aware of, that we don't see. And then when you're aware, when you notice, oh, I'm going into that looping pattern, I'm looping between dipping my little pinky toe into an emotion and then flying back up into my head. This is the pattern that's happening. Oh, right, it's my inner child trying to protect me. Okay, interesting. And then from there, we can notice, well, how am I feeling right now? And where do I notice that inside my body? Because all emotion shows up in the body. Now, when you locate it in your body, you might find that you're back in your head and you're thinking. You just want to bring yourself back down to that location that you noticed. Maybe you're noticing the sensation, the feeling is in your head. Just focus on where it is in your head. Focus on the sensation. And each time you notice yourself getting back into your head, just acknowledge this is my inner child trying to trying to protect me. I can handle this feeling now. And just bring yourself back into your body and notice the sensation. Even describe it to yourself. You can describe it out loud. Notice is it moving? Does it have a color? Does it have a shape? It doesn't have to. But for but for those who are very visual, visualization can be very helpful in the situation. But it's also totally fine if you're not a visual person, because regardless, you're going to feel the feeling inside your body somewhere. And you'll notice if the feeling is moving a little bit or if it's just in one spot and it just feels really heavy. Maybe it has a sharp feeling. But just sit there and breathe into it. And every time you find yourself getting pulled back into your head, bring yourself back into your body, to your body and tell yourself, it's okay, I can handle this now. And just breathe into it. Send your breath into the space where you're feeling that feeling. And at some stage, if you feel like it is appropriate to ask this question, you can ask yourself or even ask your inner child, what are you afraid might happen if you let yourself fully feel this feeling? And don't search for the answer. If nothing comes, it's okay. But sometimes it can be very insightful what the answer is. Sometimes the answer can be everything will fall apart. No one will like me. I'll get in trouble. I'll be abandoned. I won't be enough. And this is what's called an emotional truth. It doesn't mean it is the truth of the situation, but there is a time in your life where you felt that way because you experienced abandonment. Regardless of whether you think back on that time, you think, I wasn't actually abandoned. That was the emotional truth of the time. Or there was a time where you felt a lot of anxiety because things were just falling apart. And you made it your responsibility. You made it your fault. So whatever comes up for you, allow yourself, take yourself seriously. It doesn't have to make logical sense. Now that you're an adult and you have perspective, it's possible that you're going to have perspective and see, oh, it really actually wasn't that way. But you still haven't allowed yourself to process and feel the pain that you felt then. And that's what's important. We can't logic away pain that we've experienced. Now, another thing might be that maybe this feeling doesn't go that deep. Maybe there's just a lot of stuff going on and it's too much input and it's overwhelming your system. But through allowing yourself to sit with it and feel into it, you are actively allowing yourself to digest it. When you're in your head, you're actively blocking off that process and perpetuating the need for numbing out behaviors. And I find this particular practice to be extremely helpful in conflict, particularly with my husband, because conflict with your partner is always going to trigger the deepest wounds inside of you. And those deepest wounds are absolutely going to trigger you to be really intensely in your head and making assumptions and building stories and arguing inside your head. It's exhausting. It also feels there's some satisfaction in it, there's some release in it, there's some a feeling of maybe justification in it. But it's actually insanely unproductive. It just makes us feel worse. It doesn't actually help us to have a healthy conversation. We're just playing out the same pattern from the past. And so getting out of your head and into your body, recognizing that that is what's happening, saying, It's okay, I can handle this now. Feeling into where it is in your body and breathing deeply into that, that's how you start to digest and process. Start to take some sips out of your cup instead of adding more into it. That is how you regulate. And I remember I've done this many times where I've just taken some space to be with myself and I felt very triggered. And it's an interesting experience of bringing yourself when you're in that state, bringing yourself into your body and really breathing into what's there because there's a lot there and it hurts sometimes. It hurts a lot. But remember that you can handle this now. And sometimes we do need support in learning how to handle it. If the feelings are maybe too big or too hard to navigate on our own. And this is when we must reach out for support. Find therapist or a coach or a psychologist, someone who can help you. I can help you do this. This is something that I do with all of my clients. So if you're looking for support specifically with chronic skin picking, hair pulling, and nail biting, addressing the root cause, learning emotional regulation and all these skills, then do reach out to me. Link is in the show notes. But this in a nutshell is how to actually regulate your emotions. And things like journaling and meditation and going for a walk are excellent tools if we can also allow ourselves to get into our body. Otherwise, they can also become just simply tools for distraction. I also want to just bring in one more thing that's going to help. And that is you don't have to wait until you have 15, 20 minutes, an hour of alone time to start taking sips from your cup and digesting some of the excess energy and emotion that's there. Because just our simply our day-to-day can be dysregulating in itself. This this isn't always about trauma or painful things from the past. Sometimes it's just life is hectic. But you can take small moments, even if it's just 30 seconds or five seconds throughout the day, to just take a sip from your cup. And all that looks like is again getting out of your head and just dropping into your body, breathing into it, feeling your feet on the floor, feeling your hands, noticing what's showing up in my body. Where am I holding tightness? Is my stomach clenched? Are my shoulders up against my ears? And just noticing, maybe releasing a little bit, taking a deep breath, and then just move on with your day. Just literally become aware that your body also exists. Because we can go through an entire day, a time in a week, atire, entire month, entire year, just existing as floating heads. Remember that your body exists as well. And that's going to help you to take those sips from your cup so you get to the end of the day and you're not overflowing with energy and emotion that has not been addressed or processed. When you drop into your body, you're allowing it to do its natural. Your body knows how to process emotion. It wants to process emotion. It just needs you to give it the space, which means dropping into it and noticing what's there. And it's a practice and it's a skill that takes time to build on. And you are absolutely capable of becoming a master of this skill for yourself. Thanks so much for hanging out. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you hit like and subscribe. Leave a comment down below about what stood out to you in this episode. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'll see you next week for the next episode of Beyond Skin Picking and Hair Pulling.